TikTok Algorithm To Be Retrained On US User Data Under Trump Deal (bbc.com) 37
The Trump administration has struck a deal requiring TikTok's algorithm to be copied, retrained, and operated in the U.S. using only U.S. user data, with Oracle auditing the system and U.S. investors forming a joint venture to oversee it. The BBC reports: It comes after President Donald Trump said a deal to prevent the app's ban in the US, unless sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance, had been reached with China's approval. White House officials claim the deal will be a win for the app's US users and citizens. President Trump is expected to sign an executive order later this week on the proposed deal, which will set out how it will comply with US national security demands.
The order will also outline a 120-day pause to the enforcement deadline to allow the deal to close. It is unclear whether the Chinese government has approved this agreement, or begun to take regulatory steps required to deliver it. However, the White House appears confident it has secured China's approval. Data belonging to the 170m users TikTok says it has in the US is already held on Oracle servers, under an existing arrangement called Project Texas. It saw US user data siphoned off due to concerns it could fall into the hands of the Chinese government.
A senior White House official said that under President Trump's deal, the company would take on a comprehensive role in securing the entirety of the app for American users. They said this would include auditing and inspecting the source code and recommendation system underpinning the app, and rebuilding it for US users using only US user data.
The order will also outline a 120-day pause to the enforcement deadline to allow the deal to close. It is unclear whether the Chinese government has approved this agreement, or begun to take regulatory steps required to deliver it. However, the White House appears confident it has secured China's approval. Data belonging to the 170m users TikTok says it has in the US is already held on Oracle servers, under an existing arrangement called Project Texas. It saw US user data siphoned off due to concerns it could fall into the hands of the Chinese government.
A senior White House official said that under President Trump's deal, the company would take on a comprehensive role in securing the entirety of the app for American users. They said this would include auditing and inspecting the source code and recommendation system underpinning the app, and rebuilding it for US users using only US user data.
National comparison (Score:3)
Re:National comparison (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:National comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:National comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
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How soon until masked goons show up at your house because you call him a shit head?
Re: National comparison (Score:2)
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The telephone is so impersonal. I prefer the hands-on touch you only get with hired goons [youtube.com]
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I'm here. They're late.
This thread has been reported by Palantir (Score:2)
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It seams hypocrisy is competently lost on you.
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That was the main problem that politicians had with TikTok. Not the Chinese ownership, the fact that TikTok politics, driven by the users, are mostly left wing.
It's not a product of the owership or even the algorithm, it's a product of capitalism failing the younger generations.
That doesn't work either (Score:2)
If you start trying to take out the left wingers you start taking out a lot of popular content because most people lean left without realizing they're doing it. It's probably only about 30% of the population that want everything to be shit for everyone but them and their family.
So what you're doing there is the connections you need to make your algorithm work You're actively breaking them and your whole algorithm breaks down and the content jus
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The US version will suggest videos of teenage girls twerking. So, pretty much like the old US version.
Typical Trump deal (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it was Ed McMahon who said he wants to real estate deal with Trump and he sat down and Trump just talked and talked and talked and talked and when he was done McMahon had gotten absolutely everything he wanted and Trump got nothing.
It doesn't matter where the algorithm is stored. And of course they have us specific training in their algorithm.
Then again if the heritage foundation goons got involved in this like they usually do they probably got some back door concessions that allow right-wing content to be prioritized.
The problem with that is every time they do something like that inevitably it just brings the Nazis right to the top of the algorithm.
The problem is the dog whistles. The right wing uses dog whistles to pipeline people from just watching a Fox News affiliate all the way into the hardcore stuff. Because it's all the same dog whistles the algorithm doesn't know any better and it starts picking up the connections.
Basically dog whistle number one leads into dog whistle number two which leads into number three and four until your knee deep in white supremacy.
For a human being that process takes years maybe even decades but of course a machine is much faster so it's short circuits that and it's "whoops all Nazis" before you know it.
Pre-Musk Twitter famously had to manually moderate white supremacist content because when they used an algorithm they couldn't stop it from going after Republican politicians and flagging them because they were using the same dog whistles and the algorithm doesn't care that they are a senator or a house rep.
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Also while Musk was booted from the admin and he has spent that time insinuating on his personal social media site that Trump is probably accused in the Epstein files but they were both sitting and smiling at the fascist memorial event. Guess it's not that big a deal.
These people are liars and should not be believed by anyone. They think we're stupid and we're proving them right.
Text to speech is a harsh Mistress (Score:2)
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Which US data? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ant bets that the deal specifies WHICH US data it is trained on? None of the liberal stuff, just right wing data. I think TikTok is going to end up being the video version of twitter really quickly.
Re: Which US data? (Score:2)
I mentioned it on another comment (Score:5, Insightful)
For those that don't know are Nazi bar is a thought experiment from a journalist. The story goes a journalist walks into a bar gets a drink and then a couple of Nazis walk in. Not outright schwastikas but the kind of jacket patches that tell everybody they're Nazi except maybe the normies.
Bartender freaks out and kicks the two out immediately. The journalist asks why he didn't just let them drink.
Bartender says yeah they'll be polite but they'll bring their friends and their friends will bring their friends and pretty soon they won't be so polite and pretty soon they'll be wearing swastikas out in open. Once that happens you're a Nazi bar.
It's the whole paradox of tolerance. You can't tolerate the intolerant.
Algorithms have a really hard time with it because they don't have any nuance really. Nazis use dog whistles like those jacket patches that aren't swastikas but still want everybody know you're a Nazi if you wear them.
The idea is you've got layers of dog whistles that are less and less abstract as you get further into the right wing and white supremacist world.
The trouble is an algorithm is going to shred right through that. It knows that when somebody says they are concerned about inner city crime that means they're talking about black people committing crimes and it knows that the phrase welfare Queen was specifically designed to link to gays and blacks as a sort of racist shorthand.
So if you start seeing a bunch of that stuff online the algorithm doesn't know not to start following the linkages from the less obvious dog whistles to the actual literal Nazis with swastikas praising hitler. It will quickly start putting that stuff in your feed if you do a few of the right kind of searches.
Worse there are tons of professionally paid influencers that exist to pipeline vulnerable people especially young men into extremism. So is a dude if you start searching for dude stuff you're going to come across them and it isn't long before the algorithm picks up on that and starts moving you along the pipeline one way or another.
A buddy of mine is in the Roman history and hardcore tactical strategy games like the beer and pretzels kind and up. And it's really hard for him to keep right wing extremism out of his YouTube feed because a lot of those guys were linked into that stuff so the algorithm just starts offering it up.
YouTube has a shit ton of manual moderation to cut the pipeline off right before they get to obvious white supremacy. But a social media site like tiktok usually doesn't have quite that much manual moderation.
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Take YouTube as a perfect example: I do not, have not, and never will look for religious content on their website nor using their app. No one in my household (i.e.: from our IP address) would do similar searches. Yet about half way through 2023 we both started to inexplicably get YouTube content shown to us of a religious nature. This was in our main w
This is just security theater (Score:1)
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Agreed, and to add to the parent. Can you imagine being a senior engineer involved in this. If you find out the process does work as advertised, there are back doors, or the code is BS. You won't be able to tell anyone. The 'deal' is done, its been announced at the White House. The (currnetly) richest guy in the world and the president are saying its a success. You or your boss would at best be ignored, at worst fired.
We're definitely in 3.6 Roentgen land now.
First AI (Score:2)
Hello, TwitterTok.. (Score:2)
TikTok? Huh? (Score:1)
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You are obviously over 26.
Re: TikTok? Huh? (Score:1)
finally a reason to quit TikTok (Score:2)
I don't want to be a part of anything that Donald Trump has had a hand in doing. He is a child raping creep.
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Hey, *enshittification is real*. Everything Trump touches turns to shit.
No one online seems interested in acknowledging (Score:2)
That the primary motivator towards forcing the sale wasn't the algorithm as such, it was the probability that the PRC would use TikTok as a propaganda tool.