What percentage of population understands that propaganda can be subtle? Sneak some ragebait here and there to make it look like situation is worse than it is, exaggerate, radicalize people...
A kid should be out exploring on their own, shooting squirrels, riding their bike to the next town, bailing hay for cash at the farm at the edge of town. I didn't become a staunch supporter of most American classical liberal principles because an app told me to, it's because it's how I lived when I grew up. If you shut me in or chained me to a parent all day, well maybe you grow up with whatever tiktok tells you since you see it as the only way to stretch your legs.
Our cities are run by cars, children are notoriously bad at sensing them. I'm sure there's things that could be done but nothing, nothing can give a kid in Brooklyn the opportunity to "bail hay at the farm on the edge of town".
There is quite a bit of naivete regarding how the Chinese government controls Chinese companies.
It is very different from the US.
I happen to know how China works, have you got some example to present?
> It is very different from the US.
Actually, not really.
Can Facebook keep alive their "fact checking" program, now that Trump is president and not Biden, whose administration ordered it, probably more against Trump himself, than any other adversary of the USA?
Are Vanguard and BlackRock free to invest in whatever company they want?
For example: why are Vanguard and BlackRock backing Unicredit to buy Commerzbank, one of the few European banks not owned or heavily funded by American funds?
China has a faux free capitalist society. Chinese companies are the way they are because the government lets them be that way, not because they have the right to be that way.
Why should a company take the CCP to court though?
They are in business together and have grown immensely in the past 30 years.
> There is no constitutional protection held on place by a group outside the ruling party
Where is that protection in the US though?
Call them parties, a faux bi-headed system instead of an honest one-headed one, and you get the same outcome.
> China has a faux free capitalist society
They never wanted US capitalism though, so it's business as intended.
> Chinese companies are the way they are
because the people of China like them like that.
Believe me, they do not want to be like you. The opposite is true in fact.
Someone's internet is monitored...
Yeah! and it's 99% the NSA on this side of the World.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spie...
Has someone brought the US to court for that?
And why not?
Apparently, only when it pleases them
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/01/12/mohammad-abe...
ByteDance not only blocked the sale of TikTok to a US company but also TikTok unilaterally decided to shut down operations in the US to strongarm the US government to prevent it's sale.
If the CCP actually had no control over TikTok and at most they only held a residual non-controlling position, then how do you explain the scorched earth strategy that is only aligned with the CCP's strategy and throws all other shareholders under the bus?
More importantly, the company based in China, and the engineers working on it's recommendation system are based in China, and both are subject to the laws of China.
From a national security perspective, it's controlled by the Chinese government.
The idea that people can just choose to resist a foreign propaganda machine is just as comical.
It also sounds like an argument for parents to step in - every child is different and a parent should be doing the parenting rather than Congress and the White House.
When it comes to children that is a different story, but the debate should be whether we enforce an age limit on social media. There is at least precedent (for better or worse) for an age limit on things we think children aren't ready or able to consume.