Chinese app has views aligning with Chinese goverment? Imagine my shock

Meta’s content on some political subjects aligns with the American government, reality shows.

Enjoy the internet of propaganda, kids 💖

No shit, it’s called asymmetrical warfare.

Wow really?? Chinese social media app has Chinese political views? 🤯

( sigh )

Everybody, shut the fuck up.

I read the NCRI-Rutgers report in question. You can, too.

The report’s conclusion states…

Given the research above, we assess a strong possibility that content on TikTok is either amplified or suppressed based on its alignment with the interests of the Chinese Government.

…but the data they present doesn’t prove that statement at all.

The report authors describe their data collection methodology at the top of Page 5 of the report. They state that they’re using each platform’s advertising management system to count the total number of posts/entries that feature a given hash tag, and comparing the counts on one platform to the counts on the other.

Think about that for a second. Those numbers are just aggregates of tagged user posts. To assert that ByteDance is “amplifying” or “suppressing” a given topic, the data would need to show evidence of raw posts in a given category being edited or deleted en mass, or that perhaps the content feeds and searches that each platform provides to its users are being modified to hide or promote posts aligned with specific subjects. The data doesn’t address any of that.

What the data DOES show is how many posts on each platform align with given topics that advertisers have access to. Taken at face value, this data can tell us a lot of interesting things about the users of these particular platforms. For example, TikTok seems to be a lot more into Shakira than Harry Styles. That’s interesting, I guess. Also, Instagram users are making more posts about Uyghurs than TikTok users. That’s also interesting, but that’s not necessarily evidence that ByteDance is suppressing content. What seems more likely is that people who give enough of a shit about Uyghurs to write posts about it aren’t using TikTok.

So ok, fine, let’s get into some deep-data-fuckery hypotheticals:

Could TikTok posts pertaining to topics that the Chinese government has expressed opinions about be being edited or deleted? Maybe. That should be easy enough to collect data on and test.

Could the aggregation of TikTok posts for the advertising/marketing systems be deliberately fudging the numbers by under-counting posts for some topics and/or over-counting for others? Maybe. The data doesn’t prove it. But… why? The function of those advertising systems is to allow marketers to buy ads and figure out costs. Lying about those numbers would mean ByteDance was scamming advertisers. Admittedly, that would be quite a scandal if it were happening, but that’s nowhere near the same thing as the report’s conclusion.

The report’s conclusion is a full-throated statement that ByteDance is tipping the scales in terms of what content is being served to TikTok’s users. This might actually be happening, and it’s absolutely worth investigating, but the evidence in this report does not back up that claim.

Finally, a pro-tip: if you’re skimming a research report and spot the authors misusing the phrase “begging the question”, it’s time to crank up your bullshit detector to maximum.

Tiktok has a lot of serious problems associated with it but I doubt the CCP’s involvement is anywhere near as high as political morons who barely know how to use their phones are proposing.

Especially given the statistics presented do not, in fact, paint a line as much as a number of random dots with a focus on the ones the ‘researchers’ don’t like. This is easily a type 1 error that these people are engaging in and absolutely failing at restricting. The point of research is to remove personal bias in an attempt to determine the truth of the matter, not disregard evidence to pursue your personal vendettas on the public stage using erroneous data

“Some content on platform X says Y” isn’t exactly something to write home about.

Just like any west social network(propaganda networks) isn’t new these platforms are not just used to harvest people information but to use it to manipulate the public opinion specially in political related subjects. Just part of the business.

I am shocked. Surely the CCP would never do such a thing. Use companies are a proxy for their national interests and play dumb all the while. Why, I think we should buy more telecommunications equipment from them. They’re trustworthy, unlike the Westoid ‘NBC’ news funded by the CIA.

/s