> Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish.

It is happening on our local platforms here. Meta, based in the US, is systematically censoring Palestinian content that would otherwise be available here in Canada.

Details:

* https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...

* https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palesti...

For a very recent example, one of the few remaining prominent Palestinian journalists, with a following of over 1M on Meta, was banned today:

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/11/7/al-jaze...

What’s crazy is few people even talk about who currently owns major US news networks and what their motives might be. People don’t like Musk owning Twitter/X, that’s a start - but start reading about who owns the rest (especially traditional media).

> It is not about the data. It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.

Well, this is Canada we are talking about. All of the countries in OP's list are foreign.

This sounds reasonable but I feel just like OP, its still missing the forest from the trees

Its not about who has the data, although that is important. Its not about subversion of a population by a foreign state, although that is important too.

The crux of the issue is reciprocity.

China does not let any CAN or US companies into China markets, without first demanding local factories, forcing local production, requiring equity control and even IP. And if you dont share it, bohoo they will steal it anyway. And, there's no recourse.

The chinese govt has abused free trade for so long. Its time to demand fairness.

They dont give us access into their markets? OK! We close our markets to their corporations.

Its as simple as that. The golden rule.

> Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish

Okay. Now imagine CNN and NYTimes and Fox News being coerced into publishing or not publishing info because a US gov agency demands it. Or how about the US gov pressuring Meta and Twitter to change their algos around very specific topics? You don't need to imagine it actually.

So why is that less of a concern than China controlling a media delivery service?

I don't see how a foreign government or any foreign interest is worse than domestic interests (or governments).

The us is already one of the most propagandized nations on earth and our own government only benefits from this, despite ostensibly being criticized from sanitized angles.

I don't know what life is like in canada, but what i surmise from friends is that the experience is similar.

As opposed to the domestic government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.

The difficulty here is that it has long been US policy to promote the exports of its intellectual property (such as its movies) and communications networks (such as the internet). Trade policy is almost always a two way street, particularly in the modern era in which arrangements like the "unequal treaties" that choked the Qing dynasty are highly unusual. So banning Tiktok necessarily results in reciprocal bans. Canada does not have similar concerns as the US does because it is our little gas station whose pretensions to independence we humor and they do not export IP or communications technologies at the same scale as we do.

It’s your people who decide to see it, not a foreign govt. Chinese media like cnn and nyt exist, no need to imagine either that or the situation where China buys cnn and nyt and gosh now you have to watch their propaganda.

The essence is, by denying agency of your country’s users, you deny the whole set of ideas it bases on. If that’s a natural vulnerability of the ideology, addressing it by banning media is a patch over a bleeding wound.

Canadian teens will simply learn about VPN, like they always do in other countries which ban internet resources. Not a single one of them will leave tiktok.

It's about the western gov'ts NOT being able to control the feed, what evidence is there that Chinese gov't is actively involved in curating the TikTok feed?

> It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm

The right way to stop bad behavior is to write a specific description of the bad actions and the penalty for doing them into the code of law. The wrong way is to declare specific entities guilty of bad behavior you can only vaguely describe.

There is a very good reason the US constitution bans bills of attainder: they become a way of going after individuals for reasons that if properly articulated could not withstand public scrutiny. Canada would do well to uphold the same taboo.

Note that I'm not registering a position on TikTok itself. It could be run by turbosatan for all I care. I object to the lawless mechanism through which western governments are trying to go after TikTok in particular.

>It’s about a foreign government controlling the algorithm that decides what millions of people see, and their ability to shape public opinion through that.

Adam Curry opined that this was the excuse and it's really about protecting domestic (or at least Western in the case of Canada) social media companies. Seems plausible.

I don't use TikTok so I'm not sure what the feed looks like, but it seems like a bunch of people doing silly stuff and mugging for the camera.

One of the big controversies is that Chinese "tiktok" runs a much less socially disruptive algorithm.

You know, China hit a lot of these problems before we did and the ir platforms are "nicer" because they are more regulated.

Rather than ban tiktok and suffer the same problems with meta's Reels, what if we borrowed some of thier regulation?

Data protection regulation addresses the abuses of reading information from databases.

An analog to address the abuses of controlling how users read information from databases would be anti-trust regulation that unbundles client software from hosted services. "The algorithm" should be under control of the client software, for which there should be a competitive market, based on well-documented APIs for communication between the two. Then everyone can choose what "algorithm" they want, rather than having one singular one pushed on them by the service provider abusing its captive audience.

But foreign news media are legal for people to consume in the US, at least. If every American wanted to read and watch Al Jazeera and put it on in every store and bar and restaurant, that wouldn't justify banning it

What about other cases in which domestic companies are fully bending to the will of China and other hostile governments?

Or simpler, domestic companies having foreign workers developing and implementing the algorithm itself???

So other countries should ban facebook, twitter/x and other US-based social media for the same reason?

I love how this is not censorship but when non-western countries do it, then it is.

Canadian users can still access Tiktok and are still subject to Tiktok's algorithms. They're also still subject to Meta's algorithms that, unlike Tiktok, have already helped cause at least one genocide[1].

Tiktok's Canada-based offices must have been up to some other form of skulduggery for them to have been shuttered while leaving Canadian use of the platform completely status quo.

[1]https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

I tried TikTok out earlier this year. It was enjoyable but at least once a day when I was using the app heavily I would be served a video that was mildly pro China. Like a clearly western person living there showing off how great it is.

It wasn’t offensive or even off the mark but it felt like I was being served low grade propaganda.

Only foreign? Zuck during elections, Musk during elections. etc. Living in the EU, if I am gullible, when I open X, I have to believe that all Americans are mentally challenged. Being raised as a kid or gullible reading all that crap every day cannot be good for you right? Without foreign influence that is.

You were so close and nearly got there. It's not about fear of China controlling the narrative, it's about not being able to control the narrative on Tiktok like they are doing on other (American) platforms.

Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish.

Not foreign, but we already have that problem with Sinclair and local TV affiliate stations.

Realistically speaking, it'd probably be no different than $random_billionare pushing for whatever makes them the most profit.

That can be a threat, but a billionaire American or South African with similar power and motivation is also a threat.

We have foreign born billionaires that own mainstream media outlets in the US so not sure it’s that much different

Then they would be restricting the app, not just shutting down the Canadian offices.

> Like imagine if China owned CNN and the New York Times and decided what stories they could publish.

I don't know about others but to me the NYT and CNN are quite the propaganda machines already.

There's nothing resembling actual journalism ongoing at these places.

For most of the world, that "foreign government" is the US that pushes its propaganda via facebook, twitter and also by buying up local tv/news stations, newspapers, etc.

I know this is a US-centric site, but globally, you're a minority that pushes the most propaganda around.

...especially since the article is about canada, so US is a foreign government, and meta/x are foreign companies.

Yes, better to let american corporations to propahandize americans

Let's take this one step further, then, and ask why we should allow private media ownership if it's this important. Why should some malevolent billionaire be able to own CNN or NYT and decide what stories they could publish? Does it matter if the billionaire has a US passport or not?

how did we get from PhpBB to algorithms that influence whole societies

And yet if some other country bans US-controlled social media exactly for the same reasons, this works as a data point to label them as "lacking freedom of speech", "axis of evil", "undemocratic", etc.

But I do appreciate the honesty of at least admitting the hypocrisy.

Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris from the New York Times causing the resignations of many within the organization and a similar situation occurred with Bezos and the Washington Post . We have internal issues as well. I agree with what you are saying though. I don’t know what can remedy the apparent degraded integrity of social platforms and major news outlets, but I’m all ears. Federated platforms are compelling but no holy grail and such things founded on ideological extremes like Lemmy (developed by self professed Leninist Marxists) and the stigma around decentralized technologies make them less attractive.

I know this is shocking, but people don't have to look at TikToc or CNN no matter who owns it. Personally, I welcome the stat of Iran purchasing CNN and Putin buying TikToc. If the public doesn't like the apps/network they can use something different.

SO THIS! it's not about data protection, it's about the platform allowing misinformation and hate speech to thrive there. i've reported hundreds of videos, comments, and accounts - TikTok said they don't violate the community standards. the worst was yesterday - someone commented he was sad Hitler failed on a TikTok video about the Israeli hostages held by Hamas - and TikTok, after 30 minutes, said this doesn't violate community standards.

before anyone says "free speech" - views or comments that are not aligned with the CCP and its allies get taken down when reported. several of mine were taken down.

i owe the rising antisemitism among young people to TikTok and its lack of action towards misinformation and hate speech.

Imagine if Russia owned Fox News. Oh wait

The platforms like that also provide interesting aggregates. Like hidden trends and the political mood... Interesting correlations. And having this information is pretty beneficial for any agent (for ads or to know your population better). There could be a lot of research done based on having platform like tiktok (like what kind of fake news would work the best in the specific situation). Ah, big data.

I think his argument holds. We should apply the same standards to Meta. Zuckerberg has explicitly harmed our democracy. Let's treat all companies that are hostile and run by those that despise America with deep hostility (look no further than his private practices in Hawaii for examples). That's my personal opinion. The same standard is the most democratic path

By banning them from operating in the US. The implementation really isn’t complicated - it’s a simple statute outlawing the company on national security grounds, and all the tech companies (viz Apple and Google) will have to abide by it or face huge fines and criminal sanctions.

If US suspects they are breaking the law they can convince judge to sign warrant to get that information or start lawsuit and go through discovery. If they refuse the judge can hold them in contempt of court. I assume next they could just get judgement against them (assuming they are breaking the law) and that could be e.g. require seizing assets and dissolution of the US company.

You'd be surprised how many companies or individuals won't exchange money with you if doing so puts them in criminal or civil legal jeopardy. No need for even a Great Firewall.

Wouldn’t they ban other apps like Instagram or Facebook if that was true?

I'm worried about the 1 or 2 posts where I said something stupid, but someone tied everything to everything else I've ever said, and it comes back to bite me. It doesn't take much to ruin a person.

I am scared by this article and decide keep remain silent on social media.

As someone who actually didn't participate in the facebook generation (I was a straight edge Millenial who started college at the tail of the Gen X generation), I do not envy anyone trying to live in modern western society without their generation's social media of choice. The few of us 'counterflow' cannot win against the tides as long as we remain part of the larger society. At best we eke out livings generally disadvantaged compared to our brethren with social media presences and all the drama that goes with it. A few of us may get opportunities from those rare outliers in positions to make a call or introduce you to a friend of a friend. But make of the rest of us simply become one of the unspoken masses, just like say the people in Slab City, or those old rock hounds who used to live in Quartzite, AZ (now some weird mass of RV park and bedroom community for Phoenix, as I understand it.)

My point, winding as it may seem, is that this generations kids are bound to their social mediums just like the radio and then television generations were to theirs, for mainstream culture, and like the Beatniks, Hippies, Progressives(I'm not sure of the proper term here, but the non-internet groups of the 80s-00s, LGBTQA movement, the BDSM movement, etc) for the outliers. There are plenty of other subcultures out there that have waxed and waned as well, some of them crossing other boundaries, like the religious or politcal gaps in this country.

But for many of us that leaves us as the odd person out. Not being into the right hobbies or social activities or just having the wrong values and you soon find yourself distanced from those around you. The internet can give that back to you or help take it away, but in the long term the dossiers on each of us that being online produce is far less damaging than the lack of in-person connections many of us(not I) gain from social networks even as we give up our privacy and our opportunities for future dissent against the status quo, something that Eastern and Western societies alike are rapidly barreling towards an ultimatum on.

Assuming you're not YOLOing it, what will you give up for your life now, versus the lives you want to leave you to your descendants, or if you're not planning on your own and not a selfish jerk, for other people's descendants?

Footnote: This comment was written from an American point of view, although much of it still applies to our Canadian cousins and European/Australian brethren.

Why is the other child comment of this one - the one saying they can't imagine growing up while boycotting social media - deleted?

> If everyone is spewing (sorry ... sharing) pics on TikTok, X and co then you won't stand out from the crowd

You’re assuming people are consistent. You may have been photographed doing the same thing as all your peers, the fact that your photo can be highlighted unfavourable is ample ammo for proven lines of character attacks.

So which of these is your real name?

Gerdesj? Or Wonky231?

I think the exact opposite. It's becoming easier and easier to crunch all that data. Let the AIs build up a perfect model of each individual human. No one needs to sit through and watch all that video content. And video formats are very much a non-issue, even if it's a pixelated mess, GenAI is very good at making sense of that.

The more data there is on you, the easier it'll be to fingerprint you in the future. Google photos can recognize me as a baby. Even I can't tell myself apart from my brother.

But the fact that you prefer McDonald’s will not forgotten and will be part of some data profile on you , sold and resold by data brokers.

What about 10 years from now, it came out that some politician liked (or "engaged with) a bunch of racist videos when he was a kid?

> On balance, this seems bad for Canada and great for ByteDance.

It's hard to balance anything until they explain why they did it. So far they claim they aren't at liberty to share but claim it was bad enough to make a very unprecedented move like this.

The only reason I think they would do this is because of espionage, so you want to remove the offices but keep the app. But there is no proof provided within the article.

ByteDance can't sell advertising in Canada. They can't make money off of Canadian customers, that has to hurt, although it is small potatoes compared to being banned in California, let alone the whole of the USA.

"We came to the conclusion that these activities that were conducted in Canada by TikTok and their offices would be injurious to national security,"

Really not saying anything, but that's the line they are going with.

> great for ByteDance

If it were that great for them, they wouldn't be present in Canada in the first place.

It goes both ways.

... and Bytedance will not have any recourse if Canada bans the app.

As far as I can find, Bytedance is one of only three companies ordered to shutter their Canadian operations. The other two are both involved in the drone detection space.

This makes the most sense if Canada expects (or has) Canadian troops secretly deployed somewhere. And that is one sobering thought.

Could it be the start of a series of legislation to make it impossible to operate the app which would be more palatable to the public than a ban?

1: Ban presence in the country

2: Add data provision requirements that personal information be stored in the country.

3: TikTok can’t meet requirements? Well that’s on them, guess they can’t operate here.

> What is the strategy here

1. Show the current government is doing something after the CSE said the Canadian government has been breached by China's MSS [0]

2. A response to China for breaching Canada's systems.

3. A way to get a quick win to make bipartisan China hawks across the border in the US happy.

[0] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cse-cyber-threats-china-1.7...

Most app developers don't have legal entities in all the countries their app is distributed. Apple is the merchant of record for apps sold and distributed through its app store.

Yes, there have also been Chinese "police stations" in Canada. In its November 2023 Interim Report of the Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship for Canada's parliament [1], investigators detailed how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has established unauthorized "police service stations" in major Canadian cities - at least 3 in Greater Toronto, 2 in Vancouver, and potentially 2 more in Montreal/Brossard. While branded as administrative service centers, these stations are reportedly part of a broader transnational repression apparatus.

What makes this particularly concerning is their alleged connection to the United Front Work Department (UFWD), the CCP's primary foreign interference arm. Most operators are local residents with established community connections and long-term involvement in influence operations, making them more effective than parachuted-in agents.

The RCMP has launched investigations and taken some interesting tactical approaches - including deliberately visible patrols with marked cars to encourage reporting and show community members they're taking action. However, investigations are described as "lengthy" and no arrests have been made yet.

The parliamentary committee seems to view this as part of a broader pattern of increasing transnational repression under Xi Jinping. According to Safeguard Defenders' testimony, there were at least 11,000 "successful persuasion to return" operations globally between 2014-2022, with at least 3 confirmed cases in Canada.

What's particularly striking is that these stations operate quite brazenly in G7 countries. It's a remarkable example of how authoritarian states are becoming increasingly bold in projecting power within democratic societies. The Canadian government has formally demanded the PRC cease these activities as violations of diplomatic conventions, but enforcement remains challenging.

The report suggests several countermeasures, including a foreign agent registry (currently defined in Bill C-70 [2]) and modernizing the 1984 CSIS Act, but the most interesting recommendation might be the call for coordinated frameworks among democratic allies to address transnational repression more systematically.

[1] https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/441/CACN/Reports...

[2] https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-70/first-r...

Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaroslav_Hunka_scandal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Victims_of_Com...

So then why aren't they banning the app?

If any app is brainwashing people it's the zombie of twitter. Not tik tok.

The point is that from a disinformation dissemination perspective, it doesn't matter where the data was stored, but the government could have possibly had more control if the data was stored in Canada. Forcing the data to be removed from Canada doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything positive for the Canadian government or people.

Brainwashed with what. All I can see is people are brainwashed to believe Chinese ppl bad, Chinese ppl are spies, a tiktok office is an evil spy outpost. The evil commmies from China are going to spread the red scare everywhere. We need to drop the iron curtain now!

Oh give it a rest with the nationalist fear mongering. This isn't about 'national security concerns'. That's the smoke and mirrors to get the populist support necessary to ban it. Meta and Google are feeling threatened that their dominance on North America is being tested and they are flexing their lobbying muscles.

> This has also been the catalyst behind the ban of TikTok in the US

No it hasn’t. The war in Gaza is a foreign policy issue, which means most Americans tuned out from the start, and one that was a top issue for a very, very narrow slice of the electorate.

The sad truth is we’re aware of atrocities; we simply aren’t too bothered by them. (If you’re honest about yourself, you aren’t either. Nobody sane could be. There are too many of them, and they’re all burning furiously and it has been this was for a long time.) TikTok is about China, not the Middle East.

The double standard is in calling China an enemy when China has never done jack shit to Canada for allegedly spying through tik tok, but scolding off the southern neighbor which we have multiple proofs has put all Canadians under mass surveillance (from communication to movement) for which we have proofs and leaks by whistleblowers like Snowden or the AT&T guy.

That's what worries me, the easiness with which we label one as enemy, and assume the other one being normal.

I think that the idea is that once they ban the offices, then they might have stronger legal justification to ban the app.

There's a mandatory ratio for public broadcasting. It does ensure that the (same five) Canadian bands get radio airplay (35% must be Canadian), that broadcast television airs Canadian produced shows (50% annually), and so on. So, in a sense, yes?

> ... which otherwise wouldn't be popular/of interest in the US

I don't accept the premise that you can completely manufacture interest in something that people aren't interested in. The majority of people don't actually want US bombs being dropped on women and children and China didn't make them feel this way.

> I personally don't give a shit about it

That's a position of incredible privilege (and lack of empathy) because it doesn't affect you. Not everyone is unaffected. Not everyone lacks empathy.

> I bet the same is true of most people

You'd be wrong. Two thirds of Americans strongly or somewhat support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza [1]. Enough people cared about this to start a grassroots protest in the Democratic Primary, most notably the Michigan "Uncommitted" movement, which scared Democratic power brokers enough to get Biden to not seek reelection. And Gaza lost Michigan for Kamala Harris yesterday.

Be careful throwing out statements like "the same is true for most people" because where are you getting that from? You, like everyone, live in a bubble to some degree. The people around you are more likely to be similar to you. They're also a small sample and not entirely random. You need some empirical evidence or sound statistical sampling before you can start drawing conclusions.

[1]: https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/2/27/voters-suppor...

Perhpas a response to Canadian government network being hacked by Chinese intelligence:

https://therecord.media/canada-20-government-agencies-hacked...

He waited a year after receiving the intel? He is being roasted for foriegn interference at the moment? He is about to call an election? Salt Typhoon just broke? And Trump is about to light things up on the Foriegn Affairs file?

I actually have no idea either.

I use reddit mainly for the same 5 niche subreddits I visit often

I was talking more about preventing they get into those rabbit holes, such as Idk, emotional education at school or something like that, I don't know what could work. But anyway, do you know who's the guy that has banned some accounts on his platform just because and that doesn't ban accounts spewing huge lies? It's not kamala, it's musk

so it's a problem already solved from the legal government's standpoint?

> It’s not at all clear that that is even plausible.

Given this latest news about Tik Tok, i'd say it's more than likely, since this is hardly the biggest threat from China, especially if they've compromised members of the government.

You would think it would be an all out 5-alarm fire, and dealt with in the most expedient (and hopefully transparent) way possible. So that the public know they can trust all their government representatives.

> Also, the CSIS appears to be making very unequivocal statements in support of the policy approach.

The government has investigated itself, and found itself innocent, and following a divine path.

Sorry, yours is the poor take. If the government has the right to seize the bank accounts of Canadians, without due process, then the government also has the power to release any information they want.

Just because they invent reasons to keep it secret, doesn't mean that's what's right, or most healthy for an honest and functioning democracy.

The citizens should be making that choice, not the government. You speak of them like serfs.

China is a communist country, the US and Canada are liberal economies and benefit a lot from that. Should the US and Canada be allowed to behave like that, why would Europe, Asia and other countries of the Americas still allow US Big Tech to do as they please?

He explicitly said he wouldn't ban TikTok during his second campaign.

but ordered society also means "elections change nothing, there are rules"

so then, under this premise, what changes things? a vote in congress