10.19 TikTok
Companies who own social media get a lot of information about the people who use it. In addition those companies influence the people who use their social media. Governments that have control over those companies can get that information from those companies and can influence people as well. Imagine if a country that was hostile to the United States controlled the videos that over a hundred million Americans watch. What if most Americans were not aware that some of the videos they were watching were made by a hostile government? It would be easier for that government to convince Americans that America is bad. What if the hostile country wanted voters to vote for one political party and not the other? They could post videos to convince people to do so. What if they allowed people to sell harmful drugs on that social media or convince kids to engage in self destructive behavior?
Dangerous drugs are already advertised on American social media despite the efforts of social media to stop those ads. Many people who regret transitioning to the opposite sex were convinced to do so by American social media. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are three American social media platforms with a history of censoring conservative viewpoints so people will vote for left wing politicians. The Microsoft Edge browser shows the very biased left wing news of MSNBC which constantly attacks conservatives. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube have an enormous amount of information about everyone.
Might that country act against Americans who voice opinions they don't like? There is a hostile country that controls social media that over a hundred million Americans watch and that country is China. China is manipulating Americans into voting for the politicians that they want to be elected. China is manipulating Americans into hating America.
China has tracked down people who escaped China to other countries, and abducted them against their will to China. China has set up police stations all over the world including in New York. Chinese officials make the excuse that the police service stations just assist Chinese nationals overseas with routine matters such as renewing driver’s licenses. That's something that embassies and consulates normally do. In 2022 FBI director Christopher Wray said that
“We’ve seen a clear pattern of the Chinese government, of the Chinese Communist Party exporting their repression right here into the U.S..” “We’ve had a number of indictments … of the Chinese engaging in 'law enforcement action’ right here in the United States, harassing, stalking, surveilling, and blackmailing people who they don’t like or disagree with the [Chinese President] Xi [JInping] regime.”
One way the Chinese government pressures people in returning to China is by threatening to punish their families if they don't return.
The Voice of America reported that in October 2022, the Justice Department charged seven Chinese citizens in a scheme to force the return to China of a Chinese citizen living in New York.
What if the Chinese government someday decides to punish non-Chinese Americans who criticize China? They'll know who they are and where to find them because of the information they got from TikTok. They'll know who their friends and family members are. They'll know what they look like and where to find them.
Mathew Tye is an American who lived in China. He has posted many Youtube videos exposing Chinese propaganda. Here is an excerpt of one of them.
Part of Chinese propaganda shows the homeless camped out on sidewalks in America and contrasts it with clean sidewalks in China without homeless. There is nothing wrong with the part of Chinese propaganda showing things that are true. Then we need to ask ourselves what are the Chinese doing so that their streets are not full of homeless? Trump said that he asked president Xi of China why there wasn't more of a drug problem in China. Trump tells us Xi's answer in the video below.
President Xi said that China did not have a drug problem because China executes drug dealers. Trump said we should learn from China. Time magazine pointed out that China does have a drug problem though and quotes Hannah Hetzer of the Drug Policy Alliance who says that therefore Trump is wrong and that instead of killing drug dealers needles and safe drugs should be provided to addicts. Hannah never bothered to do the math to check that Trump was really wrong. I'll look up the figures and do the math right now. A 2017 report from China’s National Narcotics Control Commission said there were 2.51 million drug users in China as of late 2016 which is about the amount there were in 2017. In the U.S., an estimated 30.5 million people used drugs, including marijuana, in 2017, according to federal data. The population of China in 2017 was 1,410,275,957. The population of the U.S. was 329,791,231. The per capita drug use in China was therefore was about 2,510,000/1,410,275,957 *100 = 0.18%. The per capita drug use in the U.S. was 30,500,000/329,791,231 * 100 which is 9.2%. That is 50X as high as China. So maybe Xi is onto something. It may sound cruel to kill drug dealers but drug dealers are killing drug users by providing them with drugs. The leftist policies of providing "safe" drugs has been tried and has not solved America's drug problem. It may have made things worse.
America released its mentally ill on the streets That's another reason for the homeless problem in the U.S.
Aside from their criticism of the U.S.'s homeless problem most of the Chinese propaganda on TikTok is untrue. Matthew Tye has posted a lot more information exposing Chinese propaganda on his youtube channel.
The USA Congress is very worried about Tiktok. They held a hearing in which they questioned Mr. Chew, the CEO of TikTok. I have included a short excerpt of the hearing below that shows the concerns American Congressmen have. The first speaker in the video, congresswoman Cathy Rodgers of the state of Washington, mentions the CCP. That stands for the Chinese Communist Party which rules China. She also mentions Bytedance. Bytedance is the Chinese company that developed the TikTok app.
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