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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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I'm not sure what's more surprising to me — the reaction itself or it being allowed to exist on a big platform.

..it's a chinese platform. Their algorithm.

Could be they are engineering a vibe shift.

Would be odd for Leninists, I guess.

Their content moderation team in the U.S. market is based in California and will promote and censor things in accordance with Californian values. I've followed conservative accounts on there that kept getting banned whenever they hit a certain follower threshold. On the other hand, their site recently highlighted several trans creators to celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility.

From the second link:

Working with me and my team throughout this process will be an outstanding group from the global law firm K&L Gates LLP, including former Congressmen Bart Gordon and Jeff Denham, who bring excellent expertise in the technology sector. The external team that we've brought on for this project will collaborate with our internal US management team to work on several key initiatives:

-Create a committee of outside experts to advise on and review content moderation policies covering a wide range of topics, including child safety, hate speech, misinformation, bullying, and other potential issues.

In its domestic market China has a much tighter leash on what TikTok can show its users, of course, but in America TikTok's social positions are the standard progressivism you will see promoted by any other major American company. If China is putting its thumb on the scale for the U.S. moderation team to engineer American social discord, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the chaos created by Musk simply halting most censorship on Twitter.

and will promote and censor things in accordance with Californian values.

The old Chinese joke about 'Cultural Revolution now being in America' comes to mind.

They probably think they can't make it any worse, is my guess.

chaos created by Musk simply halting most censorship on Twitter.

The kind of 'chaos' created by Twitter is no longer more censorious against people who aren't seriously left-wing is the desirable kind of chaos. You want that.

Perhaps the Chinese learned from the French, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."