Majority of Americans Say TikTok Is a Threat to US National Security (variety.com) 118
According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, the majority of Americans (59%) say TikTok is a threat to the national security of the United States. Variety reports: The findings from Pew Research Center's survey of U.S. adults come as TikTok, the popular short-form video app owned by Chinese internet conglomerate ByteDance, continues to be targeted by American lawmakers wary over its ties to China and how TikTok handles user data. Just 17% of Americans say the platform is not a threat to national security, while 23% say they are unsure, per the Pew survey.
Opinions about the national security threat posed by TikTok differ by political affiliation and age. Roughly 70% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say TikTok is either a minor or major threat to national security in the U.S., compared with 53% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. The perception of TikTok as a threat also varies by age: Just 13% of adults 18-29 say TikTok is a "major" threat; that rises to 24% among those 30-49, 35% among those 50-64; and 46% among Americans 65 and older.
Not surprisingly, adults who do not use TikTok are more likely than those who do to consider it a national security risk. Among non-users, 65% say the app is a security threat, including 36% who view it as a major threat. Among TikTok users, just 9% see it as a major threat and about one-third say it's a minor threat. The Pew survey was conducted May 15-21, 2023. [...] A survey Pew Research Center conducted in March found that 50% of Americans support a U.S. government ban on TikTok, while 22% were opposed and 28% were unsure.
Opinions about the national security threat posed by TikTok differ by political affiliation and age. Roughly 70% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say TikTok is either a minor or major threat to national security in the U.S., compared with 53% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. The perception of TikTok as a threat also varies by age: Just 13% of adults 18-29 say TikTok is a "major" threat; that rises to 24% among those 30-49, 35% among those 50-64; and 46% among Americans 65 and older.
Not surprisingly, adults who do not use TikTok are more likely than those who do to consider it a national security risk. Among non-users, 65% say the app is a security threat, including 36% who view it as a major threat. Among TikTok users, just 9% see it as a major threat and about one-third say it's a minor threat. The Pew survey was conducted May 15-21, 2023. [...] A survey Pew Research Center conducted in March found that 50% of Americans support a U.S. government ban on TikTok, while 22% were opposed and 28% were unsure.
Not that worried anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
Lately my wife is spending lots of time on TikTok - and so have her friends. Now if I've learned anything about the internet over these past 20 years, it's that the kids start fleeing any platform once the old people show up.
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China, China, China, China. China bad. China virus. Tax China.
Mmmmkay?
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Information warfare is a tactic that can allow an adversarial entity to increase internal divisions, strife, and eventually lead a population to fight itself or to get involved in a war they otherwise would not get involved in.
As a non-American looking objectively I don't think you need China to provoke or promote any of those things. You seem to be doing fine all on your own.
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Americans are stupid. So many things so much more important than this it is ridiculous.
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Most Americans are stupid. So many things so much more important than this it is ridiculous.
Actually, what surprises me is that there are independent Americans, who affiliate with neither the Republicans nor the Democrats.
It's almost as if there's room for more than the two political parties there...
Re:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I am in neither party. I'm 55 and I have never seen a candidate here worth a damn. It's about time for a revolution, I just don't think it will turn out like everyone hopes.
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Re: So? (Score:4)
It will probably end democracy. The last attempts to ignore a democratic vote went unpunished. The next attempt could be bolder. The one after that successful.
Yes, Mr. T. should have gone to jail (Score:2)
That is what you were referring to, right?
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The last attempts to ignore a democratic vote went unpunished.
That sounds almost like commentary about Russia and Wagner recently.
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Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's almost as if there's room for more than the two political parties there...
Not until we change our voting system to something other than first past the post. First past the post always will ultimately result in 2 main parties with an additional acting as spoilers. Ranked choice, Range, Star/Approval are all superior and allow for additional parties to exist without the spoiler effect.
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Then there needs to be a group of citizens who work together to defame and character murder both parties, or members of the parties. The parties must be destroyed first.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then there needs to be a group of citizens who work together to defame and character murder both parties, or members of the parties. The parties must be destroyed first.
One party is running a horrendous conman sexual abuser currently facing multiple felonies as their main candidate, who also tried to overthrow the self-proclaimed world's greatest democracy, and it looks like a not insignificant portion of the public will vote for him.
There is no destruction to be had here. It doesn't matter how low you bring them, there's nothing you can do to defame them anymore than they are already defaming themselves. And people will still vote for them.
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And yet...the incumbent running again is still even a worse choice....
And by turning this into a partisan discussion you've proven my point. I didn't say the democrats were better, but here you just said were you to vote you'd pick the candidate, ... with a description you didn't even disagree with.
As I said, there is no low point too low that would prevent petty partisan politics from voting for their candidate. Thanks for confirming.
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I've seen what the current choice is doing and it's bad....right now I'd vote for a small soap dish over the current admin.
The only person I fear who could cause more damage than Biden...is his #2.
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They could also be people like me, who study history, didn't forget Jan. 6 happened with no consequences to those in power who attempted it, and realized that if the Republicans ever get control again, they will never, ever let go without bloodshed regardless of any subsequent law or vote.
In that America, being a registered Democrat would become a very bad thing far more quickly than people realize. It's safer to be a registered independent.
It's not the most probable outcome, but it definitely has a double
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The average person on Earth is pretty stupid. You shouldn't take it too personally that stupid Americans currently rule over you. You're simply a victim of statistics.
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The majority of Americans cannot find the US in the world map.
The majority of Americans never had a passport and never set foot outside of the country.
The majority of Americans simply think what the media tell them to think.
The majority of Americans had been brainwashed to accept anything can be a "threat to national security".
After years of smear campaign against Tiktok, it would have been news if a poll showed the majority of Americans isn't scared of Tiktok.
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The majority of Americans had been brainwashed to accept anything can be a "threat to national security".
That's subjective, do you have any proof?
Yeah. The Gulf of Tonkin. Iraq WMDs. The nameless, faceless "terror" defined as the enemy to help perpetuate the last 20-year conflict. And now a fucking childrens app.
Educate yourself a bit on history next time. There's a reason President Eisenhower warned an entire nation about the growing threat known as the Military Industrial Complex. You don't get a nation to champion warmongering like that without some good old fashioned mind-fuckin'.
I'm not america, but you definitely an idiot.
Settle down. You're only a moron human proving how ignorant
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2. May be true for "most" for some value of most, but for the UK
The current population of U.K. in 2023 is 67,736,802
Number of British citizens with valid passport: 49,981,699
So that looks like 73%
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Some crappy poll showed that most people who bother to answer it (i.e. those with nothing better to do) believe in stupid things. Is this representative of opinion at large? I doubt it.
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Yeah I figure tiktok is as much a threat to national security as facebook, twitter, instagram, and other big social media services.
It all treats people the same way, and many people seem to get into echo chambers / go crazy over stupid shit using those services.
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NSA can't bug TikTok (yet) ? (Score:1)
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Yea, I think that's the elephant in the room, tiktok is the one social media app that comes to mind, that has a lot of users, and has a chance of being outside the NSA's ability to coerce or control via the owners, since they're in China...
I agree. Convince me NSA, CIA, FBI, and friends aren't tapping Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, cell phone location data, and all the other technology we use every day and then I'll start worrying about being observed by the Chinese government.
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The NSA can get whatever it wants from your phone, which has an entire processor in it that the manufacturer is literally not allowed to give you access to, on the basis that if you could tamper with it you could make the radio do unapproved things to the cellular network. This is for five eyes.
whats the poll data? (Score:2)
So, that means to get to "the Majority says that its a threat" means they mostly polled people age 50+?
Re:whats the poll data? (Score:5, Informative)
No. You could follow the first link, which has a nice picture at the top with a graphical representation of the survey results.
Among adults 18-29, 13% say it is a "major" threat and roughly 36% say it's a minor threat, for a total of 49% who say it's a threat. Among adults 30-49, 59% say it's a threat. The two older groups are at 64% and 65%, so not much different from the 30-49 group. Somewhat more interesting is how much difference there is in the fractions of people (grouped by age) who say "not a threat", rather than "threat" or not sure.
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China isn't nearly as big a threat to US citizens as the US federal government is to it's own citizens.
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Well, presumably we could, in theory, do something about our local problems. Worrying about China and TicTok just seems like distracting us from our very real local problems. The proverbial "enemy at the gate".
Our government would much rather wave it's hands around and have you believe that Russia, China, North Korea and Iran hate your freedoms and therefore want you dead. That's the perpetual enemy at the gate.
The reality is they want us distracted from all the bullshit they are doing here. It's why our tw
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The ""the Majority says that its a threat"" type phrases are complete bollox, how many of that majority has IT security experience to make that claim?
You realise opinions are not restricted to subject matter experts right? You're off topic and looking for a different survey. Come back and join us in our discussion about the general public when you're ready.
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Tok Tok is the #1 news source for most of the US population, unseating Fox News as of a few years ago.
Citation?
Majority of Americans (Score:2)
Re: Majority of Americans (Score:2)
So many people see this, but the politics becomes less about politics and more about loyalty every year.
That is worrying (Score:5, Insightful)
All those nil-wits parroting something they do not understand and are unable to verify. Sheep, the lot of them. Sounds to me like people like that are much more of a threat.
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Propaganda has always been effective.
Western companies must be pleased that all the focus is off them for now. Facebook in particular.
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All those nil-wits parroting something they do not understand and are unable to verify. Sheep, the lot of them.
Everyone is a sheep and armchair expert when presented with a simple survey question without any accountability.
You're not better. You've an opinion of these people but you're no psychologists.
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but you're no psychologists.
Indeed. I have still yet not mastered the art of being more than one expert at something.
More accurately... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Tok Tok is the #1 news source for most of the US population, unseating Fox News as of a few years ago.
What I recall from about a decade ago was that: (a) by a huge margin, the only people watching cable news were watching FOX; (b) hardly anyone in the country watches any cable news at all. Also around that time there was a claim that most people got their news from Facebook.
It's been a while and I am not sure about the truth of those claims. You suggest that until last year, "most people" got their news from FOX. Do you have something to back that up with?
I also find it hard to believe that most now get the
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I'd like to think you're trolling someone by spelling it TicTok, rather than TikTok, but whom? Yourself?
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Agreed. If TikTok is a threat then so is Instagram and every other app.
I personally don't use social media at all and would never install any of these apps, but I don't have any illusions about the fact that my personal information is being hoovered up by a hundred other vectors.
To single one app out is really quite silly. All major companies, these days, are multi-national and even if they weren't, are US companies that much more trustworthy than any other? I think that they have proven themselves not to b
Threats to national security (Score:5, Insightful)
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Unfortunately, they are a protected class.
*Glances over at the President and Vice President*
*Looks back at You*
(Silent Majority) "We The People, simply cannot imagine how you came to that...horrifically accurate conclusion..."
Clickbait garbage. (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when is the opinion of an idiot beastmob of tech illiterates worthy of Slashdot? Desperate for space filler much?
Re: Clickbait garbage. (Score:2)
Since technology advanced to a point that it can program people to hold certain views.
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Since when is the opinion of an idiot beastmob of tech illiterates worthy of Slashdot?
Are you kidding? The opinion of a majority on a tech subject, even if they don't have a clue about it is incredibly relevant. These people vote and have the power to sway policy in ways that affects us.
There's no action more stupid than to ignore the power of a mob of stupid people.
Facebook, Google, Twitter (Score:1)
These people only know what the media has told (Score:3)
So what? (Score:1)
Statitsstics (Score:2)
Also, a majority of Americans thing McDonalds is good food.
A chicken's panic (Score:2)
I'm sure a majority of US Americans think water causes drowning: Both factoids, don't give us a to-do list. This is Chicken Little thinking, and like the apocryphal chicken, one should examine the rest of the sky (social media) before demanding a panic.
In this case, examining social media will reveal a multitude of threats that may or may not include national security.
The other 41% (Score:2)
never heard of it.
It worked! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Tell everyone TikTok is a threat to national security for several months
2. Pass laws against TikTok citing national security threats
3. Tell everyone that your passing laws against TikTok because it's a threat to national security
4. Conduct poll asking people if they think TikTok is a threat to national security
5. Tell everyone that they think TikTok is a threat to national security
BTW, did you know that it's been claimed that TikTok is a threat to national security?
Re:It worked! (Score:4, Insightful)
In more ways than one (Score:2)
This anecdote about a recent experience illustrates how people can be hugely influenced by influencers+social media (TikTok being fingered as the culprit in this instance).
Over the weekend I picked up some necessities at my local big-chain drugstore (the equivalent of, in my non-USA country). While there, I also looked for Xxxx, a natural product (unnamed to protect the guilty). Could not see any and in the last aisle I stopped two shop assistants to ask them where the Xxxx was kept.
"All out of stock," th
nothing will happen (Score:1)
Ridiculous (Score:2)
Threat to National Security, no
Threat to intelligence and threat to the immensely stupid? Yes. But we need Darwin to work harder.....
...about the same number as believe in Evolution . (Score:2)
But this means nothing about Evolution, and nothing about weather TikTok is a security threat ...
Another quarter in the "Trump was right" jar (Score:1)
Seriously, I should be able to afford a telsa with this jar by the end of the year.
In what way is Tik Tok a security threat ? (Score:1)
Excellent study (Score:2)
I see this study used the gold standard for determining security risk in a technological product - the public survey.
Let's ask them about quantum mechanics next, this quantum gravity problem should be solved in no time, and at the same level of agreement with reality as this survey.
A much better summary would have been "Old people still afraid of new technology and whatever teenagers are into."
Major threat users? (Score:2)
"Among TikTok users, just 9% see it as a major threat"
And yet they still use it? Are they conscious traitors or just that stupid?
Also (Score:2)
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I am a life long American and I can tell you from the inside that you are onto something...
It is amazing foreign experts didn't write a paper on it sooner after visiting the USA; it took Dunning-Kruger finally write a paper on it but foreign academics likely dismissed what they saw just as tourists did as "being American." Technology also has amplified stupid with about half the USA being obviously delusional; and the other half being slightly more delusional than normal.
Tiktok is not a threat (Score:1)
...it's the people that USE tiktok that are a threat, obviously.
Tiktok itself is no more a 'threat to security' itself than Angry Birds or Freecell is/was.
According to a study at the top nursing homes (Score:1)
Brainwashing works (Score:2)
How many of these people were able to explain in what way TikTok threatens the US national security?
Of course it is. How is this a question? (Score:2)
Next question is "Why is it a threat?" (Score:1)
Most will just stare at you and say "because some reporter said so". Just another example of news blowing something our of proportion to the size of the issue. Any why do they do it, because fear rules the media and sells!
In Other News (Score:2)
Majority of Chinese Say Facebook Is A Threat To National Security
(And a majority of slashdotters agree)
Difference is, the chinese did some thing other than wring their hands.
Mockingbird media poll says... (Score:1)
...government needs more censorship power. In order to enhance the user experience, of course.
In fact this administration is arguing in court [courtlistener.com] that they only want to "prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes" by being able to tell social media companies whose accounts need to be squelched and what news stories need to be suppressed.
Tik-tok is just the latest 'Alex Jones' low-hanging fruit, because the fascists that call themselves "democratic" want control over all popular chann
Majority is highly regarded (Score:2)
TikTok is only app providing basic privacy to user (Score:1)
Stop It... (Score:1)
Re:Methodology (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they even use Tik Tok, or and have they ever used Tik Tok? How do you have an opinion about something you don't even use, or have never used.
That's a hilarious way to turn around the interrogation. "Are you now using, or have you ever used, TicTok?"
Of course they know what TicTok is. It's not like spinach: you don't need to try it to know whether you would like some or not. It's like a half-dozen other social media apps that they're familiar with that they may or may not choose to use.
They think it's a threat because they've been told it collects their personal information for the CCP, mfor nefarious purposes against the USA. Which is quite true. Are your weird insults calculated to suggest otherwise?
Then you seem to suggest that even if TicTok is CCP spyware, everyone should use it, because after all, the NSA spied on citizens.
What's your rank, anyway?
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Outside of government associated devices (which should have NO SOCIAL MEDIA apps/connections period, I don't care what the provider is), I have no problem with Tiktok mostly because they are not doing anything different that other companies do.. its just a question of WHO is doing it that people have an issue with which could be addressed at the federal level by instituting some form of privacy policies/laws similar to what Europe has (it won'
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How do you have an opinion about something you don't even use, or have never used.
One of the answer options was "not sure". The 65+ category was overrepresented in that answer. Please try and understand what is going on before talking out of your arse.