This reductionism to "exposure to ideas" is absolutely absurd. TikTok and any other algorithmic feed isn't problematic because it exposes anyone to anything. They're problematic because those feeds can be used to actively shape behavior.

Shaping behavior is not very difficult if you have a lot of information about someone and control of what they see for hours a day. If shaping behavior didn't work no social media company would make the billions of dollars that they do. TikTok fads wouldn't exist if it was just a simple exposure to ideas.

TikTok in particular is worth targeting because of the way state security laws work in China. There's no legal issues with the state apparatus accessing company data. There's no judicial review. The state just has access to companies' back ends.

Since we know social media feeds can shape personal behavior and China can exert any control they want over Chinese companies, it's not a logical leap to realize a state hostile to interests of the North America and Europe having control over something people use for hours a day is a bad thing.

There's a whole cohort of the population for who TikTok is their primary source of "news". Their world view is shaped by what's presented to them. They're not "exposed to ideas" but targeted with specific narratives. Because all users have different targeting you may never see the same sort of feed as the person sitting next to you.

If you look at the arc of that very motivated thinking, and if you look at the work that the US government did to try and implement the kind of control you're describing here, I feel the only correct conclusion is that it's almost impossible to actually fabricate what folks think with any systematic success.

The best you can do is, maybe, "Coke is it", and even that is more of a product of peoples' material tastes and dislike of New Coke.

I don't think there actually is much evidence to support the idea that "social media feeds can shape personal behavior" in the granular and targeted way that you (and many folks) are implying here, in which someone's worldview is shaped for the short-term goals of XYZ actor.

I think you probably understand this, which is why you hedge into the abstract idea that social media is simple "shaping" via altering a statistical means.

I agree that it is possible to expose extant impulses as "legitimate" in ways that open folks to acting differently (I certainly wish I had understood how flexible gender expression could be when I was 14 instead of 40- I would have probably led a much different life). I think that kind of exposure to larger communities really does have an effect on people, because it certainly had an effect on people.

However, I find that to be very different than creating impulses that aren't there- I think that kind work requires, for instance, a system of bullies in school to beat folks when they don't conform to "accepted" gender roles.

But even if it were true that actors could create ideas, it begs an obvious question: how do you tell the difference between your "authentic" views and the "implanted" ideas of the media you consume?

I (personally) don't think that you (personally) have completely had your opinions actively shaped by some state actors.

I think a historical dialect merges our lived experiences with the communication we get from the folks around us: fundamentally we are drawing conclusions based on information from our surroundings in toto. Since it's very difficult to get people to ignore their lived experiences for very long, and the cost of doing that work requires the largest military and prison system in the 300k year long history of homo sapiens, I have a hard time believe that "media" can do that work very effectively. Doubly so in a world where there are multiple televisual streams and no one takes the NY Times seriously.

But if it were possible to easily, through media, manipulate whole populations, it really does beg that question stated above:

if "brainwashing" is possible, why haven't you assumed that you personally, have been the long-term target of those kinds of programs by the state which rules you?

Yes.