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Leo
@lsn
Is TikTok pushing Taiwan’s young people closer to China? Yes. The portion of young Taiwanese who feel ‘Taiwanese’ versus ‘Chinese’ is collapsing @kenny Free speech isn’t free speech when the platform is twisting the algorithm https://on.ft.com/4gUcjZW
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kenny 🎩
@kenny
taking a highly complex and hard to measure thing like whether or not young people "feel" Taiwanese or Chinese and boiling it down to only being driven by one social media company's algorithm seems a bit too simplistic, no? seems similar to when people blamed the entire first Trump presidency on social media pushing Russian disinfo and ignoring that actually there were just a lot of real people that liked his message social media is an easy scapegoat if it's that easy to sway people with an algo just create your own social media with a pro Taiwan algo?
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Leo
@lsn
Certainly is only a couple of data points but you can read the article for a broader review Not expecting to change your mind with one article, but to show how this does happen. I first heard of young people being misinformed on tiktok that Taiwan was part of China about two years ago now As for making my own client, when I have billions to spend on user acquisition I will let you know :)
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kenny 🎩
@kenny
yeah I definitely agree with you that social media can sway people, however I think calling it "misinformation" is a bit extreme because we're talking about arbitrary lines on a map, countries are memes there are historic and cultural arguments you can make that Taiwan is part of China just like there are historic and cultural arguments you can make that Taiwan is independent blocking people's access to those arguments isn't how you win the game which is why I view banning social media apps as a pointless exercise because you are dealing with broader societal forces it's an action that makes people feel good but doesn't address the underlying problem
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Leo
@lsn
I think you’re perceiving tiktok and social media generally as a place where arguments go up against each other and the truth wins But it’s not really like this, specially if the owner is pushing one side of the argument (why do you think the CCP is blocking TikTok from selling the algorithm? Or why didn’t they put up a fuss when the same forced divesture happened to Grindr?) I care about this not for the sake of Taiwan, but for the sake of the west; because a huge portion of semiconductors are made there — inter alia — and it would be bad for the West (my mimetic team, to use your memes phrase) if the West didn’t have access to them. And unlike most mimetic battles, this one does affect my life
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