this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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Then How is Google different? From my view, It also manipulates search results.
I don't understand what US problem with China is.
Note: I am not an American nor a Chinese. I have never used tiktok before. I am just an outsider trying to get a perspective.
I think one difference is Google is a pull system: you query Google and get results. The short form video streams are push mediums. They feed you a stream of content that it thinks you want. They are fundamentally more susceptible to pushing a particular agenda.
The evidence from the reports in the above article certainly looks pretty daming that tiktok is pushing a particular agenda. The comparison to broadcast which often does have licensing requirements is probably apt.
I don't buy the arguement that this gives cover to repressive regimes to censor more views because frankly they are doing that already.
Isn't broadcast licensing specifically about partitioning radio spectrum space, which isn't applicable here? US-based social media isn't licensed and applying radio era law to internet may not be appropriate.
From the UK perspective broadcasters have a license to broadcast and are regulated by ofcomm. I thought the FCC had similar oversight of the US broadcasters - for example not being keen on swearing and sex on TV. For UK news programmes there is a requirement to be balanced for example.
Most assuredly, the licensing of the spectrum comes with requirements and strings, so those broadcasters are regulated. They must follow the rules or risk their license.
However, radio licensing came about to avoid broadcast "collisions" for amateur radio operators in ~1912. Regulations came later under the FCC in 1934.
These same collisions are not applicable to the internet (or rather, we've already used methods to avoid them, like DNS).