Below are posts associated with the “TikTok” tag.
🔗 linkblog: Donald Trump Has Mark Zuckerberg By the Balls'
Not the headline I would have chosen, but very interesting argument here.
🔗 linkblog: Trump told SCOTUS he plans to make a deal to save TikTok'
What a stupid thing this whole “banning TikTok” thing has proved to be.
🔗 linkblog: Politicians Who Voted to Ban TikTok May Own as Much as $126 Million in Tech Stocks'
I doubt this is as straightforward as the headline makes it sound, but there are lots of interesting points in this article.
🔗 linkblog: As The US Freaks Out About TikTok, It’s Revealed That The CIA Was Using Chinese Social Media To Try To Undermine The Gov’t There'
Oh, so the moral panic is hypocritical, too.
🔗 linkblog: When Viral Advocacy Fails: TikTok’s Call Flood To Congress Backfires'
Masnick puts this better than I could. This legislation is dumb, but this advocacy feels dumber.
🔗 linkblog: TikTok Quietly Curtails Data Tool Used by Critics - The New York Times'
Don’t love it when platforms shut down tools because they don’t like outside research.
Gift Link
🔗 linkblog: A Leaked Memo Shows TikTok Knows It Has a Labor Problem | WIRED'
I think this is a much bigger deal than any purported security risk.
🔗 linkblog: Sen. Rand Paul becomes latest lawmaker opposing TikTok ban - The Verge'
Rand Paul is very often wrong, but I always appreciate when he comes through.
quoted in EducationWeek about Seattle Public Schools' social media lawsuit
Yesterday afternoon, I had the pleasure of talking with Arianna Prothero at EducationWeek about Seattle Public Schools’ suing Snap, Alphabet, Meta, and ByteDance, and she ended up quoting me—and colleagues like Jeff Carpenter and Josh Rosenberg—in her article.
I appreciate that all three of us were quoted in the article, because Jeff and Josh both made points that I didn’t articulate as well in my conversation with Arianna. For example, Jeff’s comments summed up a lot of the complexities that have gone through my head:
🔗 linkblog: The Tricky Ethics of Being a Teacher on TikTok | WIRED'
Maybe it’s because of my area of research, but I think the headline here is misleading. Being a teacher on TikTok is one thing, and I’m not opposed to that. Putting your students on TikTok is entirely different, and I struggle to see that being ethically justified. Josh’s research is absolutely the right reference point here.
🔗 linkblog: It’s Time to Get Real About TikTok’s Risks | WIRED'
It isn’t that TikTok doesn’t pose a real threat, it’s that it’s not alone in doing so. In particular, I appreciate that this article points out that U.S. border agents REGULARLY SEARCH COMPUTERS AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS. So, yes, raise concerns, but be consistent instead of creating a moral panic around thus one app (which, by the way, would be a privacy threat even if it were totally owned by a U.
🔗 linkblog: TikTok resists calls to preserve Ukraine content for war crime investigations | Ars Technica'
So, here’s a case where TikTok’s Chinese ownership is actually a really big deal—though, of course, YouTube and other U.S. companies have also been quicker to moderate than to archive material that could be valuable in a similar way.
🔗 linkblog: Marco Rubio Pretends To Be A TikTok Privacy Champion, Despite Years Of Undermining U.S. Consumer Privacy | Techdirt'
Concern about privacy is good, but not when it’s Sinophobic posturing. Yes, what TikTok is doing is worrying and problematic, but Bode makes an important point here: If they aren’t willing to fix the broader infrastructure, stances like Rubio’s just come down to trying to score cheap political points.
🔗 linkblog: The Myopic Focus On TikTok Privacy Issues Remains Kind Of Weird | Techdirt'
Good writing here. Vague Sinophobia drives a lot of media and political concerns, and I appreciate Bode’s challenging of that here.
🔗 linkblog: Facebook-Hired PR Firm Coordinated Anti-TikTok Campaign To Spread Bogus Moral Panics | Techdirt'
TikTok should not be protected from criticism, but it should not be subjected to this garbage either.
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'TikTok sued by former content moderator for allegedly failing to protect her mental health - The Verge'
Content moderation is an awful job, and we shouldn’t forget the people doing it for us.