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So how do we ensure that Tiktok doesn't covertly alter the algorithm to subtly include propaganda tailored to China's geopolitical interests that are detrimenta

So how do we ensure that Tiktok doesn't covertly alter the algorithm to subtly include propaganda tailored to China's geopolitical interests that are detrimental to the US? Or even just propaganda tailored to enhance internal strife to weaken the country?

tw1984 2y ago
this is the exact same question being asked around the global - how could you be sure that American made LLMs are not altered in a way to maximize US interests at the costs of everyone else's.
- joe200 2y ago
  You cannot. But in US you have elections every 4 years wheres in Russia or China both Putin and Xi are "elected" for their lifetime. Does it tell you anything ?
  - tw1984 2y ago
    > But in US you have elections every 4 years That is why populism is always the winner. I don't like Xi, I won't support anyone to be in power for life. That being said, I'd pick Xi over losers and criminals like Trump at any day.
    - joe200 2y ago
      How do you know that Xi is not criminal ? His decisions "affected" (read: killed or thrown in jail) thousands or tens of thousands people (more ?).
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      Xi is just Trump without the idiocy.
      - tw1984 2y ago
        Chinese national living in China, I am openly anti-CCP, I don't like Xi. I can write a thesis on this, but let's just cut to the bones - 12 years in power, Xi led China to become the largest industrialised nation on earth with its industrial output larger than the G7 combined, Xi led China to be in leading roles in ALL emerging sectors, e.g. mobile internet, renewable energy, Evs, AI etc when the entire EU and Japan just gave up. What that 6 times bankruptcy Trump managed to achieve? Trump should be nice to Xi, as Xi is the only statesman of Trump's time, Trump is just a reality show host getting into a renewed season of his show.
        mrkstu 2y ago
        Xi accomplished a lot when he felt some restraints internally and externally- as those restraints have fallen away and he's been unleashed to do as he will, his 'touch' has faded alongside. Stopped reporting real economic numbers as they've gotten bad, losing influence in his neighborhood as he's tried to steal control over the surrounding ocean, state owned/controlled enterprises being unfairly promoted extinguishing vital home-grown entrepreneurial sprit and a variety of other avoidable ills. Unconstrained power will always expose one's weaknesses and unearned verities. Trump's second term will be an interesting pushback to see if any of these exposed Xi weaknesses cause a real crisis inside China.
  - pcthrowaway 2y ago
    And both parties are almost exactly the same with foreign policy. The "two-party system" in the U.S. is perhaps broken beyond repair, and presents an illusion of choice in many ways rather than an actual choice.
    - joe200 2y ago
      I was referring to "how could you be sure that American made LLMs are not altered in a way to maximize US interests at the costs of everyone else's." But your answer intelligently redirecs focus to different topic. Is it on purpose ?
      - aziaziazi 2y ago
        May you precise your thoughts? I genuinely didn’t get the supposedly evident message before “Does it tell you anything ?” The bipartisan system in the US show that free and regular elections isn’t enough to prevent some dictatorship drawbacks, like when policies are made to serve a party and not the population interest. They don’t often coincide. To come back to LLM that could be an alteration to favor one party or another, or even both by occulting what people don’t like in the party system. At the end it might be "good for US” with US as an organisation which want to preserve itself. But not "good for US” as US a group of citizen wanting a system that serve their interest.
      - pcthrowaway 2y ago
        I wasn't responding to any upthread point you might have made about LLMs, I was responding to your suggestion that U.S. is more democratic than China. I don't see much of a difference, and if anything there's a very real possibility the two-party system allows people in charge of policy to distract from many issues with partisan politics. Both parties are the same with how they cater to the wealthy and the capitalist class. Compared to China where there is one party, sure, but elected officials arguably work more directly for the working class.
        pertymcpert 2y ago
        Spoken like someone with absolutely no experience of living in China. Peak HN.
  - tchalla 2y ago
    The world doesn’t elect US presidents. We are referring to the relationship of non-US citizen to US elected officials. The intra US selection of officials doesn’t matter in this context of who sits on a higher moral horse.
  - Androth 2y ago
    it's the same in the USA as it is elsewhere. you just have the illusion of picking someone here.
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  Or like, movies? > The agreement was seen as a way to "spread the American way of life" though a war-torn France (and Europe at large) > To further the cultural propagation effect of the Blum–Byrnes agreements, the informational Media Guaranty Program was established in 1948 as part of the Economic Cooperation Administration to "guarantee that the US government would convert certain foreign currencies into dollars at attractive rates, provided the information materials earning the moneys reflected appropriate elements of American life". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum%E2%80%93Byrnes_agreement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum%E2%80%93Byrnes_agreemen...
  - immibis 2y ago
    There's also the agreement where movie studies can use real war machines as props, provided they agree to make the US military forces appear heroic, noble and victorious.
- dkd903 2y ago
  Simple - no one asked you to use American LLMs. The same way no one asked you to rely on America to power your defence forces.
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  And they'll have the same choice to make. That they can make this choice shouldn't alter whether the US makes the choice on it's own merits.
user3939382 2y ago
What’s funny is nothing could be worse for our country than post war US foreign policy. Check out the wikipedia article on US foreign interventions. We don’t need China to fuck us up by subtly sending messages, we have our entire political establishment overtly doing it every day in DC.
- shlant 2y ago
  "U.S. bad so just ignore outside influence". Can you imagine a world where both should be taken seriously? Or are you just here to minimize?
  - user3939382 2y ago
    Our official policy is to bankrupt our country by medaling in the affairs of everyone else, how could their “influence” possibly be any worse?
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      You don't see how subordinating a country to another's goals could be worse than policy you disagree with?
      - user3939382 2y ago
        I don’t see how some nebulous speculation about the influence of ideas that could then potentially lead to a bad outcome is a relevant conversation when we’re actively perpetually destroying ourselves from within on a daily basis no.
    - shlant 2y ago
      so in answer to my question - no you can't even imagine both could be bad. Your talking points sound very tankie so I guess nuance isn't to be expected.
cess11 2y ago
Do you really think TikTok has more power in the US than the local oligarchs and warlords? Short-form video does more to "internal strife" than the lack of basic government services, widespread substance abuse and state violence?
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Littering is against the law despite murders going unsolved ~50% of the time. TikTok doesn't have to be the greatest threat of all time to be subject to regulation around its ownership or behavior. Other problems can be addressed too. It's not like the entire country can only do one thing at a time.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Why are you changing the subject?
    - unethical_ban 2y ago
      They directly addressed your question.
      - cess11 2y ago
        No, they went on a tangent about whether regulating something necessarily means you can't regulate something unrelated. I asked whether the person I responded to actually have the beliefs they expressed, i.e. that the threat of internal strife in the US is in the future and comes from services like TikTok. Some people say things like that to practice loyalty to the tyranny they suffer under, while other people do it because they believe in it. To clear it up matters, because such reasons indicate whether someone is reachable through reasonable discourse or not.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  I don’t know who specifically you mean by “local oligarchs and warlords”. Do I think TikTok has more power and influence in the US than the average Fortune 500 CEO? Without a doubt.
AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
As a European I have to ask the very same questions about US apps and European interests. Even though I personally do not harbour strong suspicions towards the US, it's not a given that the US will always act favourably towards the EU, Europe as a whole, or any one particular EU country in the future. Especially in light of recent elections.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Europe should ban American social media companies. They'd be doing themselves a favor, and a favor to most Americans as well (who, shareholders excepted, do not personally benifit from these tech corps being so massive.)
  - mu53 2y ago
    I think every country should develop their own social media. It would be best if it was federated-like services that smaller countries could just run the plain open source version of. Any democratic country that has a large portion of their population using american social media is essentially a modern US colony.
    - fsflover 2y ago
      > I think every country should develop their own social media. There is Mastodon already, which is federated. EU already set up their own servers.
      - johnzim 2y ago
        It is federated and it has benefits but the UX is garbage for average people and the actual protocol isn't one that'll scale. You don't need an A+ protocol to get great if your product is good enough / dead simple to use but neither of those things apply to Mastodon, as much as I'd like them to.
        fsflover 2y ago
UncleMeat 2y ago
Then create a bill that targets this specifically. Does this same concern not exist for Yandex? Alibaba?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
flkenosad 2y ago
You honestly sound paranoid.
flkenosad 2y ago
So if you can't control something, ban it for everyone. Got it.

tw1984 2y ago

this is the exact same question being asked around the global - how could you be sure that American made LLMs are not altered in a way to maximize US interests at the costs of everyone else's.

joe200 2y ago
You cannot. But in US you have elections every 4 years wheres in Russia or China both Putin and Xi are "elected" for their lifetime. Does it tell you anything ?
- tw1984 2y ago
  > But in US you have elections every 4 years That is why populism is always the winner. I don't like Xi, I won't support anyone to be in power for life. That being said, I'd pick Xi over losers and criminals like Trump at any day.
  - joe200 2y ago
    How do you know that Xi is not criminal ? His decisions "affected" (read: killed or thrown in jail) thousands or tens of thousands people (more ?).
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    Xi is just Trump without the idiocy.
    - tw1984 2y ago
      Chinese national living in China, I am openly anti-CCP, I don't like Xi. I can write a thesis on this, but let's just cut to the bones - 12 years in power, Xi led China to become the largest industrialised nation on earth with its industrial output larger than the G7 combined, Xi led China to be in leading roles in ALL emerging sectors, e.g. mobile internet, renewable energy, Evs, AI etc when the entire EU and Japan just gave up. What that 6 times bankruptcy Trump managed to achieve? Trump should be nice to Xi, as Xi is the only statesman of Trump's time, Trump is just a reality show host getting into a renewed season of his show.
      - mrkstu 2y ago
        Xi accomplished a lot when he felt some restraints internally and externally- as those restraints have fallen away and he's been unleashed to do as he will, his 'touch' has faded alongside. Stopped reporting real economic numbers as they've gotten bad, losing influence in his neighborhood as he's tried to steal control over the surrounding ocean, state owned/controlled enterprises being unfairly promoted extinguishing vital home-grown entrepreneurial sprit and a variety of other avoidable ills. Unconstrained power will always expose one's weaknesses and unearned verities. Trump's second term will be an interesting pushback to see if any of these exposed Xi weaknesses cause a real crisis inside China.
- pcthrowaway 2y ago
  And both parties are almost exactly the same with foreign policy. The "two-party system" in the U.S. is perhaps broken beyond repair, and presents an illusion of choice in many ways rather than an actual choice.
  - joe200 2y ago
    I was referring to "how could you be sure that American made LLMs are not altered in a way to maximize US interests at the costs of everyone else's." But your answer intelligently redirecs focus to different topic. Is it on purpose ?
    - aziaziazi 2y ago
      May you precise your thoughts? I genuinely didn’t get the supposedly evident message before “Does it tell you anything ?” The bipartisan system in the US show that free and regular elections isn’t enough to prevent some dictatorship drawbacks, like when policies are made to serve a party and not the population interest. They don’t often coincide. To come back to LLM that could be an alteration to favor one party or another, or even both by occulting what people don’t like in the party system. At the end it might be "good for US” with US as an organisation which want to preserve itself. But not "good for US” as US a group of citizen wanting a system that serve their interest.
    - pcthrowaway 2y ago
      I wasn't responding to any upthread point you might have made about LLMs, I was responding to your suggestion that U.S. is more democratic than China. I don't see much of a difference, and if anything there's a very real possibility the two-party system allows people in charge of policy to distract from many issues with partisan politics. Both parties are the same with how they cater to the wealthy and the capitalist class. Compared to China where there is one party, sure, but elected officials arguably work more directly for the working class.
      - pertymcpert 2y ago
        Spoken like someone with absolutely no experience of living in China. Peak HN.
- tchalla 2y ago
  The world doesn’t elect US presidents. We are referring to the relationship of non-US citizen to US elected officials. The intra US selection of officials doesn’t matter in this context of who sits on a higher moral horse.
- Androth 2y ago
  it's the same in the USA as it is elsewhere. you just have the illusion of picking someone here.
aziaziazi 2y ago
Or like, movies? > The agreement was seen as a way to "spread the American way of life" though a war-torn France (and Europe at large) > To further the cultural propagation effect of the Blum–Byrnes agreements, the informational Media Guaranty Program was established in 1948 as part of the Economic Cooperation Administration to "guarantee that the US government would convert certain foreign currencies into dollars at attractive rates, provided the information materials earning the moneys reflected appropriate elements of American life". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum%E2%80%93Byrnes_agreement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum%E2%80%93Byrnes_agreemen...
- immibis 2y ago
  There's also the agreement where movie studies can use real war machines as props, provided they agree to make the US military forces appear heroic, noble and victorious.
dkd903 2y ago
Simple - no one asked you to use American LLMs. The same way no one asked you to rely on America to power your defence forces.
philipwhiuk 2y ago
And they'll have the same choice to make. That they can make this choice shouldn't alter whether the US makes the choice on it's own merits.

user3939382 2y ago

What’s funny is nothing could be worse for our country than post war US foreign policy. Check out the wikipedia article on US foreign interventions. We don’t need China to fuck us up by subtly sending messages, we have our entire political establishment overtly doing it every day in DC.

shlant 2y ago
"U.S. bad so just ignore outside influence". Can you imagine a world where both should be taken seriously? Or are you just here to minimize?
- user3939382 2y ago
  Our official policy is to bankrupt our country by medaling in the affairs of everyone else, how could their “influence” possibly be any worse?
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    You don't see how subordinating a country to another's goals could be worse than policy you disagree with?
    - user3939382 2y ago
      I don’t see how some nebulous speculation about the influence of ideas that could then potentially lead to a bad outcome is a relevant conversation when we’re actively perpetually destroying ourselves from within on a daily basis no.
  - shlant 2y ago
    so in answer to my question - no you can't even imagine both could be bad. Your talking points sound very tankie so I guess nuance isn't to be expected.

cess11 2y ago

Do you really think TikTok has more power in the US than the local oligarchs and warlords? Short-form video does more to "internal strife" than the lack of basic government services, widespread substance abuse and state violence?

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Littering is against the law despite murders going unsolved ~50% of the time. TikTok doesn't have to be the greatest threat of all time to be subject to regulation around its ownership or behavior. Other problems can be addressed too. It's not like the entire country can only do one thing at a time.
- cess11 2y ago
  Why are you changing the subject?
  - unethical_ban 2y ago
    They directly addressed your question.
    - cess11 2y ago
      No, they went on a tangent about whether regulating something necessarily means you can't regulate something unrelated. I asked whether the person I responded to actually have the beliefs they expressed, i.e. that the threat of internal strife in the US is in the future and comes from services like TikTok. Some people say things like that to practice loyalty to the tyranny they suffer under, while other people do it because they believe in it. To clear it up matters, because such reasons indicate whether someone is reachable through reasonable discourse or not.
SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
I don’t know who specifically you mean by “local oligarchs and warlords”. Do I think TikTok has more power and influence in the US than the average Fortune 500 CEO? Without a doubt.

AnonymousPlanet 2y ago

As a European I have to ask the very same questions about US apps and European interests. Even though I personally do not harbour strong suspicions towards the US, it's not a given that the US will always act favourably towards the EU, Europe as a whole, or any one particular EU country in the future. Especially in light of recent elections.

lupusreal 2y ago
Europe should ban American social media companies. They'd be doing themselves a favor, and a favor to most Americans as well (who, shareholders excepted, do not personally benifit from these tech corps being so massive.)
- mu53 2y ago
  I think every country should develop their own social media. It would be best if it was federated-like services that smaller countries could just run the plain open source version of. Any democratic country that has a large portion of their population using american social media is essentially a modern US colony.
  - fsflover 2y ago
    > I think every country should develop their own social media. There is Mastodon already, which is federated. EU already set up their own servers.
    - johnzim 2y ago
      It is federated and it has benefits but the UX is garbage for average people and the actual protocol isn't one that'll scale. You don't need an A+ protocol to get great if your product is good enough / dead simple to use but neither of those things apply to Mastodon, as much as I'd like them to.
      - fsflover 2y ago

UncleMeat 2y ago

Then create a bill that targets this specifically. Does this same concern not exist for Yandex? Alibaba?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

flkenosad 2y ago

You honestly sound paranoid.

flkenosad 2y ago

So if you can't control something, ban it for everyone. Got it.