Comment on Biden signs TikTok “ban” bill into law, starting the clock for ByteDance to divest it
flora_explora@beehaw.org 7 months agoBut tiktok the company is? And there are certainly also people on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and even Lemmy rallying to support Palestine. And that’s what you tried to avoid with your “argument” in the first place, that many us companies are far worse in spreading misinformation. How does your one very specific point prove anything? And why focus on this one at all? Meanwhile fox news especially has been rallying against all kinds of minorities since forever in the US. You have very weak arguments here, maybe you just want to have tiktok banned? But then just say so outright.
Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 7 months ago
Yes, among other things they’re also explicitly suppressing pro-Isreal content lemmy.world/post/14643617
The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 7 months ago
If I’m reading that right, that could also say that Instagram is suppressing anti-israel content? It’s just saying that in comparison to Instagram tiktok is showing more x, y, z. But Instagram is absolutely not a neutral point to measure from.
For starters there’s different demographics on each one, but I’m sure you could adjust for that, maybe the study did. But I don’t think you can adjust for the impact the US government has on Meta. I don’t believe for an instant that some US agency isn’t manipulating algorithms or requiring certain tweaks to steer discourse just like they did with US news outlets.
Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 7 months ago
So, I took another look at the report, they did do this sort of statistical bias correction. See “U.S. Politics” page 8 networkcontagion.us/…/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.2…
Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg 7 months ago
Hm… I agree that Instagram is not a neutral source. I also agree that there are going to be some biases imposed by the user base.
I don’t believe the US government plays a major role in Meta’s content moderation behavior. Meta if anything has shown a reluctance towards any political or news content in recent years. That’s not to say the US government doesn’t have influence but their influence is (from what I’ve seen) oriented around fighting disinformation and threats of violence … not cherry-picking the discussion of subject matter. I think there would’ve been a pretty significant leak out of Meta by now if there really was a strong political bias or government influence in content moderation.
I don’t think any of these lines particularly fall along political lines within the US either. There are people on the left and right taking different sides on virtually all of the topics with statistical divergence.