And they’re already kissing Trump’s ass
Of course they’re kissing Trump’s ass. How else is anyone gonna get anything done in the next 4 years? American democracy is broken, and under unitary executive theory endorsed by all branches of government the President is basically a king with term limits and no shiny hat. It’s no way to run a country, but it’s where we’re at so why would we expect TikTok to do anything else?
Late to the post, but a friend got this on their phone when they tried opening it again
Pitiful.
Shame.
What the fuck is this game they’re playing
if people can’t go this long without tiktok they’re addicted to social media and it should stay banned
There was kids and teenagers calling 911 because the service was down. I think we’re long past that concern
THIS SHIT MADE ME BURTS OUT LAUGHING
Should see a doctor. I burts out laughing once. 3 month recovery time.
❌
I’m starting to think of Trump as one of those old school firefighters that would set fires and then swoop in to put the fire out lol.
Yeah, but the ban passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, randomly jammed inside of the global military spending package including funding the Ukrainian war effort and the genocide in Gaza (which is a must-support bill for Democrats and Republicans alike I guess).
Otherwise known by the modern term: Grifter
He was one of the first people saying to ban it in 2020. To me it’s more like he is easily swayed with lobbying so it ends up looking like he is a pioneer on pushing new policy when in actuality he is the first person people go to when they need to bribe a politician.
This is not unique to Trump. Politicians say “they changed their views” if there is enough oil to grease wheels.
Except it doesn’t have the capability to put out fires, so it just starts them, then declares having put them out and leaves them burning
He absolutely is. All presidents are.
Those type of firefighters exists in droves still because that is not an old-school thing.
Yeah, fuck the CCP for spying on Americans. The US Government would never do such a thing!
Oh hey look, a strawman!
While there is a logical fallacy here I don’t think it’s a straw man.
It’s some form of two wrongs make a right.
Nobody made the argument they were responding to, they made it themselves and then posted a picture “owning” it
That’s strawmanning
Some call it a what-aboutism, although theres debate on whether its usually fallacious or not. There have been cases illustrated where using what-aboutisms is a proper logical counter, but most the time people just like to shout fallacy at each other so they dont have to think about the point they are making.
Whataboutism is a fallacy when it is used to justify a behavior instead of pointing out hypocrisy itself.
“It’s okay because you do it too” vs “You can’t claim moral superiority in this case because”
Thank you for the examples, thats a concise way to explain it.
I always wanted to ask but haven’t been able to until now…
When you’re building the strawman, do you do it while the straw is still wet and then wait for it to dry or do you wait for the straw to cure first and then build it?
I’d imagine fungus would be a key reason in the choice but I’m still unsure about the process and figured I’d ask an expert…
Thanks in advance!
Fun fact about straw, you have to keep the bales dry, because if they get wet they start to decompose, which generates heat, and since straw traps air, it’s insulating, meaning it can get hot enough to catch fire!
After looking up a few tutorials for making a scarecrow, it looks like using dried filling is best.
Comparing the spying that both of these countries do on innocent citizens, as if they are anything alike, is demented.
It’s not apples to apples. It’s comparing an orange to the sun.
You’re right, the us govt captures all internet traffic, all calls, all texts, and has complete subpoena power for all companies that interact with anything in the us; while deploying drones, planes, and satellites that watch us citizens; while encouraging citizens to sell each other out to the government.
It’s not comparable.
As with all of the people agreeing with the government that created the is graphic, you clearly missed the point of my comment.
Show me a government that has the capability to do that but doesn’t do it. And I’ll show you some other way in which it is significantly deficient.
You all suffer from some significant brainwashing.
So I am assuming most Lemmy people don’t use Tiktok or Meta stuff. Here is some things you may or may not already know.
- Shou (CEO) made a parting video praising Trump on the last day
- Shou will be on the stage with all the other tech billionaires during inauguration
- People have noticed the last couple days that FB and Instagram have had a “link your Tiktok account” so you don’t lose anything on the platform
I think it’s pretty obvious now that Tiktok is going to become a part of Meta one way or another.
People have noticed the last couple days that FB and Instagram have had a “link your Tiktok account”
WTF, how is this not news everywhere?
Tik Tok removed platform access from their US userbase voluntarily.
This was their choice.
The law is literally not even being enforced.
Bytedance’s long-term hope is naturally to be able to continuing operating everywhere without violating any laws. Right? Therefore, their strategy is to stay as compliant as possible with various national laws (within reason), right? Therefore they have to take a conservative reading of the bill (PAFACA). So let’s look at the text of the bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text
(1) PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS.—It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following: […]
Now, the actual distribution of TikTok is done by a U.S. corp, incorporated in California and Delaware. That corp has to stay compliant with these laws. Therefore, to maintain or update or enable the distribution of an app as defined in this bill, is legally punishable. Make sense? Particularly because the law mentions them by name, there is basically zero legal defense against it besides contesting its constitutionality. Which the horrifically corrupt Supreme Court upheld.
So, probably the only way they felt comfortable resuming operations in the U.S. was with some kind of written agreement with the Trump admin - as of yet undisclosed.
Multiple apps must have done so.
That’s what I see when I search for Marvel Snap on the playstore. Someone mentioned it was down as well earlier
Because they are distributed by a company that is owned by Bytedance. You know. The people who own Tik Tok.
Yeah, that’s why I brought that one up
I hear that businesses existing in the face of unenforced laws are really stable and enduring. \s
Large businesses literally operate in conflict with the law until the law directly forces consequences, usually in monetary form. So, until they get caught and are forced not to do the thing. Explain to me why this is any different.
Noteworthy thing I haven’t seen mentioned here: They apparently only removed app access. The website still works just fine.
The website didn’t work from US IPs last night, but it’s back already.
Hey, look over here at the TikTok performative theatrics while we set up an oligarchy and rob you of your labor, your health, and your livelihood.
Tiktoks removel is not a distraction from oligarchy, it is oligarchy in action. This is meta collecting on what they paid congress for.
So wait, you’re complaining cause they did something? But if they had done nothing you’d also be complaining
You see me complaining? I’ve never used TikTok, but the entire controversy around it is just wag-the-dog type distraction.
Spreading for awareness, I’ve been posting this in relevant threads for a week - This is all theater.
trump is going to “save” tik tok after starting the initial push to ban it (for the wrong reasons) to pretend he did something for you. Worst part is that all of the no/low info voters and non voters will eat it up.
It’s the equivalent of a person pushing you into the middle of the street and at the very last second, that same person tells the drivers to all stop. “Wow, I owe you my life!”
And now, this adds two layers:
-
You think trump and the Supreme Court are colluding? now they get to say, nah uh!!! Even though again, this is all convoluted.
-
trump gets to look “stronger” than the “highest court in the land” to help delude the next generation of low info tiktok folks.
P.s. The Chinese “protest” apps are going to mine the FUCK out of these millions of phones in the brief window they have them. Also, when the kids inevitably move back to tiktok, majority of them will leave these other apps installed on their phones, dormant and collecting in the background.
I think there’s an even simpler explanation: political debt to Jeff Yass (15% tiktok owner) and his cash for the 2024 campaign.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-jeff-yass
Trump doesn’t have the power to “save” TikTok.
Removed by mod
You know I could but seeing as you’re being an absolute twat for no reason at all, I’m sure it would be in vain to explain to you how Trump is not (yet) an emperor.
You openly represent yourself as a PhD, a cancer researcher, a college professor, more than that a department chair, with a public relations responsibility to your college… and you’re here in a tiktok thread calling me a twat in an open forum? And all in a passive defense of donald trump?
You literally just fabricated 100% of that. WTF is wrong with you?
Wow, so you’re saying that’s not you… So you’ve STOLEN this man’s identity? Uh oh…
Where how do I report this fake account?
Look out, the internet police has arrived! 👮♀️🚨🚔😂
Stop trying to distract everyone from what a twat you’re being.
Why does Trump need to pretend to do something for you?
Trump has your support no matter what. He will rape children but you’ll line up to vote for him.
With that said he’s already in office. Your opinion is meaningless to him. He already got what he needed from you.
Stop trying to find reason in a situation devoid of reason. You’re clinging to that for personal comfort, if you feel like you can wrap it with a bow, you feel in control of it. You’re not.
He’s a broken narcissist and a psychopath. His dad didn’t love him and told him so. He’ll spend every worthless day of his life trying to get his dead dad to say “I was wrong about you”, and of course, his dad is dead so that won’t happen (wouldn’t have anyway, as that guy was likely an even bigger piece of shit, just not born with money like trump was so didn’t reach the same heights).
So ask yourself why you don’t realize the above. If there’s an end to this presidency, or if say he gets diagnosed with a terminal disease, there’s a non-zero chance he launches all of the nukes with the hope of a worldwide nuclear holocaust - because at the end of the day, if his life was ending, and you told trump he could press a button and be sure that nobody was laughing at him after death, posthumously convicting him of crimes or just pissing on his grave, he’d kill every single person on the chance.
A stranger’s opinion is meaningless to him? Brother, it’s fucking everything to him.
Nice doom posting bro 👍
-
I wish people knew that TikTok being banned was more about it not suppressing posts about Palestine than national security or whatever else they say. Antony Blinken and Mitt Romney outright said last year it was about stopping people from seeing the truth about Israel committing genocide. If the government actually cared about foreign influence operations they’d regulate data privacy and social media algorithms in some way (idk how, but I’m sure you could) but they obviously won’t because US companies manipulating people and stealing their data is totally fine.
If that were true then they wouldn’t have given ByteDance the option to sell 80% to citizens and continue operating.
The law also bans every company from doing the same thing, sending personal data to any of the listed adversarial nations or being more than 20% owned by them. Why ban every company if they only cared about the Palestine message?
If that were true then they wouldn’t have given ByteDance the option to sell 80% to citizens and continue operating.
Except the entire point of that is the U.S. ownership would succumb to that pressure.
*U.S. Citizen Ownership
Because yeah, Chinese Military ownership is problematic for an app used by US Citizens.
Making ByteDance sell 80% to US companies is a win for the powers that be because then that too can be manipulated by right-wing oligarchs.
I don’t trust Chinese companies all that much either, but Mitt Romney outright said this was about Palestine, you can see another reply of mine below with a link.
So how are a ton of people going to red note? Shouldn’t that have been banned a long time ago if they ban every company?
Probably difficult to enforce if RedNote doesn’t have American servers or offices, we will see if anything happens.
How did you go from “foreign influence operations” to “US companies manipulating people”
Facebook and YouTube have for years boosted conservative people and posts/videos: this is fine according to the powers that be.
Russia and no doubt countless others run influence operations through all US social media companies: this is also fine according to the powers that be.
China probably runs influence operations through a Chinese social media company: this is a national security problem that needs to be dealt with!!
The reasons TikTok is maybe being banned are because it’s the only major social media that isn’t suppressing pro-Palestine speech and because it’s not owned by a right-wing US oligarch. Musk is the shadow president, Zuckerberg is blatantly sucking up to Trump, etc etc.
Blinken and Romney. name a more trustworthy duo!
ironic you talk about manipulating people in a comment that’s goal is to…manipulate people.
I don’t trust either of them, but why would they lie about wanting to suppress support for Palestine? And if you don’t believe me, the State Department has them on record saying as much: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-institutes-2024-sedona-forum-keynote-conversation-with-senator-mitt-romney/
SENATOR ROMNEY: A small parenthetical point, which is some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. So I’d note that’s of real interest, and the President will get the chance to make action in that regard.
if your only evidence is two liars that are on the record lying about anything, anything in the record from them can never be considered the truth.
liars lie, regardless of if they tell the truth or not.
And now Trump gets to be the one who saved TikTok, despite starting the process.
It’s an own-goal for Biden - an unpopular law that starts being enforced the day before Trump gets to stop enforcing it.
No one is enforcing it, it’s a play by TikTok. TikTok did it voluntarily. The server is still there, my wife logged in and saw the notice.
It’s just theater.
No one is enforcing it, it’s a play by TikTok. TikTok did it voluntarily
Yup. In fact, Biden had specifically said he will not enforce the ban.
Which, incidentally…might be the same thing Trump does to “unban TikTok” once he takes office. Which is bizarre, on both sides. Like…that’s literally not legal for a president to do. They can’t legally just ignore an Act of Congress.
Not that the law matters in America anymore. The Supreme Court has pretty definitively seen to that.
enforcement is up to the ag, so yea. they could just ‘ignore’ the law.
the only thing the ‘president’ can do is extend the deadline by 90 days given evidence that the company is closing-in on a deal.
with scotus out of the way, ruling in favor of trump’s initial desires, and that which subsequently passed through congress; it is now up to congress to undo the legislation if they so choose.
Not sure that is true though. When I read the law it specifies that the President can choose to block ANY foreign owned social media site that they (as in the president) deems a national security threat. So Trump could in theory say ban RedNote tomorrow and it legally would have to be done. That said… he may be able to just say “bytedance is not considered a national security threat at this time” and that may be enough to let TikTok continue to be in the U.S.
I’d have to read it again to confirm
Edit: nah ByteDance got targeted hard, no dodging that.
DIVISION H-- PROTECTING AMERICANS FROM FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS ACT
Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act
(Sec. 2) This division prohibits distributing, maintaining, updating, or providing internet hosting services for a foreign adversary controlled application (e.g., TikTok). However, the prohibition does not apply to a covered application that executes a qualified divestiture as determined by the President.
Under the division, a foreign adversary controlled application is an application directly or indirectly operated by (1) ByteDance, Ltd., TikTok, their subsidiaries, successors, related entities they control, or entities controlled by a foreign adversary country; or (2) a social media company that is controlled by a foreign adversary country and determined by the President to present a significant threat to national security. (Here, a social media company excludes any website or application primarily used to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.)
enforcement is up to the ag, so yea. they could just ‘ignore’ the law.
In practice, there’s no real mechanism to force it (especially if Congress is unwilling to impeach & convict). But legally speaking, the Take Care clause of the constitution obligates the President (through his executive) to enforce all laws passed by Congress. Ignoring it would be unconstitutional.
When has trump ever cared about the constution?
You’re talking about the guy who wants to end birthright citizenship.
LOL WTF does he care about the constitution? He’s a fucking felon. And clearly no one in government cares about the constitution either.
The executive branch can selectively enforce laws, look at all the weed dispensaries the feds could just waltz into and have a federal case against everyone.
$10 says Trump influenced TikTok to go dark today to make him look better when it turns it back on tomorrow.
We all know they didn’t actually have to do this.
TikTok and its service providers are liable. “No one is enforcing” is meaningless, because they can still be prosecuted retrospectively if the US Government changes its mind.
Yup. They even asked for clarification on the “no enforcement” and the Biden administration basically just said “it is what it is”.
What big company is going to take a risk like that?
What are they risking, exactly? The entire company has essentially been banned from the country, so they have nothing to lose.
Being fined for not doing what the people in power what them to.
Hmmm existing with fines vs. not existing. Quite a dilemma.
What big company is going to risk a fine tomorrow for profit today? Literally all of them?
Not sure why you think it’s an own goal. Biden didn’t set the day for it to take effect, that was written into the law by Congress. You could say it was an own goal because Biden announced he wasn’t going to enforce it, but that seems to be the opposite of what you’re trting to claim And even with that decision to not enforce the law for 1 day before the Trump admin takes over, none of the companies TikTok works with like Apple or Google to list it in the app stores gave a shit about that lack of enforcement because of the uncertainty.
Not to mention Trump being the start of the ban in the first place. He was President when all of this started to work it’s way through the process, even if Biden was the President when it actually made it through Congress, with bipartisan support. Trump only changed positions because he wants TokTok to pay him to continue to allow it to continue.
More Americans have TikTok accounts than vote. For a shitload of normies who have only the vaguest notion of politics and current affairs, the app they’ve been enjoying gets cut off as the defining event of the waning days of the Biden administration. They are not going to care about how Trump tried to do it first, or it was bipartisan, or whatever. It’s hard not to see how this will cost Dems dearly.
No it won’t. Biden is already out of office as far as normies are concerned. He has been since the election, but definitely within 24 hours of inauguration. TikTok stops working and the next thing they see is Trump having a huge party with a shit ton of pomp and circumstance for his inauguration as he gets into the White House. And then TikTok still doesn’t work when they open it up. Maybe he brings it back, maybe he doesn’t. Voters don’t pay enough attention to separate his inauguration and the TikTok ban happening 24 hours apart, they’ll bundle it together as one event.
Unless he gets a massive cash infusion from Bytedance in the next 24 hours, he won’t give TikTok an extension on day one in office. He’s the kind of person that expects his payment up front.
So everyone will instead see it stop working as President Trump takes over, and then it continuing to not work after. Some may give him the benefit of the doubt, but they weren’t ever going to vote for anyone else anyway, he’s their God Emperor President and they’ve confirmed their world view around him being perfect.
Heck, he might try to spin it as some sort of promotional opportunity for Truth Social.
The law isn’t being enforced. TikTok can just put it back up tomorrow and imply it was Trump that did it.
That won’t stop Apple and Google from keeping it pulled from app stores until things are more concrete.
TikTok only blocked access and put that notice up in the app after their partners decided that a statement from the outgoing administration 24 before the transition wasn’t enough for them to not comply with the law.
Well, it definitely looks to have backfired on US government. The politicians figured that they could force Bytedance to divest TikTok using a ban in the US as a threat, assuming that TikTok wouldn’t want to lose access to the US market and the 180 million or so (!) users. Instead of complying, ByteDance did nothing and the politicians and the US government were put into a position of actually enforcing a very unpopular ban.
The timing of course is interesting. This comes right at the end of Biden’s administration, allowing for Trump to swoop in and lift the ban and take all the credit for that. Of course ignoring that is was Trump who originally kicked this whole thing into motion back in 2020 with his executive order to ban TikTok.
As designed by the republicans. There are legitimate reasons to regulate tiktok, if Biden opposed though, they’d say he was a weak Chinese sympathizer, if he complied, they’d do this.
It was a trap where you were fucked either way, as the republican think tank ghouls drew it out.
Didn’t Biden specifically say that enforcement was up to Trump?
Democrats getting played by Republicans, a classic.
https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/tiktok-and-white-supremacist-content/
No wonder why Trump wants to “save” TikTok. It has the stuff Republicans crave.
There’s still loads of bullshit surrounding the name. Hope your personal filters are up to the task the next 4 years.
im baffled by the blase response by lemmy users to government overreach
Same! It is definitively unconstitutional and the us gov just pushed it through anyway (with even supreme court backing it up?!) Shit is crazy, and yet I see a lot of ‘no big loss’ type comments on it.
The SCOTUS decision was wild too, because it was a fucking 9-0 vote. The decision was unanimous. That’s a word that’s virtually never used to describe the SCOTUS or any kind of government vote. That unanimous decision made it perfectly clear that the government knows something we don’t, and that TikTok had them fucking terrified. My bet is on the genocide being much worse than even TikTok was showing, but TikTok was the only place you could see anything about it that didn’t have a massive “Israel is just helping them root out terrorists” spin.
That unanimous decision made it perfectly clear that the government knows something we don’t,
Yeah, they know who pays their checks.
My bet is on the genocide being much worse than even TikTok was showing,
TikTok showed them incinerating an entire civilization. Not sure what you saw on there.
I wonder how much of all this is just the government realizing that social media is the next world-changing weapon.
Why dig out your nukes or your fighter jets to destroy the enemy when you can instead make them like you?
I said exactly that a few days ago. Got downvoted nicely, hope you have better luck.
https://old.lemmy.world/comment/14527149
Your comment made me feel a little more sane.
I didn’t bother following the court case, what were they arguing, freedom of the press?
The law boiled down says any applications from Rushia or China are inherently a security risk and therefore can be banned no questions asked (currently they have to go app by app) which to put it simply is extremely concerning. Straight up US great firewall type shit
Not all apps, review/travel sites get a pass, and the decision is left to the president, which is a dumb way to do it.
DIVISION H-- PROTECTING AMERICANS FROM FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS ACT
Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act
(Sec. 2) This division prohibits distributing, maintaining, updating, or providing internet hosting services for a foreign adversary controlled application (e.g., TikTok). However, the prohibition does not apply to a covered application that executes a qualified divestiture as determined by the President.
Under the division, a foreign adversary controlled application is an application directly or indirectly operated by (1) ByteDance, Ltd., TikTok, their subsidiaries, successors, related entities they control, or entities controlled by a foreign adversary country; or (2) a social media company that is controlled by a foreign adversary country and determined by the President to present a significant threat to national security. (Here, a social media company excludes any website or application primarily used to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.)
Right? 170 million people just get censored by the government.
170 million people
Where’s that number coming from. Maybe you mean the 165 billion installs , but that’s not active users and double counts people installing on multiple devices. Tik tok has 50 million dau Of those maybe 10% is actually “speaking” and creating content that the other 90% consume so around 5 million people.
And those 5 million people aren’t silenced, they can still go on to one of multiple apps that provide the same service and allows them to get there message out. He’ll they could come on to the fediverse and post blatant ccp propaganda and no one will do anything.
Boomer lib shit.
You think silencing half the entire population of the country is boomer lib shit?
Ok, boomer.
TikTok was a Chinese intelligence operation in the end.
It was? How do you figure when no evidence of that was presented to Congress according to congressional members and senators?
so is this your alt account or do you have 11 more floating out there?
Sidestep providing the evidence and go straight for the personal attack. Nice.
I create new accounts when I get bored or when an instance admin turns out to be a little [redacted] and decides to remove my account for being against US propaganda.
where’s all the Chinese government apologists at now?
They’re probably on the tankie instances blaming this on Uyghurs or some shit.
oh no they downvote bombed us!
whatever shall we do?!
Lol. What are they going to besides scream “Read Theory!” at us while crying into their pillows shaped like Stalin’s cock?
I didn’t know pooh bears cock was Stalin shaped!
And nothing of value was lost.
TikTok turned the youth pro Palestine whereas Facebook and Xitter censored it.
And those same youth then gave us an oligarchy, useful fools
The oligarchy has been in charge since before those people were born.
Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand
If TikTok has the power to “turn” youth into pro Palestine, they can also turn the youth pro China when China invades Taiwan.
TikTok is in its expansion phase so it need to show its good will, but as soon as it is large enough, it will seek to do whatever make them the most money, like everyone else.
Time and time again, big-tech controlled social media have intervened and will continue to intervene with public opinion, Meta, Xitter, TikTok, all in their own ways.
If government decide to ban meta tomorrow, will you object as hard as banning tiktok?
If TikTok has the power to “turn” youth into pro Palestine, they can also turn the youth pro China when China invades Taiwan
You’re not making the argument you think you’re making here. Tiktok showed young people the uncensored truth about the genocide. If showing the uncensored truth about Taiwan makes young people want an invasion by China, then it means China is right?
You would honestly believe a giant media conglomerate and one of the most influential tech monopolies in this hyper-capitalistic world shows people completely unbiased news, just out of the goodness of their heart? For their unconditional love towards the vulnerable underaged population that they intentionally attracted?
So let’s instead confine ourselves to social media from western countries which reflects exclusively western bias, whether through censorship as is the case of Meta/X, or through contributions by overwhelmingly white western men as is the case of Lemmy. Just look at politics.world and see what country most linked articles are from.
Maybe, just maybe, having more diverse options, including social media from other countries not subjected to western bias, could be good? That way maybe you can see some realities hidden by the Chinese government heavily publicised in western social media, and viceversa
In principle yes, but it is in general dangerous to think that social media can be a learning moment and people should use whatever pushed to them to guide their behavior.
The content is eventually controlled by several monopolies and will serve their own good. As social media are natural monopolies, it is also really hard to build ethical platforms that competes with the ones backed by capital.
Westerners are priviliaged to have a diverse and free news/media landscape, non-profits pushing for truthful and accessible knowledge, and world-class educational institutions. I, as a Chinese, have never experienced such when growing up.
Yet, I see people insist a giant Chinese tech monopoly is their best learning experience, instead of resorting to more time-proven, unbiased, and trust-worthy ways to learn. Doesn’t this sound dangerous to you?
Westerners are priviliaged to have a diverse and free news/media landscape, non-profits pushing for truthful and accessible knowledge, and world-class educational institutions
Bullshit. Westerners fall for western propaganda as much as anyone. Most on Lemmy were certain that the submarine cables were destroyed by the Russians on purpose, turns out the consensus isn’t the case. Most on Lemmy were certain that Nordstream was blown up by Russian, turned out not to be the case. Most on Lemmy believe there’s an ongoing genocide against Uyghur people, turns out it’s not the case. Most on Lemmy believe there was a massacre in Tiananmen square (good luck asking them to spell it) because the CPC sent the PLA to murder protestors, instead of a clash between protestors and military which happened after weeks of pro-capitalist protests and started after protestors murdered some military personnel in negotiation attempts. Most on Lemmy are willing to forgive the support for Genocide in Gaza to the US and its constant imperialism and aren’t willing to do the same for other countries.
You’re just being extremely chauvinist and ignorant about the quality of information in the west, and unaware of the manufacture of consent and the fabrication of false information and narratives.
resorting to more time-proven, unbiased, and trust-worthy ways to learn
Which are these unbiased ways to learn you talk about? Can you provide me any examples?
Tell that to the millions of American small businesses that thrived on the app. Billions of tax revenue just vanished.
I see this sentiment a lot but I don’t understand, which small business are doing all of their business exclusive on TikTok?
It’s less about only doing business on TikTok (there are many, however), but of all the other social media platforms, they get more engagement and sales from TikTok. (Ask yourself how many people are successfully selling their products and services on Lemmy, for example)
It allows people to make chained response videos that also shows their work, as well as illuminating the personality and goals of the people who run the business.
Connectivity between videos, with video responses to comments, is a powerful tool that TikTok does better, and it’s created a boon for many who are self employed.
When 170 million Americans are using the platform, your level of exposure skyrockets.
Ask yourself how many people are successfully selling their products and services on Lemmy, for example
I’m still stuck on asking how many people are successfully selling their products and services on TikTok.
Like, what businesses are these and what are they selling? I wouldn’t imagine any of these social media platforms would be good for selling anything on. What’s an example of something I could go on TikTok and buy? I couldn’t imagine buying anything on any social media platform. I’ve never even seen anyone selling anything on any social media platform. How would I even do that if I wanted to?
Oh, no. Someone think of the pink sauce lady and dildo sellers!
And Quality Patch, Mr Seems, various actual artists who showcase and sell their work, candle makers, authors, wood artisans, leather and metal workers, and everyone else who was doing well and making good products.
Your flippance shows you know noting.
Yeah, that was quite inhumane of me. How can I hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from werewolf gangbang authors and used underwear merchants and not despair?
I did some research and now I know why Trump wants to “save” TikTok.
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-tiktok-courted-conservatives-before-trumps-win
https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/tiktok-and-white-supremacist-content/
This one is especially damning:
TikTok is spending $50,000 on an inauguration party honoring influencers who helped Donald Trump spread his campaign message, according to the party organizer — and it’s scheduled for Sunday, the deadline for the company to spin off from its China-based owner or be banned in the U.S.
CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to attend.
$50,000
lol peanuts aren’t that damning… Capital in USA is spending millions and millions on Trump’s inauguration.
50k gets you an “I’ll see what I can do” .
Well yeah, it’s no secret that TikTok had a white supremacy problem. There was a researcher who discovered that they could make a brand new account and (by only interacting with certain types of content) get white supremacists on their For You page within 20 minutes. Algorithmic feeds are funny like that, because they just gauge engagement. The algorithm isn’t making any moral decisions on whether the engaging content is socially acceptable. For better or worse, it just goes “this person likes this content, so I’ll show them more.”
