After mostly enjoying the new Dune flicks, I started reading the first book yesterday… I’m like 100 pages in, and I’m already upset at Villeneuve’s near-total omission of the Mentats.
Dune would require a long miniseries to do full justice to it. If you need to fit Dune into 2+ hours (or even 6 hours), you'll need to cut, and cut heavily.
Norman Spinrad critiqued the 1984 Dune by saying that Lynch didn't cut heavily enough - he suggested that you could make a great Dune movie by focusing entirely on Paul avenging the murder of his father.
Would it do Dune full justice? No. Would it be a good movie? Quite possibly.
> The idea that direct access to TikTok’s video-ranking and recommendation algorithms would give you similarly direct access to the brains of American voters is patently absurd.
It's wise to be skeptical of this misinformation screechers, but you seem to be saying here that propaganda is never (has never been?) a concern; in fact, it isn't even a thing, whatsoever?
Surely you know that Facebook can crank up or lower divisiveness across the platform, and has throttled this meter. Your theory is that... none of that actually matters? That the public is... never persuadable? Does this mean I can stop caring about Fox News?
I agree with you on the persuasiveness of the other three, but it seems obvious to me TikTok could be leveraged as a propaganda platform if the U.S.-China conflict intensifies. Surely, CHINA thinks of it as an strategic asset, or they wouldn't be fighting so hard to keep it!
Well, we don't actually know that Facebook can crank up or lower divisiveness across the platform, do we? We know that some group of researchers inside the platform gathered some data that suggested to them that it's possible, but we don't have access to that data to verify or test the hypothesis. We don't even (as far as I know) know what they meant by "divisiveness." (Some of the stuff from the Haugen leaks—“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” e.g.—sounds about as scientific as an op-ed column.)
Obviously that kind of thing comports with what we understand social media to do to relationships and politics from experience, and with the growing (if still somewhat contentious) body of actual scientific literature. But to the extent I am worried about the effects of social-media platforms on society I think the main thing that's needed is greater transparency so credible research can be done on what those effects actually are.
But for the record my narrow claim here is not that people are unpersuadable or that media is irrelevant, just that privileged access to "the TikTok algorithm" (whatever that would mean) isn't a guarantee of anything if the goal is to propagandize effectively in the context of an unwiedly and dynamic system. And if the goal is just to stir shit up, well, you don't need to own a piece of TikTok to do that, and I don't see why it'd be harder to do on Steve Mnuchin's TikTok than it would be on ByteDance's.
I'm SURE there are many spooks in China who have the same kind of psy-op brain that American politicians do, and believe that they're going to be able to use TikTok to pull off whatever intel operations they want to pull off. To that I say: best of luck!
I know where you're coming from. You're starting from a position that is skeptical of recent paranoiac talking points — "Russian interference," "misinformation," "red pilling," "algorithmic influence." But your skepticism of the misinfo peddlers takes you into an untenable place, where nothing has efficacy. This is the crux of it:
> Privileged access to "the TikTok algorithm" isn't a guarantee of anything if the goal is to propagandize effectively in the context of an unwieldy and dynamic system.
Your position seems to be that the algo is inscrutable, that code is neutral, that outcomes are indefinite. But given what we just went through with Twitter, that's an insupportable position. OF COURSE these platforms can change ideology — and change drastically. OF COURSE these algos can be tweaked — knowingly, intentionally, effectively tweaked. Just because you or I might draw definitional question marks around "divisiveness" in an academic paper doesn't mean that these systems are neutral or unknowable. I could write a TikTok algo update in my head right now that has significant effect, and I can't write more than five lines of Python without needing a syntax hint. Imagine if I had a hundred math PhDs working for me.
You call it "patently absurd" that the content stream can be effectively tweaked for ideological ends, either overtly or subtly. To me, it seems "patently absurd" to argue that, as soon as battleships sail into the Taiwan Strait, the FYP doesn't suddenly take a drastic change. I honestly don't understand how anyone could argue otherwise. OF COURSE China, in a time of crisis, will adjust the content stream — via both the algo and the moderation. Maybe subtly, maybe overtly. And of course this MATTERS to the body politic. Elon just turned Twitter into 4chan without even blinking. And if the response to that is, "Well, he lost a third of its users," I'm sure China will be perfectly fine accessing only two-thirds of the 20-something American mindspace.
Just because dropping leaflets is pretty ineffective, and just because we're past a Manchurian Candidate formulation of propaganda, doesn't mean nothing matters. And yes, I suspect Mnuchin realizes this too.
Should we ban TikTok? I dunno. But to argue these platforms are inscrutable ciphers is naive.
Just to be clear, my position isn't that "the algo is inscrutable," it's that the entire system, across and including the audience itself, is dynamic and unwieldy, and back-door control over "the algorithm" is an overrated mechanism of ideological control or propagation. Perhaps the platforms can "change ideology"--I think the "of course" is unwarranted--but how? By what mechanisms? In concert with what other developments? Putting more "pro-China" videos in the feed might make a bunch of Americans more "pro-China"... or it might cause a backlash... or it might prompt a wave of "anti-China" propaganda that cancels out the original op. Or it might have no real effect at all because the videos are simply not convincing, no matter how widespread. Elon may have made Twitter more right-wing, but in the process he's also transformed the context in which Twitter posts and accounts are read and understood. Maybe there is a straightforward relationship between "control" of "the algorithm" and ability to persuade or radicalize users, but there's very little open, transparent, rigorous, reproducible evidence (or even enough non-anecdotal material to form arguments from) and the first step to solving that problem should be forcing platforms to open themselves up to study. I have no doubt that extensive use of platforms, in general, has a relatively strong effect on users' beliefs and behaviors worldviews over a long-enough timespan, but I suspect that it's much less clean or direct than a "propaganda"/control framework suggests, and in some ways I think that's more worrying—it's not a matter of the nationality who owns the algorithm or the platform at all, but something in the whole structure of consumption and production.
That's what the Chinese WANT you to think. You are aping their talking points. The Program is working.
Just kidding. Good answer. I don't believe in strong causal chains toward radicalization either. But there is SOME exploitable connection, however mysterious, and who controls these platforms matters.
The US Government certainly thought that control of Twitter/Facebook/etc was worthwhile; see the Twitter files, Facebook files, etc. Lots of emails from USG officials to Twitter/Facebook execs demanding that certain topics/people be promoted/hidden.
Matt Taibbi's recent post on the bill really opened my eyes to the problems - namely, that the bill would put all social media back under the thumb of the National Security state, which, IMO, is REALLY BAD.
Indeed, one might say that while the bill *says* TikTok, it *means* Twitter/X.
The premise and characterization of "banning TiKTok" is a canard. A falsehood. A fraud. A cheat. What is proposed is that the People's Republic of China (communist China) divest itself from TikTok USA so that the company is under the full control of American interests. No changes to how content creators in the USA work with TikTok. No disruption to content creators and other businesses. AND we prevent communist China from accessing our data and influencing our elections and perverting our youth.
Not sure where your claim that this will not heavily disrupt TikTok's basic functioning is coming from, but as a commie myself, I admire your willingness to pave over supposedly-"fundamental" (read:only applied against the impoverished) tenets of private ownership! If we just cut the part where ownership is transferred to an American capitalist, we got a pretty good start goin
Okay, since you don't seem to get "where your claim that this will not heavily disrupt TikTok's basic functioning is coming from," allow me to elucidate further. The TikTok algorithms and systems are based in the United States of America. Hello? IP and system functionalities are already based in the USA. So with TikTok USA ownership going to a USA corporate control, NOTHING CHANGES for content creators. You can't get away from American Capitalist control of TikTok. Uh, heads up here, the CCP is actually a quasi-capitalist authoritarian state. Get a clue. I know this may be a tough wake-up call.
It seems worth exploring TikTok and MrBeast in terms of the fantasy of controlling a software company’s data. All roads leading to fantasies of being a “master of the universe”, in the realm of controlling our rectangular black mirrors. Caring about content is in and of itself a distraction from Wall Street types (double entendre intended).
Blowing my mind right now that Mr Beast is from North Carolina. I don't know why I thought he was from Finland or some shit. I have seen some of his videos and heard him speak. Is this the Mandela effect?
This might be a dumb question, but I’m wondering if you could elaborate a little on why a national security ban on TikTok having positive knock-on effects on general well-being would be a bad reason to support the law?
Not a dumb question; I should probably explain more fully. The structural objection I have here is basically that I think if we're going to create a political coalition, expend political and real resources, and craft a particular policy, it should be directed at the actual problem we want to solve ("TikTok is bad for us") and not at a different problem ("TikTok is Chinese"). "China hawks, Israel lobbyists, and TikTok's rivals" (just three of the groups who wrote and are pushing this bill most aggressively) is not a political coalition I particularly want to be a part of; I have a hard time imagining any legislation they're writing would be in my best interests.
I mean, we sort of already know this, because the legislation doesn't actually ban TikTok; it mandates its sale. If I truly believe TikTok is uniquely bad, why would I feel any better about "TikTok, but owned by Steven Mnuchin or Bobby Kotick"?
But even before we get there, I think it's worth repeating that *we don't actually know that TikTok is uniquely bad for us/society*. There is an increasing consensus among politically engaged people that it is, sure, but it's not based on anything like rigorous evidence, and I'd be really wary of singling out TikTok--to the distinct benefit of Facebook and Google, among others!--without any kind of clarity about (1) if it's actually worse and (2) why and what makes it worse.
Right! The current TimTok ban proposal feels to me like banning lead gasoline, but not lead pipes, because most lead is mined in China, not because it's toxic. At best it's a policy that accidentally accomplishes marginal good, but more likely it leaves us either with one fewer platform among many that's bad for us, or with that same exact platform just owned by Americans and with various political and diplomatic ills from forcing that change.
“it’s never been clear to me what that “sensitive data” might be, or how the C.C.P. would use it maliciously”
Everyone says this as if the interactions with the app itself would be the prize, or even real time location data, but I think that’s beside the point. It’s the phone contact data - the graph of connections between 200 million Americans.
I mean you don't have to have a terribly active imagination to think of uses for this - you can identify who espionage targets, dissidents, etc. are in touch with, identify journalists' sources, find people who you aren't already aware of (who may not even have the app installed) who have similar networks to people who are on your radar, all continuously updated as people make new connections. What intelligence agency wouldn't kill for this?
Don't know about Dagwood's desires, but this doesn't really answer the question.
What large connection graph datasets are publicly available at all? Almost all the datasets I'm aware of (e.g., from data fusion vendors) aren't publicly available.
I'm also largely indifferent and easy to persuade on either side of the aisle on TikTok.
India banned TikTok in 2020, which meant 200 million users needed to go someplace else. As far as I know, most simply recalibrated to YouTube Shorts and Reels.
Overall I just don't see how this is useful (and not just punitive) unless we turn it into a teaching moment about cybersecurity and overall user awareness about the softwares on their phones.
After mostly enjoying the new Dune flicks, I started reading the first book yesterday… I’m like 100 pages in, and I’m already upset at Villeneuve’s near-total omission of the Mentats.
Dune would require a long miniseries to do full justice to it. If you need to fit Dune into 2+ hours (or even 6 hours), you'll need to cut, and cut heavily.
Norman Spinrad critiqued the 1984 Dune by saying that Lynch didn't cut heavily enough - he suggested that you could make a great Dune movie by focusing entirely on Paul avenging the murder of his father.
Would it do Dune full justice? No. Would it be a good movie? Quite possibly.
> The idea that direct access to TikTok’s video-ranking and recommendation algorithms would give you similarly direct access to the brains of American voters is patently absurd.
It's wise to be skeptical of this misinformation screechers, but you seem to be saying here that propaganda is never (has never been?) a concern; in fact, it isn't even a thing, whatsoever?
Surely you know that Facebook can crank up or lower divisiveness across the platform, and has throttled this meter. Your theory is that... none of that actually matters? That the public is... never persuadable? Does this mean I can stop caring about Fox News?
I agree with you on the persuasiveness of the other three, but it seems obvious to me TikTok could be leveraged as a propaganda platform if the U.S.-China conflict intensifies. Surely, CHINA thinks of it as an strategic asset, or they wouldn't be fighting so hard to keep it!
Well, we don't actually know that Facebook can crank up or lower divisiveness across the platform, do we? We know that some group of researchers inside the platform gathered some data that suggested to them that it's possible, but we don't have access to that data to verify or test the hypothesis. We don't even (as far as I know) know what they meant by "divisiveness." (Some of the stuff from the Haugen leaks—“Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” e.g.—sounds about as scientific as an op-ed column.)
Obviously that kind of thing comports with what we understand social media to do to relationships and politics from experience, and with the growing (if still somewhat contentious) body of actual scientific literature. But to the extent I am worried about the effects of social-media platforms on society I think the main thing that's needed is greater transparency so credible research can be done on what those effects actually are.
But for the record my narrow claim here is not that people are unpersuadable or that media is irrelevant, just that privileged access to "the TikTok algorithm" (whatever that would mean) isn't a guarantee of anything if the goal is to propagandize effectively in the context of an unwiedly and dynamic system. And if the goal is just to stir shit up, well, you don't need to own a piece of TikTok to do that, and I don't see why it'd be harder to do on Steve Mnuchin's TikTok than it would be on ByteDance's.
I'm SURE there are many spooks in China who have the same kind of psy-op brain that American politicians do, and believe that they're going to be able to use TikTok to pull off whatever intel operations they want to pull off. To that I say: best of luck!
I know where you're coming from. You're starting from a position that is skeptical of recent paranoiac talking points — "Russian interference," "misinformation," "red pilling," "algorithmic influence." But your skepticism of the misinfo peddlers takes you into an untenable place, where nothing has efficacy. This is the crux of it:
> Privileged access to "the TikTok algorithm" isn't a guarantee of anything if the goal is to propagandize effectively in the context of an unwieldy and dynamic system.
Your position seems to be that the algo is inscrutable, that code is neutral, that outcomes are indefinite. But given what we just went through with Twitter, that's an insupportable position. OF COURSE these platforms can change ideology — and change drastically. OF COURSE these algos can be tweaked — knowingly, intentionally, effectively tweaked. Just because you or I might draw definitional question marks around "divisiveness" in an academic paper doesn't mean that these systems are neutral or unknowable. I could write a TikTok algo update in my head right now that has significant effect, and I can't write more than five lines of Python without needing a syntax hint. Imagine if I had a hundred math PhDs working for me.
You call it "patently absurd" that the content stream can be effectively tweaked for ideological ends, either overtly or subtly. To me, it seems "patently absurd" to argue that, as soon as battleships sail into the Taiwan Strait, the FYP doesn't suddenly take a drastic change. I honestly don't understand how anyone could argue otherwise. OF COURSE China, in a time of crisis, will adjust the content stream — via both the algo and the moderation. Maybe subtly, maybe overtly. And of course this MATTERS to the body politic. Elon just turned Twitter into 4chan without even blinking. And if the response to that is, "Well, he lost a third of its users," I'm sure China will be perfectly fine accessing only two-thirds of the 20-something American mindspace.
Just because dropping leaflets is pretty ineffective, and just because we're past a Manchurian Candidate formulation of propaganda, doesn't mean nothing matters. And yes, I suspect Mnuchin realizes this too.
Should we ban TikTok? I dunno. But to argue these platforms are inscrutable ciphers is naive.
Just to be clear, my position isn't that "the algo is inscrutable," it's that the entire system, across and including the audience itself, is dynamic and unwieldy, and back-door control over "the algorithm" is an overrated mechanism of ideological control or propagation. Perhaps the platforms can "change ideology"--I think the "of course" is unwarranted--but how? By what mechanisms? In concert with what other developments? Putting more "pro-China" videos in the feed might make a bunch of Americans more "pro-China"... or it might cause a backlash... or it might prompt a wave of "anti-China" propaganda that cancels out the original op. Or it might have no real effect at all because the videos are simply not convincing, no matter how widespread. Elon may have made Twitter more right-wing, but in the process he's also transformed the context in which Twitter posts and accounts are read and understood. Maybe there is a straightforward relationship between "control" of "the algorithm" and ability to persuade or radicalize users, but there's very little open, transparent, rigorous, reproducible evidence (or even enough non-anecdotal material to form arguments from) and the first step to solving that problem should be forcing platforms to open themselves up to study. I have no doubt that extensive use of platforms, in general, has a relatively strong effect on users' beliefs and behaviors worldviews over a long-enough timespan, but I suspect that it's much less clean or direct than a "propaganda"/control framework suggests, and in some ways I think that's more worrying—it's not a matter of the nationality who owns the algorithm or the platform at all, but something in the whole structure of consumption and production.
That's what the Chinese WANT you to think. You are aping their talking points. The Program is working.
Just kidding. Good answer. I don't believe in strong causal chains toward radicalization either. But there is SOME exploitable connection, however mysterious, and who controls these platforms matters.
The US Government certainly thought that control of Twitter/Facebook/etc was worthwhile; see the Twitter files, Facebook files, etc. Lots of emails from USG officials to Twitter/Facebook execs demanding that certain topics/people be promoted/hidden.
Forgive me for not trusting the U.S. government's judgment on this matter!
Perhaps there's a common position we share:
1) Tiktok is controlled by the CCP
2) This is bad
3) The bill under consideration is *also* bad.
Matt Taibbi's recent post on the bill really opened my eyes to the problems - namely, that the bill would put all social media back under the thumb of the National Security state, which, IMO, is REALLY BAD.
Indeed, one might say that while the bill *says* TikTok, it *means* Twitter/X.
The premise and characterization of "banning TiKTok" is a canard. A falsehood. A fraud. A cheat. What is proposed is that the People's Republic of China (communist China) divest itself from TikTok USA so that the company is under the full control of American interests. No changes to how content creators in the USA work with TikTok. No disruption to content creators and other businesses. AND we prevent communist China from accessing our data and influencing our elections and perverting our youth.
Not sure where your claim that this will not heavily disrupt TikTok's basic functioning is coming from, but as a commie myself, I admire your willingness to pave over supposedly-"fundamental" (read:only applied against the impoverished) tenets of private ownership! If we just cut the part where ownership is transferred to an American capitalist, we got a pretty good start goin
Okay, since you don't seem to get "where your claim that this will not heavily disrupt TikTok's basic functioning is coming from," allow me to elucidate further. The TikTok algorithms and systems are based in the United States of America. Hello? IP and system functionalities are already based in the USA. So with TikTok USA ownership going to a USA corporate control, NOTHING CHANGES for content creators. You can't get away from American Capitalist control of TikTok. Uh, heads up here, the CCP is actually a quasi-capitalist authoritarian state. Get a clue. I know this may be a tough wake-up call.
It seems worth exploring TikTok and MrBeast in terms of the fantasy of controlling a software company’s data. All roads leading to fantasies of being a “master of the universe”, in the realm of controlling our rectangular black mirrors. Caring about content is in and of itself a distraction from Wall Street types (double entendre intended).
Blowing my mind right now that Mr Beast is from North Carolina. I don't know why I thought he was from Finland or some shit. I have seen some of his videos and heard him speak. Is this the Mandela effect?
You may be confusing him with another guy from Finland or some shit who looks just like him but is a bit terrible.
This might be a dumb question, but I’m wondering if you could elaborate a little on why a national security ban on TikTok having positive knock-on effects on general well-being would be a bad reason to support the law?
Not a dumb question; I should probably explain more fully. The structural objection I have here is basically that I think if we're going to create a political coalition, expend political and real resources, and craft a particular policy, it should be directed at the actual problem we want to solve ("TikTok is bad for us") and not at a different problem ("TikTok is Chinese"). "China hawks, Israel lobbyists, and TikTok's rivals" (just three of the groups who wrote and are pushing this bill most aggressively) is not a political coalition I particularly want to be a part of; I have a hard time imagining any legislation they're writing would be in my best interests.
I mean, we sort of already know this, because the legislation doesn't actually ban TikTok; it mandates its sale. If I truly believe TikTok is uniquely bad, why would I feel any better about "TikTok, but owned by Steven Mnuchin or Bobby Kotick"?
But even before we get there, I think it's worth repeating that *we don't actually know that TikTok is uniquely bad for us/society*. There is an increasing consensus among politically engaged people that it is, sure, but it's not based on anything like rigorous evidence, and I'd be really wary of singling out TikTok--to the distinct benefit of Facebook and Google, among others!--without any kind of clarity about (1) if it's actually worse and (2) why and what makes it worse.
Right! The current TimTok ban proposal feels to me like banning lead gasoline, but not lead pipes, because most lead is mined in China, not because it's toxic. At best it's a policy that accidentally accomplishes marginal good, but more likely it leaves us either with one fewer platform among many that's bad for us, or with that same exact platform just owned by Americans and with various political and diplomatic ills from forcing that change.
Great analogy!
“it’s never been clear to me what that “sensitive data” might be, or how the C.C.P. would use it maliciously”
Everyone says this as if the interactions with the app itself would be the prize, or even real time location data, but I think that’s beside the point. It’s the phone contact data - the graph of connections between 200 million Americans.
I don't think that juice is worth the squeeze, compared to the kind of contact graph it's pretty easy to get just from what's publicly available.
What comparable dataset is publicly available?
Well, from the other direction, what do you want to do with the connections graph?
I mean you don't have to have a terribly active imagination to think of uses for this - you can identify who espionage targets, dissidents, etc. are in touch with, identify journalists' sources, find people who you aren't already aware of (who may not even have the app installed) who have similar networks to people who are on your radar, all continuously updated as people make new connections. What intelligence agency wouldn't kill for this?
Isn't most of this info already available from data brokers? Like the Grindr data that was reported on recently.
Don't know about Dagwood's desires, but this doesn't really answer the question.
What large connection graph datasets are publicly available at all? Almost all the datasets I'm aware of (e.g., from data fusion vendors) aren't publicly available.
I'm also largely indifferent and easy to persuade on either side of the aisle on TikTok.
India banned TikTok in 2020, which meant 200 million users needed to go someplace else. As far as I know, most simply recalibrated to YouTube Shorts and Reels.
Overall I just don't see how this is useful (and not just punitive) unless we turn it into a teaching moment about cybersecurity and overall user awareness about the softwares on their phones.