Half of all 16-24 year olds only get their political information from TikTok
Presumably the other half get it from Instagram. Democracy — what little of it the world has — seems unlikely to survive such a situation for long. Would we be better off if were somehow arranged that they got all their political info from the fediverse instead? I don’t know, couldn’t be much worse.
Which is why we should either ban them or force them to make their algorithm public. Being a Chinese company, you have to be very naive not to assume close ties to the Chinese state. As a system rival, China is more opponent than partner and allowing them to operate such a network of influence, while they tightly prohibit any unwanted information themselves is foolish.
It’s time to tighten the grip.
Thing is, it mostly amplifies what u interact with. If youre an eastern german diesel head with racist friends, then thats what you get. More afd bullshit to Spam blue hearts under.
My feed is very leftist, afd-critical and pol-sci focused.
it mostly amplifies what u interact with.
Thus it cultivates whatever memes prove themselves most infectious. Whether the content is overtly political or not, algorithm-driven social media like that is a weapon of mass delusion.
YouTube does the same as TikTok and is arguably controlled by the US state too, why not ban all social media owned by corpos?
I mean, I know this won’t be a popular opinion, but it’s a huge security risk to allow any non-european social network.
