TikTok has been pushing Chinese propaganda to millions of users in Europe: analysis::More than 1,000 ads from Chinese state media outlets have run on European users’ TikTok feeds since October 2022, according to the platform’s latest ad library update that was analyzed by Forbes.
Guess that explains the existence of tankies
Downvote everything from that fuckin rag. Don’t post NYPost here. If there’s a story, find a news source that doesn’t itself have an outrageous history of propagandizing.
Not saying it’s a lie, but sourcing from NYPost is automatically a huge red flag.
I’ll put more stock in this when it’s reported by reputable outlets.
Breaking news! Chinese company runs ads paid for by Chinese government! Did anyone think otherwise? All governments pay for ads. Who in their right mind would think a Chinese company would refuse their government as an ad customer?
Ads are one thing but state propaganda is something different. In a US political context this would be like the State of Florida running “Ads” on Facebook discussing how slavery was actually beneficial to the slaves. Get it now?
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The New York Post isn’t committing cultural genocide right now.
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You didn’t need to add cultural to that sentence.
If I don’t then people will say “oh it’s not actually genocide because they aren’t exterminating anybody”.
There is no currently no actual evidence that TikTok is a threat to national security, but consider this:
- TikTok is owned by Chinese company
- All large Chinese companies are required to have Party members in the board, making them defacto state-run
- PR China is currently committing genocide, large-scale espionage, subversion of foreign countries and all sorts of fun stuff associated with authoritarian fascist dictatorships
Still not as bad as American social media.
And American social media does the same for America. Every dog barks for its master.
Moreover, how is anyone sitting in America (or a country with American bases) primarily concerned about the Chinese government? We have endless military and culture war/ propaganda barriers erected against them; we’re basically untouchable, unless we plan on physically going to China.
(The answer is related to the propaganda barriers themselves – it’s acceptable / encouraged to criticize China).
Can you describe what “propaganda barriers” means? From my perspective, it’s absurdly easy for foreign governments to bot-farm posts in an attempt to sway public opinion in the US.
And of course it’s acceptable/encouraged to criticize China. But it’s also acceptable/encouraged to criticize Joe Biden, Donald Trump, AOC, DeSantis, Obama, and on and on. There’s not really a shortage of hateful and divisive content out there right now. The rage-bait about what The Other Team just did and how America is in terminal decay are the biggest propaganda wins of all time. And news orgs, desperate for revenue in an age of digital media and ad blockers, will chase whatever is stuck in people’s heads so they fuel it even more.
You’re not necessarily wrong in all respects, but this comment is peak whataboutism. Western tiktok is targeted mostly at children and young adults who are obviously highly impressionable, so I would argue that regardless of whats happening on any other social media platform, this is unwanted and harmful and therefore shouldn’t be accepted.
Are children and young adults really more impressionable than Fox news, and thereby Facebook’s, audience?
I also don’t know that I agree with “targeted mostly at children and young adults”. There are very large parts of TikTok that would be wholly unappealing to your average kid. Not to mention that American social media started out very much targeted at children and young adults. Or have we already forgotten what the main demographics of Facebook and myspace used to be?
The problem with whataboutism here is that these conversations pretty much always involve TikTok and rarely other platforms until it’s brought up in comments where it can be dismissed as whataboutism.
Either they’re all a problem (it’s this one) or none of them are. We need to stop drawing arbitrary lines between offenders. It’s just giving a bunch of shit bags freedom to continue being shit bags.
Are children and young adults really more impressionable than Fox news
Fox News isn’t being paid by the Federal or State Governments to run “Ads” that attempt to put a positive spin on negative events.
Suuuure. Not paid directly by the gov, but unless you’ve been living under a rock, everyone knows that politicians and big corporations (or in this case: Fox News) work hand in hand to push propaganda… Or like you said “put a positive spin on negative events”.
People just like to jump on TikTok and be like CHINA BAD!. As if America was an angel lmao.
WTF is wrong with you? China is running ads trying to convince people that they’re not really genociding the Uyghur Muslims they’re just detaining them to send them all to school!
As if America was an angel lmao.
I never said it was, again WTF is wrong with you in your head? Criticizing one group doesn’t equate to support for an opposing group.
Oftentimes they’re connected to party members mate. Trump literally spoke to a bunch of their broadcasters daily.
Was the US Federal Government paying Fox News to run ads talking about how the mass murder of American Indians was a good thing?
No? Then GTFO out of here with this whataboutism. It’s fucking gross.
The same people fund both the government (through elections) and the news media. I guarantee you Murdoch is friends with many of his fellow billionaires.
L
Does it count when a major political party, that does that all the time, uses the money it pilfered from that government, or is that different somehow?
What about that the only reason they’re not doing it directly from the government account is because of the safeguards against that kind of thing they haven’t pulled down yet
A political party is not the Government nor do their ads attempt to whitewash Government misdeeds.
A political party makes up parts of the government and uses their ads to whitewash their own actions within the government.
This division is not at clean as you’re trying to make it
The difference is there is American federal policy being put in place around TikTok specifically that is not being done against other social media apps.
Yea when people organize an attempted coup on Chinese tiktok, your point may hold more water. Not saying it’s a good thing, but it’s clear that Facebook et al’s primary motive is not promoting nationalistic goals; domestically or aboard.
Bro Youtube is still very often full of grifting, hawkery and other disgusting stuff.
Oh no, they are polluting our own US and European propaganda.
noooo we have only facts and truth! Only the bad guys lie and do teh ebil propeganda. Oh wait who blew up the Nord Stream? Anyway the us said it was the spoopy russians. Really sorry that german industries got shot in the legs, and don’t you look at who stands to gain by that.
who downvoted this ?
Maybe they should try speaking like a normal person? It’s fucking annoying.
srry, next time i’ll try being more serious then?
If there’s to be regulation on this, it has to be universal and has to apply to all states including the US, and all social media platforms equally.
Otherwise leave it to people to decide what they want to watch. Louis Rossman’s view on the matter (guy on YT who complains about Apple and other bad behaviour by big companies) changed recently. Video: I was WRONG about banning tiktok - here’s why I changed my mind
How to detect if it’s propaganda : I push propaganda you will not push propaganda we push propaganda they will not push propaganda.
I = my country
you = other country
We = my friends and me
They = their friends and them.
What?
I’ll simplify :
USA sharing propaganda via it’s social media companies to Europe and others = good thing.
China sharing propaganda via it’s social to Europe and others = bad thing.
In other terms : how dare they do the thing we’ve been doing ?
Who in the world said western state propaganda was a good thing? Military recruitment and political ads are pretty universally hated.
I might also add that western tech giants and media aren’t directly owned by the state, nor is the state a dictatorship, so it’s a little different? You think Elon’s Twitter is on the same side as Bidens Executive is on the same side as the conservative Congress?
America not being a dictatorship doesn’t a matter to anyone else besides it’s citizens. All the fucking world want is for America to not invade, destabilize, destroy the economy of other countries, which surprise surprise it’s been fucking doing none stop since the end of WW2 !!
Do you really think the gouvernement doesn’t inject propaganda on social media ? Are you this naive ? It’s how you call “corruption” and “buying politicians” as “lobbying”. They don’t control it like a dictatorship would but they do control media.
America not being a dictatorship doesn’t a matter to anyone else besides it’s citizens.
Most American allies depend on the US for defense, the US is the largest economy in the world, and the US is the largest ideological counterpart to countries like Russia - who want to use force to annihilate both dissent and opposition.
It absolutely matters to most well-informed citizens of any country the world over how we conduct ourselves because it does directly impact them. That’s part of the reason we should be better than we are.
The… world want [sic]… for America to not…
I mean, you’re preaching to the choir. Most folk here didn’t want to send their kids to die in 'Nam or Afghanistan. Vets didn’t sign up to risk their lives for opium fields. American citizens were duped too.
We’re on the same side here.
Do you really think the gouvernement doesn’t inject propaganda on social media ?
I didn’t say that, but they take out ad campaigns and use PR firms like a normal company. Twitter does not work for the US government and the US government does not rig the algorithm it uses for feeds. The Washington Post is not controlled by the US government. Amazon is not controlled by the US government.
The distinction between that and what China or Russia does is important. They own the media. They own the companies. They own every method of communication and every interaction between their people. And they leverage that direct power to control narratives to say things like “Taiwan belongs to China” and “Ukraine belongs to Russia” and “Tianemen Square never happened”.
Meanwhile, you can see all the atrocities the US government did on Wikipedia. Sometimes even on the websites of the state itself. Reparations are discussed, sometimes won. Protesters fight with, yes, the risk of state violence, but not of tanks turning them into pudding that’s washed down the gutters. And with that knowledge, we can shape our own future democratically. Putin and Xi cannot be voted out.
All this is a long-winded way to say:
- The US government engages in propaganda.
- The US government’s propaganda, compared to authoritarian states, is heavily restricted and far more reliant on consensual participation. It’s also widely criticized and (almost) universally hated.
- The propaganda used by authoritarian states like China is actively leveraged to commit outright genocide and deny atrocities. It cannot be publicly criticized or opposed.
- Therefore, the scale and impact of propaganda is different and that difference must be considered.
