Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Demise of Bytedance/TikTok Would Do Good for Free Speech Online and Offline

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 15, 2024

This is NOT "Free Speech":

British police probe beating of protester on China consulate grounds

THE recent batches of Daily Links have been packed with news coverage about the fate of Bytedance/TikTok in the United States (US), which has a First Amendment. This should not be considered a US issue but an international issue. Everyone, everywhere is impacted. Here in Manchester I've been bullied for speaking about Taiwan. Borders don't matters, especially online.

So much has been said on this topic and we don't have much to add (that hasn't been covered here or elsewhere in the past). Unusually good analysis can be found here. Myself and others noticed it. It touches some important points. "The app [sic] isn’t helping itself," The Atlantic said. "Over the past week, the company has repeatedly sent its users push alerts urging them to call their representatives to express their love of the app, and many did just that—which likely inflamed concerns from politicians that TikTok could be used for propaganda. But there are more fundamental issues..."

The core issue isn't privacy; it's a much bigger issue. We covered many aspects in the past and there's this new article that reminds us Europe might want to follow the footsteps of the United States. "I hope they dig into the effects of Bytedance's Tiktok and Zuckerberg's properties as well," a reader said. "The findings so far are that YouTube pushed far right shit [in Finland to] 20% which was certainly a factor in the placings from 3rd place downwards. The 3rd place party has had strong ties to Russia and Russian financing and pushes many Russian talking points, especially prior to the escalation against Ukraine."

This week we're seeing reports about Putin sending Russian arms and troops towards the Finnish border. There are other worrying reports about GPS obstructions (GPS is essential for some weapons to operate reliably, especially Western weapons).

I've never used Bytedance's TikTok, but I learned a lot about it from a non-user's perspective. To me, Bytedance's TikTok looks like a more modern (even covert form of psychological weapon. And sure, a lot of Western equivalents are the same, but they are not controlled by the Chinese/China's Communist Party (CCP/CPC) and the objective is ideologically different.

It's also worrying to me that people abandon news sites and the Web in general in favour of so-called "apps" (even if some operate over HTTP/S as a transport protocol/layer). Those "apps" are proprietary software controlled by gatekeepers dubbed "stores" (even Google has embraced the "sideloading" narrative).

The Web isn't open anymore. In fact, it's OSPS and a de facto monopoly. This week's article about the Web turning 35 had an EME section (DRM) and it took note of how messed up the Web had become. This was mentioned again earlier on (yesterday) in relation to Gemini. It's hard to envision a solution to this mess.

The remaining "news" sites are parroting China's talking points ("protect your Constitutional rights"). Are these CHINESE Constitutional rights? What does CPC say about free speech?

So TikTok "addicts" are contacting politicians. Meanwhile, cocaine users want to legalise cocaine.

Watch the ACLU (and EFF for that matter) protecting a weapon of CPC from scrutiny by the US government. Watch the NGOs or their talking heads who conflate an attack with "free speech". The ACLU and EFF lost the plot. They are busy protecting (and taking money from) social control media giants, which rightly worry the same bans would come to them.

There are many ways to show support for - and protect - free speech WITHOUT helping a regime that works to CRUSH IT WORLDWIDE (even with secret 'police stations' that beat people up in foreign countries).

Don't be mistaken; this isn't about free speech, it's about exercising control over people.

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