> For pop-culture hashtags, the ratio between platforms is consistently range-bound:
> Conversely, the ratios we found for topics sensitive to the Chinese Government were completely out-of-bounds.
> The data below illustrates that across topics directly sensitive to the Chinese Government, relevant hashtags are dramatically underrepresented on TikTok vs. Instagram.
> Given the unanimity of anomalies, we expanded our research to topics relevant to the Chinese Government’s geopolitical interests: 1) Ukraine-Russia War; 2) Kashmir Secessionism; 3) Israel-Hamas War. There too, we found relevant hashtags are dramatically underrepresented on TikTok vs. Instagram.
That's not what the paper is saying. Hashtags like #PrayForIsrael or #IsraelUnderAttack are way lower on Tiktok than on Instagram[1]. They aren't talking about anti-genocide or pro-Palestinian hashtags.
Basically, Instagram is way more pro-Israel than Tiktok.
Many people think that that is why Tiktok is coming under fire. Because China is ambivalent towards the Israel/Hamas conflict whereas many power structures in the U.S. are very pro-Israel.
1. An anti-free-speech government that arrests people for discussing certain topics that controls a company that seems not to show certain topics much.
2. The company doesn't make any claim it's not filtering out anti-china topics.
3. We find strong evidence that platforms don't match.
4. You want to throw out all evidence and blindly presume complete innocence because you think 1 of 10 topics on instagram isn't easy to explain?
Feels hard to believe you could come to that conclusion in good faith.
It also feels to me like we shouldn't have to reverse-engineer platforms to deduce whether they are pushing an agenda... If they aren't doing any interfering then they should simply put out an official statement clarifying that.
No, I'm saying that if they aren't even willing to assert innocence of manipulating what trends then we certainly shouldn't presume innocence.
I'd like for them to testify under oath about how they alter what is trending, then I'd like for us to independently verify those those results to the best of our ability.
Having a foreign and hostile both economic and military adversary fully controlling an app that is installed on 18 million smartphones in UK is a national security issue. Not cat videos. Too bad this concept has become too difficult to understand for most European "leaders" (and journalists...).
My question was whether they are allowed to go viral.
Sounds like there's evidence in another thread that they are actively manipulating what goes viral on key current political topics... which seems pretty damning.
Well, I looked up Taiwan protest and the 4 I looked at were all allegedly Taiwanese protesting against their own independence.... (For context only 10% of Taiwanese support unification with China per a google search)
Would love somebody who has an account (and can translate) to do a sanity check here.
A "protest" is implicitly a demonstration by people who are unsatisfied with the status quo. As far as Taiwanese are concerned, Taiwan is already independent, so a protest to support its independence would be a bit redundant - and if there were one, it'd probably be referred to as a parade or a rally, not a protest.
I belive there is a linear relation between how big of threat to the nation Toktok is and the amount of money Zuckerberg spends on lobbyists in said nation.
They would be more terrified by a company not being regulated by their ever increasing internet surveillance laws, backroom deals, and censorship
When I went to UK 2015 there were big billboards in Manchester saying "Be careful who do you speak on the internet, you don't know who is on the other side" with a terrorist in front of a keyboard and monitor
Our tradition of electing morons into ministerial positions continues unimpeded by rationality, logic or perhaps even competence. I expect to see a resignation at some point in the future.
Fortunately their civil service underlings and our judiciary are slightly less incompetent when applied in large numbers.
It would be crazy if the US banned TikTok and similar developed countries didn't consider doing the same. All the reasons the US came to the conclusion they did apply equally well in Europe.
The whole business plus Microsoft Safe Harbor is starting to raise the question of whether US social media (functioning as spies) should be allowed in the EU either.
If anything, Europe is more protectionist about data security, so European nations should have a bigger concern about the claims of ByteDance siphoning user data.
Europe already implements consistent data privacy regulations for all apps operating in Europe. No particular inconsistency in singling out TikTok over Meta
That actually works in the UK government's favor - people would be demanding that the government start more surveillance and crackdowns. If the attack was backed by a government in the Middle-East, they would have near-total immunity due to the politics of oil.
Does the UK government actually care about oil or is the chumminess with Middle Eastern countries due to the levels of investments they have in the UK, particularly London?
The surveillance harms/thread of a Chinese state owned app need to be fully explained to really make sense.
Unfortunately, going into the minutiae of app based surveillance technology would run head-on into other surveillance based tech from Facebook, Google, and so on.
And it would bring up the touchy subject of data privacy. Oh gosh, if Americans had data privacy this would impact a lot of American businesses based on surveillance tech.
So let's just accept, on good faith, that what the Democrat's portrayed as Trump's Xenophobia, was OK as a natsec issue when Biden did it (no xeno here, folks!), and now that Trump has his bargaining position it's time for "let's make a deal!" (and that Republican who stalled the initial TikTok ban has probably been a good boy this Christmas, and maybe deserves a quid pro quo gift).
Bit off-topic but based on the news I see coming out of the UK it feels like it is a total basket case, I wonder if there is a tipping point for a country and at what point the UK is at.
The UK has solid corporate governance and the rule of law. It's not perfect but it is far from a basket case. Don't believe everything you read in the media (or even here).
> For pop-culture hashtags, the ratio between platforms is consistently range-bound:
> Conversely, the ratios we found for topics sensitive to the Chinese Government were completely out-of-bounds.
> The data below illustrates that across topics directly sensitive to the Chinese Government, relevant hashtags are dramatically underrepresented on TikTok vs. Instagram.
> Given the unanimity of anomalies, we expanded our research to topics relevant to the Chinese Government’s geopolitical interests: 1) Ukraine-Russia War; 2) Kashmir Secessionism; 3) Israel-Hamas War. There too, we found relevant hashtags are dramatically underrepresented on TikTok vs. Instagram.
* https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...
* Via: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tiktok-is-just-the-beginning
[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...
Basically, Instagram is way more pro-Israel than Tiktok.
Many people think that that is why Tiktok is coming under fire. Because China is ambivalent towards the Israel/Hamas conflict whereas many power structures in the U.S. are very pro-Israel.
[1] https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing... page 14
1. An anti-free-speech government that arrests people for discussing certain topics that controls a company that seems not to show certain topics much.
2. The company doesn't make any claim it's not filtering out anti-china topics.
3. We find strong evidence that platforms don't match.
4. You want to throw out all evidence and blindly presume complete innocence because you think 1 of 10 topics on instagram isn't easy to explain?
Feels hard to believe you could come to that conclusion in good faith.
It also feels to me like we shouldn't have to reverse-engineer platforms to deduce whether they are pushing an agenda... If they aren't doing any interfering then they should simply put out an official statement clarifying that.
I'd like for them to testify under oath about how they alter what is trending, then I'd like for us to independently verify those those results to the best of our ability.
Which we know to be true for Covid or Palestine/Israel
Is reddit next? Although in their case, it's less clips and more pictures and text.
I wonder if it even lets use use the word Taiwan...
Sounds like there's evidence in another thread that they are actively manipulating what goes viral on key current political topics... which seems pretty damning.
Would love somebody who has an account (and can translate) to do a sanity check here.
Or, closer to home, maybe he can check the FYP of all those people that were recently jailed for race rioting.
Turns out, it's not all cat videos. Turns out, sometimes is foreign-backed propaganda.
And also https://news.sky.com/story/jordan-parlour-facebook-user-jail...
If you say someone should go commit a violent crime, and they do, then you should expect a visit from the police.
When I went to UK 2015 there were big billboards in Manchester saying "Be careful who do you speak on the internet, you don't know who is on the other side" with a terrorist in front of a keyboard and monitor
Fortunately their civil service underlings and our judiciary are slightly less incompetent when applied in large numbers.
Crazy how this half-a-day ban in the US triggers chatter about bans in European countries.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_TikTok
I also observe that the US tech bro billionaires have been complaining about how mean Europe is to them.
Unfortunately, going into the minutiae of app based surveillance technology would run head-on into other surveillance based tech from Facebook, Google, and so on.
And it would bring up the touchy subject of data privacy. Oh gosh, if Americans had data privacy this would impact a lot of American businesses based on surveillance tech.
So let's just accept, on good faith, that what the Democrat's portrayed as Trump's Xenophobia, was OK as a natsec issue when Biden did it (no xeno here, folks!), and now that Trump has his bargaining position it's time for "let's make a deal!" (and that Republican who stalled the initial TikTok ban has probably been a good boy this Christmas, and maybe deserves a quid pro quo gift).