Transcript
Yesterday's TikTok hearing was a farce. Here's a simple framework to show why it was and what they were trying to avoid talking about the whole time. And what you can do about it today. It's like the whole thing was designed to evoke emotional reactions and the uneducated rather than addressing the real problem. We're going to compare meta, Google, and TikTok. There are three broad categories when evaluating any social media platform. Safety, influence, and money.
First up, are there safety concerns with TikTok? Yeah, sure there are. It's addictive because their algorithm is really good. And yes, there are occasional bad video. or dangerous trends that get through moderation. But just as TikTok CEO kept trying to point out yesterday, these are issues that exist with all companies in the industry. Banning TikTok rather than enacting better safety regulations and oversight on the whole industry is like saying, China can't abuse our kids, only we can't. Rather than, let's ban child abuse.
Next up is influence. The thought of them spying on us via phone cameras is a bit ridiculous. For example, Apple is really good at what they do and the setting that forces the little green light to come on whenever you're filming, Well, that's basically enacted at the hardware level. It goes on whenever any app uses it for any reason. But a lot can be done about the data that we're willing to give them about what we watch and engage with. And which videos we get shown definitely impacts our thoughts and public opinion. But again, these are industry problems. Sure, I don't want the Chinese Communist Party mind controlling me. But Mark Zuckerberg doing so would also be pretty scary. I don't want to spend my summer smoking meats. How about we instead work on banning mind control? ensuring independent oversight on all companies in the space ensuring that they don't have targeting manipulations of these algorithms which brings us to the part of TikTok CEO's testimony that should be getting a lot more coverage project Texas a name hey be paid by Texas please rename your project Texas is not the appropriate name by the end of this year if you live in America all of your tick-tok data will exist on TikTok soil on servers owned by an American tech company called Oracle only TikTok employees in the US will have access to your data An Oracle will also be running TikTok's recommendation algorithm that determines what shows up on your 4U page.
And they already have access to the source code, so they can see if there's anything shady going on. And TikTok has also set up a system for additional government oversight, which all companies should have. So maybe stop just pointing fingers at China and work on better industry regulation. But that brings us to the last bit. Money and pride. TikTok's parent company is bike dance. It was founded in China, but is now owned 60% by global. investors, including Sequoia and Black Rock, which are basically American, and three-fifths of bike dances board are American. So they're both there. But how dare any Chinese company get money and credit when a fully American company can just lobby and push them out? And who cares if they destroy thousands of American small businesses and livelihoods of the process? So go to dontbantiktok.com and sign the petition and contact your local representatives. Share all of these videos, and don't let these guys win.
Additional notes
Caption: Make sure to go sign the petition! #tiktok #tiktokban