Pathetic watching ancient, feeble rich people about to return to the dust from whence they came still frantically positioning to boost their ego scores.
It’s as if they believe their preferred invisible sky mommy/daddy will accept a bribe of earthly currency.
Well, as it is what her husband did for a living his entire very successful life, but sure the Lady you don't like is wrong for him doing his job well.
As she didn't join Politics until '87, guess they invented communicating to with their past selves, lmao. If you've got any proof, kindly advise the FBI. Where as you've none, head on back to peddle that shit to fux nooz.
Christ, am I supposed to memory hole that Pelosi’s husband making a shit ton of money off stocks THREE YEARS AGO is what led to a round of antitrust bills getting introduced? Is there literally any criticism of these rich fucks you can hear without immediately shrieking about conservatives?
Well, you are shit holing that he made a shit ton of money before her first Campaign. So perhaps instead of doubling down upon your unsubstantiated right wing bull shit propaganda, actually check what happened. But you won't Instead you'll go on pretending you didn't know that folks with a shit ton of money go on to make more shit tons of money so you can maintain your delusional belief in fux newbs' distraction.
A: which is why him having a ton of money he made more with isn't a relevant condemnation of the woman.
B: his having a shit ton of money already helps a hell of a lot more so fuck off with your unsubstantiated claim.
C: at no point did I remotely suggest she did so fuck off with your attempt to imagine things to argue about since you've not a leg to stand upon.
Congressional Representatives and Senators are shielded from most insider trading laws. She could literately buy in, flip the SEC the bird, and go on her merry way.
It wasn’t put to a vote after being read aloud on two separate introductions. It was then forwarded to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee where it went to die.
It’s a catch-22. To get elected, you need to learn to manipulate within the system. Once elected, you know how to leverage the system, so why would you change it?
The best chance we’ll have for systemic change will come when boomers die off. That shouldn’t discourage efforts today, but impart some hope for the future.
I want to believe that the most change will happens when boomers are gone, but I don’t trust that the new era of politicians won’t get caught up in the game.
I’d be fine if they were allowed to invest in things like mutual funds so that they could take advantage of the market without being able to do insider trading of a specific stock.
Fun fact: Everyone with hundreds of millions+ in holdings either trades with insider information or pays others to do it, because our metrics and enforcement for insider trading are a gallows joke.
That’s not true. It’s still illegal even though they get away with it. You’re thinking of bribery lobbying.
According to the STOCK Act of 2012, they could be brought up on charges for a trade performed after gaining knowledge of a pending change in legislation that would affect the value of a stock, prior to the legislation being publicly enacted. The SEC just hasn’t charged them.
What they do is not legal, they just live above the law.
That doesn’t change the law. It’s simply evidence that Congress lives above it. Seven Democrat Senators cosponsored a bill in September to ban the practice entirely. It died at introduction.
You have a philosophy around what laws are and what they mean that is incongruent with reality.
What is the word we use when people have believes that don’t match up with the previous or future state of things?
Laws on paper are only one aspect of what a law is. How those laws are interpreted and how they are enforced matter far, far more. Law is what is applied and enforced. If something is a ‘law’ but is not enforced, then its not really law.
And its fine that you have a different philosophy around what the law means. I just don’t find it particularly useful because it doesn’t predict the past, present, or future states of the world.
While I’m flattered that you’d take the time to make a meme for me, it probably would’ve taken you far less time to research insider trading law as it applies to members of Congress.
You make it easy considering you are making my points for me. If you are trying to make a point about hubris by just being more arrogant, what exactly is the argument you are making?
And on that, you haven’t outlined anything that’s worth even discussing. I made the argument that laws are only as meaningful as they’ve are applied. Its likely you don’t even recognize the assumptions of your argument being an extension of legal positivism, theoretically described by legal philosophers like Austin and Hart. But the problem with Austin and Hart? Their philosophy (legal positivism) doesn’t predict the past, the future, or even the present. Legal positivism isn’t how the world works. To quote Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”
This is called legal realism for those in the cheap seats, and its an effort to understand the law as its applied: which is to say, to understand the law as it actually works.
Whats on the books is irrelevant. What matters is what happens. It doesn’t matter if there is a law preventing anything if it doesn’t get applied.
Edit response to your edit response: Please, keep showing me that you don’t understand what you are talking while you make my points for me.
Just to clarify. Insider trading is illegal but it is not illegal for politicians in Congress to use the information they obtain from their jobs (such as through classified meetings) to engage in stock market trades.
It’s not a failure of the law. It’s a failure of the SEC for not enforcing it.
MYTH: Members of Congress are exempt from insider trading laws.
FACT: Both a Congressional Research Service Report and House Administration Committee memo indicates that Members of Congress are subject to the same insider trading rules as the general public.
Nobody is gonna use a VPN to get their TikTok fix. They’ll use Facebook Reels or YouTube shorts, since most content creators cross-post their stuff there anyway.
Which is the actual intent of attacking a single point of the problem instead of the actual problem of the abuse of end users by all the corpo's social media and other apps., free or otherwise is no longer important.
People on TikTok are already discussing using VPNs, so it will happen if not sold.
And either way, it’s almost like congress doesn’t care about addictive social media, seeing as it’s fine if domestic companies create addictive algorithms. They’ll even let foreign governments manipulate the populous via domestic companies, so long as they get a cut of the cash.
Passing a law to give the executive branch overreaching censorship authority over the internet while simultaneously campaigning that the other option in the next election wants to use the power of that office to overthrow democracy. This is the “good ending”.
It’s almost like TikTok was given a chance to prove our data doesn’t flow to the Chinese government, and TikTok decided to exit the market than prove where their data flows.
But sure, let’s just pretend we randomly forced them out with an executive overreach lmao
All the folks quoting what a small part of their audience the US is, never mention what percentage of their gross the US is. CCP won't pay for eyeballs in Azerbaijan.
Banning TikTok, a foreign controlled company, does not infringe on the 1st amendment. Freedom of speech isn’t impaired because of some dipshit social media app that actively fucks everyone except the Chinese government over.
Either way, TikTok is not the only avenue for the Chinese government to use to fuck us. They’ll just find another way, one that isn’t so visible and easily regulated. This doesn’t really solve much; it’s just going to piss people off by taking away their choice and push breaches of personal privacy into the shadows where the US has no jurisdiction.
It always has, at least from US government. Have you not read the constitution?
Oh, so we can agree that the US Government “asking” Twitter and other media outlets to interfere with the coverage of certain stories is also a 1A violation? Excellent!
Does your posting history bear out that that’s why you’re here, though? 🤷♂️ I’m not asking for you to justify it to me, it’s just silly to pretend you’re not participating in something you say should be banned.
My posting history bears out extensive shitposting and calling things as they’re seen. I don’t take any issue with Lemmy/Fediverse due to how they’re decentralized and orchestrated. I’m against predatory algorithms and user manipulation. I believe that the Fediverse itself will be a good thing until it becomes the villain, much like how our utopian social experiments usually go.
Is Lemmy using a predatory algorithm designed to enrich itself at the expense of the well being of its users and utilize its platform to influence US policy against its own interests? If that answer was yes, then absolutely. With Lemmy being of service to its users without making us its cattle, I’ll advocate for it as opposed to against it.
Does congress care about data collection and predatory algorithms, though? If so, why did they just waste their time crafting a targeted bill rather than actually making those practices illegal?
If congress suddenly decided that they didn’t like a company for whatever reason, they’ll craft another targeted bill like this one. Trump could win this year, do you really want this precedent set right before that?
Luckily, Lemmy is much more difficult due to it’s decentralized nature. However, since congress is clearly more than willing to craft targeted bills, it’s not out of the question.
Dude, the bill has nothing to do with anything you said. You’re criticizing capitalism and the lack of regulations on social media corporations.
My understanding is this bill is about forcing the sale of a company owned by a “foreign adversary” which is vague as shit just like the patriot act, which took (some of) the public 20+ years to realize was probably not a good idea.
Is Lemmy using a predatory algorithm designed to enrich itself at the expense of the well being of its users and utilize its platform to influence US policy against its own interests?
Is Lemmy using a predatory algorithm designed to enrich itself at the expense of the well being of its users and utilize its platform to influence US policy against its own interests?
Straight up yes, I’m gonna explain this hot take right now so buckle up.
Lemmy operates on the same basic set of principles that Reddit does. Upvotes send a post up, downvotes send a post down, moderation abilities and succession is controlled by the select few who create a popular channel, and also administrators. Pretty easy, pretty simple so far.
Algorithms don’t refer only to implicit incentive structures, but explicit ones, as well. How many posts have you seen on lemmy that are just really stupid propaganda memes? That’s what the platform explicitly incentivizes with it’s system of upvotes and downvotes. Low rent, low effort posts that vibe with a large majority of the audience are what’s going to get more attention and more engagement, and that’s going to push a post up, in a kind of feedback loop that hopefully tries to separate the wheat from the chaff. Really, all it does is separate the low rent dopamine content from everything else. I would say the incentivization of low rent behavior by these explicit mechanisms is somewhat predatory, yes.
As to how lemmy is enriched by this process, lemmy gets more attention. so lemmy gets more power inside of the sphere of internet attention, culture, and propaganda. Lemmy as a whole, obviously, which probably ends up meaning the developers. The whole thing being more open source and federated obviously puts this much more into contention than Reddit, sure, but that doesn’t really eliminate the basic problems that come about at the very conception of this platform, these problems of echo chambers. You can even see that forming now in a bunch of different instances. You can see that bias in hexbear, ml, world being plagued by a bunch of brainlet neolibs. It’s pretty obvious that the system confines everyone to their bubbles.
This is all to basically equivocate any interaction having been had online as being predatory in some way, and as enriching some party. Any mechanism which you use to organize the slew of information coming at you is going to have an inherent set of biases, pros and cons, and is inherently going to prey on some of those biases compared to others. So if we’ve equivocated all social media with basically all form of social interaction online, then the internet itself was probably a mistake.
Tl;dr IRC is a form of social media. Real life is a form of social media.
In the U.S., we have given our third-party Trusted Technology Provider access to the code that drives the content you see - the For You feed - and we are on a path to allowing an unprecedented amount of third-party access to verify our source code and systems, something no other peer company has done.
I’d counter that basing your livelihood on an app that harvests your and your viewers data for an adversarial government known to use this kind of data in psyops isn’t a sound business idea.
In fact, I’d say this bill actually protects American users who have been using the app.
If TikTok can’t prove that they use our data responsibly, and refuse to do so to the point of just leaving the market, we are all better off. Another company will fill that void and content creators have endless options to move to.
I don’t think “but people need to make money while our data is harvested and provided to a government that uses it against us” is a great argument.
They passed the bill because someone is getting a cut. It isn’t to protect the public. If they wanted to protect the public we would have universal healthcare and a ban on guns.
I disagree. I listened when it was presented to Congress. I read a good amount of the data justifying the required transfer. If you don’t think this bill protects the public, there really is no reasoning with you.
Someone will get a cut specifically because TikTok chooses not to prove where their data flows. They had a choice, and chose to exit the market.
But sure, you can frame it like we forced them to leave the market, which isn’t the case. They could have verified their data flow and remained if they were not abusing it.
What does the issue we are talking about (TikTok’s data harvesting) have to do with healthcare? Unless that’s where you get your magic crystal healing tips lmao
You said it was to protect the public. This is involved in protecting the public. You claim Congress did this to protect the public so I am asking you when your friends are going to really protect the public.
You can just admit that some Congress people got a cut to do this and it has nothing to do with protecting us against the big bad Asians. While we are on the topic I think it’s fucked up that the government, and it’s internet lackeys, want me to hate the Chinese.
You can just admit that protecting the public comes in many forms and one law won’t fix unrelated areas.
But you won’t, because you have a hate boner for our shitty oligarchy. You can also pretend like TikTok didn’t have a chance to prove they don’t misuse our data, but chose to exit the market rather than reveal where our data goes. The “cut” you bemoan, if it’s even true, would only occur due to TikTok’s choice.
But sure, they only passed a law after giving the company a chance to comply so they could get a pay cut. Genius.
I watched it live, so I don’t know how complete or edited this recording of the hearing is. Talk to you in 5.5 hours after you watch the thing you requested.
Can you at least try and clarify what in the hearings convinced you so much? I’ve seen some of these hearings. Some of them are complete BS political threater.
I mean, what would you have liked to see that would’ve proved the data is treated exactly the same as every other American company that harvests our data?
That’s not how due process and liberal democracy works. The government has to prove you’re doing it. Setting any precedent that you have to prove you’re not doing something (an impossible task) is incredibly dangerous.
It’s never been to protect the public. If that were the case, the law wouldn’t apply to just TikTok and foreign companies. They would’ve passed something to protect us from our own domestic data brokers too, but they didn’t.
It’s almost like an action can protect people and enrich elites at the same time. Explain how the American public isn’t better of keeping their personal data away from the CCP. Interested to see how you think this doesn’t protect the public at all from an adversarial foreign government.
We could also feed the poor, house the homeless, heal the sick etc. we could ask why any law regarding healthcare, housing, nutrition doesn’t fix the issue, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
The FTC is putting in work this administration, and are poised to bring back Net Neutrality (obligatory Fuck Ajit Pai). This is a huge step towards protecting all Americans, so I think you’re confusing this issue (adversarial governments harvesting our data) with the larger issue of domestic policy (which will be much harder to tackle).
According to you, there should be only one law that protects people and protects them fully. If the law is specific to a sector, it’s bad because saving people’s data doesn’t give them healthcare. And if it doesn’t protect people in other sectors (foreign vs domestic) then it can’t possibly be a good move.
It’s an all-or-nothing mentality that is extremely idealistic to the point of ignoring incremental progress, and will make it so that no law is ever good or enough.
Stopping the bleeding of data harvesting to China is good. If you want other change alongside it, hold your elected officials to it.
There’s really no point in continuing a discussion with such an idealistic purist, as no law can be good enough.
Their personal data won’t be kept away from the CCP. People that use TikTok will use VPNs to do so if needed (TikTok also would no longer have to listen to the US government, probably intensifying the data collection), and otherwise the CCP can just purchase (or steal) the data from US data brokers, because those are still very much legal. Did we forget about Cambridge Analytica, where an adversarial foreign government used our own domestic companies against us?
I bet less than 2% of users use VPNs. They won’t have much content, if any, from domestic creators. They’ll only be interacting with the other 2% of American users along with foriegn content.
I don’t think people with enough brain cells to use VPN will are China’s target demographic, and I don’t think VPN users will constitute a fraction of activity you are suggesting they will.
I really like how you point out the danger of the Cambridge Analytica incident, but then bemoan trying to keep data harvesting away from a foreign adversary.
Domestic data policy drastically needs an overhaul, but we have to start somewhere. Also, Cambridge Analytica had a fucking shitstain president/administration running interference because they benefited directly from it. Glad we have accountability this time around.
TikTok users or in general? Either way, it’s higher than that, and will only increase with bills like this (and the many state-issued porn bans).
I don’t think people with enough brain cells to use VPN
VPNs aren’t hard to use, by design. Do you really think people need in-depth tutorials on how to press a button in an app? Also, there’s already people demonstrating VPN use on TikTok, for if the ban actually happens.
I really like how you point out the danger of the Cambridge Analytica incident, but then bemoan trying to keep data harvesting away from a foreign adversary.
You have very black and white thinking. I’m bemoaning it because it doesn’t actually protect US citizens. It doesn’t stop China from harvesting our data, and it doesn’t stop domestic companies either. But good try, trying to belittle the massive data breaches that have happened without TikTok’s help.
Domestic data policy drastically needs an overhaul, but we have to start somewhere.
Once again, this isn’t the start of that. Congress is more than happy to allow domestic companies to harvest our data, because half of the time they’re getting a cut. This will not open any doors for future privacy bills. The only possibility with this is that congress crafts another targeted bill to get rid of another company for whatever reason.
Also, Cambridge Analytica had a fucking shitstain president/administration running interference because they benefited directly from it.
Interesting that you’d bring that up, seeing as congress just set this precedent for banning companies right before that shitstain has a real chance of getting into office. Do you really want the Trump administration to pass a bill like this for another company?
I’m stating than less than 2% of American TikTok users will use VPN to bypass TikTok leaving the market.
You’re crazy if you think VPN usage is high among the general public on a regular basis. And that number’s intersection with using a VPN to specifically work around this will be extremely low.
I absolutely stand by holding TikTok responsible, and any other company responsible. This, coupled with the FTC poised to bring back Net Nuetrality, is a great step in the right direction. I look forward to this energy setting up more data protection, foreign and domestic.
I’m stating than less than 2% of American TikTok users will use VPN to bypass TikTok leaving the market.
Now you can predict the future with such certain statistics? First of all, more TikTok users than that already use VPNs. So you’re already incorrect.
You’re crazy if you think VPN usage is high among the general public on a regular basis. And that number’s intersection with using a VPN to specifically work around this will be extremely low.
VPN usage wasn’t all that high, before porn bans happened. Once those started, US searches for VPNs drastically spiked. Once again, it will happen with TikTok. They’re literally already discussing this on the platform, I’m not sure how else to tell you this.
and any other company responsible.
You sure don’t seem like it. It seems like you’ve got your blinders on to exactly who those other companies are. This bill will not lead to positive domestic privacy changes, because it is focused on “foreign adversaries”. It won’t open the door, because the whole reason this was able to pass in the first place is because the republicans have a huge hate boner for TikTok exclusively. Kind of like yourself.
This, coupled with the FTC poised to bring back Net Nuetrality, is a great step in the right direction.
While I was happy to hear about that earlier, this doesn’t really apply to this conversation.
I look forward to this energy setting up more data protection, foreign and domestic.
Congress doesn’t care about protecting our data domestically. You’ll turn to dust by the time they actually give a shit about that.
Lmao “BFFS.” You love making me into whatever you want to rail against.
Congress didn’t ban an app. They requested data on where their information flows, and the “stupid dancing app” opted to leave the market instead of comply.
You don’t even know what the fuck you’re going on about haha
Yay, more YouTube and Instagram. What we always wanted. Can’t wait to have maybe one day Meta and Alphabet will combine so we can only have one service!
It’s cute how you think that the only government that’s using our own data against us is china. Might want to step back and look at our own government, then apply your same line of thinking to all big tech companies in existence right now.
That will never happen, at least not in this way. Because it wasn’t anything to do with their data collection, or their company structure. Congress is happy to allow domestic data collection and want Americans addicted to American apps so that they get a cut.
You’re extremely dull if youre suggesting I don’t know data is abused left and right all over the place. But if TikTok is so bad it’s can’t even fit within our abusive system, it deserves to transfer or exit.
And you aren’t even reading what I wrote. In no post did I defend tiktok… I merely stated that what it is doing is also being done by american based companies and they should be addressed as well.
Where did I say I had a problem with this? So much knee jerking in here. I am stating that lawmakers should apply these same laws to our own social media. The same lawmakers who will most likely profit off this decision.
Because this isn’t accountability? It won’t start any change with domestic companies, because it doesn’t apply to them. This isn’t the start of anything. If you think they’re going to use this as the starting point for actual privacy legislation, you’re very ignorant of how congress works.
Data collection will still happen domestically, and another Cambridge Analytica will happen, so long as domestic data brokers are legal.
So the next nine months will be TikTok pushing pro Trump propaganda 24/7, mobilising the youth against Biden, only to be forced to sell by Trump anyway because everyone who hops into bed with populists gets fucked regardless.
Besides, China supports every single party causing harm to democracies.
For instance, there’s a reason the German fascist “We should reopen concentration camps for Antifa” party has more popularity on TikTok than all other German parties combined. TikTok’s promotion of fascism is even worse than Musk’s Twitter.
Well sort of but not really. They can justify that the Chinese ownership makes this a national security issue. Which makes this 100% legal. Now the American shareholders of tiktok however just like last time they tried to do this with tiktok have a claim that their rights are being infringed. Last time they tried to do a tiktok ban the shareholders sued and won.
Me, laughing as the idiot americans will be banned from the app, and only the pure VPN users will remain:
No but seriously this is pretty dogshit stupid. The only people happy about this are the omega boomers and pick mes that hated tiktok anyways for what are basically unrelated reasons. Otherwise they’d be equally calling for a larger set of privacy enforcements that encompass all social media sites, which I agree should happen. This seems, to me, to be pretty transparently a protectionist racket. Only we shall control the data of americans, only we shall track them.
And then there’s also the people saying that any social media getting banned is kind of a net positive. Fuck you mate what the hell? You’re on a pretty explicitly manipulative social media platform right now, it’s just one that you’re able to tailor to your own biases. Probably it’s a net negative to have less propaganda from a variety of sources. Both sides my ass, I guess, fuck your corporate-state disinformation, I got mine.
The benefit of tiktok and short form content is that you can watch it anywhere, and almost anyone with a phone at this point can produce it. Those of you who hate vertical video content should understand that a phone is the optimal platform on which to consume it, and you should probably be happy for that, because it’s not going to outright disappear from the internet otherwise, as we saw before all of this had started. You miss the forest for the trees when you call for heavy-handed outright bans of this stuff. The corporate influence, I can understand getting rid of that, but the platforms themselves, there’s legitimately value there. Twitter as a microblogging platform has been used for actual reporting, and even as it exists now, it’s being used for that. If you were to get rid of youtube, you would be eliminating a frankly staggering amount of information available out there that, sure, might exist in other places, but that both takes a large risk and relies on google MORE to feed you that correctly when you use a search engine, which as we’ve seen recently, hasn’t been the case. You could do the same with reddit. Delete reddit, and you are deleting a metric fuck ton of information on some valuable stuff, you’re deleting a fuck ton of internet culture. These platforms need to be disentangled from their corporate overlords and made more free to own, browse, and use, not outright destroyed.
Guys, stop focusing on the headline. Read the line underneath it. It’s not being banned as in, pushed out of use. It’s being severed from it’s china-based parent company.
There is such a literacy issue in this country that it’s sad.
Honestly I’m not super in love with either. The internet should be one of our greatest achievements, and while I think companies like meta and bytedance are harming it for their own profit, I definitely don’t want the government controlling it.
Doesn’t the chinese government de facto control it right now? What makes control by the american government any worse? If anything, it’s a slight improvement.
I think we’re where China was in 2005–2010: a platform that can (and does) promote values that are against the interests of our nation(s) is popular with our youth. The real dilemma is “can we do better”, and these days it seems not.
History suggests that the real solution to TikTok isn’t banning it; China trying to block western sites did nothing save foment resentment and foster a VPN industry. Take the next step instead - make something that does TikTok better than TikTok, then push it hard. Either that or do what is being done to YouTube/Google - run it into the ground!
No. What TikTok does is bad, and should not be continued. It’s an addictive form of distraction used for brainwashing the youth. It’s the worst offender of many types of social media and web content that is ruining the attention span of its users and encouraging them to prostitute their visage for the currency of Likes and Subscribes.
People should practice reading more than ogling all those vapid videos.
Bytedance and the CPC both know how unlikely it is that TikTok will be allowed to continue operating in the US. Despite what they’re saying, I don’t think they actually believe they have any chance at winning that lawsuit.
They tried to stop the law from passing but now that it’s been signed they’re shifting strategies. They’re going to go all in on using TikTok to paint the US as authoritarian and hypocritical. Their primary targets will be young people outside the US.
Looking around the world I expect this will have a lot of traction in developing countries. If you look at wonky foreign policy publication you’ll see that the diplomacy nerds have spent the last decade or so worrying about developing nations realigning with China. That will probably accelerate.
They’ll probably also have some success with younger Americans. Older American’s will probably be unconvinced.
It obviously won’t have any affect on China’s ability to buy data on US citizens from any number of data brokers. I wouldn’t be totally surprised if China has at least some access to data from Five Eyes.
Chinas ability to influence opinion probably won’t change much either. We used to call that sort of tactic “information warfare” or “psychological warfare”. Sending messages to an opponent, adversary or rival in order to confuse or demoralize them has been going on for millennia. Nations constantly work to develop new methods to do so. Tiktok isn’t the first or last of such tools and any large nation has a host of other such options at their disposal.
I’d go even further than that. There’s a whole network of tools and organizations that many countries around the world use to influence and spy on each other.
China has a whole portfolio of tools they can use for that stuff.
The US has a whole portfolio of tools they can use for that stuff.
Many of those companies are very comfortable working with both countries, or anyone else who’s willing to sign a big enough check.
Maybe. China probably has more official channels to interact with Bytedance but we have hard evidence that the US does the same thing.
FOIA provided a lot of insight into various clandestine interactions between US government agencies and private companies. There are a bunch of NGOs that get almost all of their funding from the US.
We also just reauthorized warrantless wiretapping.
The bigger issue is that Meta doesn’t really care. Nobody needs to force them to conform when they can just pay them. As far as Zuckerberg is concerned USD spends just as well as RMB.
More official channels from the authoritarian CCP, seriously?
FOIA requests in the US are a wonderful thing compared to what you’re able to do under the CCP’s iron grip. I wonder what people could discover of they were transparent enough to allow similar information requests.
The CPC has board seats on many Chinese companies, including Bytedance. You can’t get more official than that.
The CIA engages in information operations both domestically and abroad. Those activities are often in violation of official US law. So they have to be done covertly and we only find out about it decades later after someone manages to push through a FOIA request.
The fact is that US, Chinese, Soviet (back when that was a thing), British, German, etc are all spying on each other. There’s a big spy vs spy thing going on in Africa. The Germans got really grumpy when the US wiretapped their phones a few years ago.
On the surface it may seem like “the authoritarian CCP” is engaging in an extraordinary amount of skullduggery, subterfuge and other clandestine activities but it’s just standard operating procedure for any country. Don’t take my word for it. There are a bunch of retired US intelligence officers saying exactly the same thing on the record.
I have mixed feelings. Like I’m glad we’re funding Ukraine, angry we’re finding Israel, and mixed about TikTok. I dislike the app, but that’s no reason to ban something. I think all social media has the issues associated with it except one: a foreign country controls the algorithm. Also this is standard policy for foreign companies in China and turnabout is fair play.
I like how you completely ignored the bulk of my statement just to make a pithy comment that is only relevant by ignoring the most important part of my post.
That really makes you look cool, and have a big penis.
I did address the bulk of your statement, which is that the app is supposedly being used to influence people. What else is there to address? Your goofy “chinese psyop program” talking point which amounts to nothing more than scaremongering?
Wtf are you talking about. I’ve been sparsely browsing tiktok since it’s creation and have no idea about any monstrous horrible things people did or see anything relating to some psyop program.
You are not going to convince anyone here, I’m with you on that but over here all people care about it “not fediverse = bad” so you and I will get downvoted when speaking any rationale that doesn’t put tiktok as the devil’s spawn
Ahh so the same ol reddit hive mind I wanted to leave behind. Just in another cultish direction, creating a meta of what and who is “right” and “wrong” while interacting here with the stupid use of the upvote/down vote system. What absolute social media garbage lemmy is going to turn into.
If you think it’s good that congress passed a ban of a social media platform tied to a bill funding two foreign wars you’re either a fed or delusional.
All three of these pieces of legislation are what a Real True American would support. If you refuse to endorse these bills, we’re going to have to note it on your social credit score.
"First they came for the anti-democratic totalitarian state propaganda apps, and I did not speak out — because I was not an anti-democratic totalitarian state propaganda app… "
I’m just pointing and laughing at the dopamine addicts. We’ve lost so many better internet things by now and the same people who thought I was weird for caring are now crying over tiktok.
Seriously. The real solution is comprehensive privacy protection and consumer information export controls for all companies operating within the US.
This whole thing is just going to give an American company the capability to use Tik Tok to spy on people and control information, which is barely better.
And then they’ll likely sell the data to China anyway. Data brokers exist and make a fuck ton of money on us.
So you would be cool with ISIS rolling out a social media app? All profits go directly to making explosives. All user data, including biometrics is logged to help ISIS plan future terrorist attacks on American soil.
Edit: sorry I misread what you are saying. But still, idk how you prevent China from using our data when that’s the whole point of China owning TikTok in the first place. A forced sale or ban is the only option.
That’s an extreme example of course but I don’t think you can just ignore who makes products and where your money (and data in this case) is going. And yes, I don’t like American social media companies either. But you will remember that Facebook got into a ton of trouble for selling data to the Russians via Cambridge Analytica. At least we can try to prevent American companies from leaking data to hostile parties. Meanwhile we KNOW that TikTok is giving our data to the Chinese government and forcing a sale of the American branch of TikTok is the only thing we can do about it.
This won’t stop china from spying on us, they are already buying all they want from Meta, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft, they don’t need Tiktok to do this. Also, the chineese company that “owns” tiktok only owns about 40% of the company.
The Chinese government already has our data thanks to Facebook, Google, and reddit (and just about every other free service). This ban (“forced sale” that will never happen because the US is only 10% of their revenue) is to limit our communication, not to save our data. They could pass legislation to protect our data across the board, but they (the house) have too much invested in meta and them to do anything to harm their bottom line.
This ban only became the biggest most important thing for the government to do after we all started learning what Israel was doing in Gaza. Our house of reps is primarily owned by Israel and private corporations, and Tiktok is a driving force for change. It’s getting more young people to vote than anything before. And all they want is representation that actually represents, rather than cater to bribery. This idea is terrifying to those currently in power, because they’ve enjoyed doing almost nothing good for the American people for 4 decades while getting stupid rich at the same time.
I understand a lot of people knew what was happening to the Palestinians for years, but that was information the US was happy to keep to itself. Tiktok made it super clear to the rest of us what was actually going on.
I’m not trying to say data privacy isn’t important. It is, but the ship has sailed on that problem. We can do things to limit the damage to future users, but everyone that’s already been on the Internet… 🤷. This is an issue they have with US citizens learning about all the shady underhanded shit they’ve been doing for decades. If they were truly worried about our data privacy, meta and Google would be their first and primary targets, rather than the primary beneficiaries from a sale (because a sale would immediately ruin it) or ban.
And finally (sorry, I know this is long), I’ve seen more anti Chinese information on Tiktok than anywhere else. If they were in control of what’s being shown (the government’s other big excuse here), you’d think they’d censor their past and current atrocities from being known. Everything I see on Tiktok doesn’t serve China at all. In fact if we’re finally able to vote out the dinosaurs and money whores that currently run things, then it may actually hurt China in the long run.
Thanks for reading my ranting Ted talk. Sorry about that!
It was never about American’s privacy, it was because the government apparently can’t control the narrative in the app while they can with the other one’s which is why they are trying to force tiktok to sell to an American company or gtfo. I have seen news faster and with more accuracy in the past 6 months on tiktok than even here, and when I try to see it on the media it’s either only one sided or completely absent (the farmers protests in Brussels and France is a great example, the zionist message in america and the college protests is another)
Reading through these comments… yikes guys. I use TikTok sometimes, and love the content it provides that YouTube does not provide. Seeing the straight up hate for the app, mixed with the misunderstanding of what the app CAN be if you actually use it, is chilling to say the least. If they were banning ALL social media apps, and their companies, I’d be all for this. As it is, I can not see why you would all be cheering so hard for TikTok to be sold to some American asshole, just for it to start getting enshittified, and then STILL sell your data to Russia, China, and anyone else who wants a slice. The fact you are all hating on TikTok so much, but not questioning our own American social media companies, and wanting them to be banned too, is frightening.
I’ve seen a few comments saying it is spyware. On iOS at least, there is an icon that pops up to let you know when an app is using your camera or microphone. Not only that, but when you start an app for the first time, it has to request to you the user if you want to allow it access to these things. I said no, of course, because when I first started using it, I fucking hated TikTok. Turns out, when you use it for like a week, it starts to get REALLY good at delivering content you want to see.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter, as I’m sure plenty of you will disagree, complain, and then go on using your American owned social medias, that are still hoovering up and selling your data.
The only differences being that China wasn’t making a cent out of me, nor do any of these equally shitty American social medias. Oh well, I guess we just really love our own little national narratives.
Imagine how dumb an average person is, then realize how many people are dumber. Just because you know how to use it and can navigate through the algorithm doesn’t mean everyone else can.
It’s a dumbfucking platform full of both fake news and straight up dangerous shot that can get anyone’s house burnt down, killed, or severely wounded.
You need to educate yourself about China and the CCP.
You’re overreacting by quite a lot, people are fine with banning TikTok for the same reason they’re fine with banning spyware apps from Russia or any other bad actor state.
We aren’t obligated to give anti-democratic foreign adversaries equal access to pollute our public squares. Especially when they themselves have already banned most forms of outside social media and are only interest in peddling their propaganda.
It’s ridiculous that people are pretending like the CCP is some kind of victim here or that this is some slippery slope.
First, link some sources of how China/CCP is using TikTok in anyway different that Facebook to get data on its users, specifically the comparison to malware. I don’t think OP is overreacting and I do think this is a slippery slope (some entity outside US jurisdiction owns a successful app - this is clearly a message to all other companies and startups outside US jurisdiction that they will meet the same fate if their idea becomes too successful). And yes, I’m sure you will “but but CCP” here, and I will say show me proof TikTok is doing something nefarious (that’s any different than what current platforms are doing - all I’ve ever heard is fear mongering that China “could” do something something etc blah blah)
I don’t think it’s where you came from but whether you’re a citizen and most importantly if the government can apply regulations and or investigate(and maybe somewhat control) your company. I think Elon qualifies there, though he seems to break rules all the time so I really wish they would.
Thankfully, I’m not forced to interact with any of those, it’s not a problem here. Here in Australia, TikTok is everywhere, and I feel at times as if I’m the only one here that hasn’t touched it, that doesn’t stop my friends from ignoring the fact I’ve asked them countless times not to send tiktoks to me.
One of said friends is a nurse, one of the smartest people I know. She told me how to do CPR based on what she’d seen in a TikTok, as someone that’s done the CPR training, and actually performed it, I was really upset that her knowledge had been overwritten in a very short time of her TikTok addiction. I’m finding such cases are becoming more and more common kately and it’s terrifying.
I learned how to garden, grow food, ferment food, and some plant identification. I have a working knowledge of sewing. I’ve watched volcanoes erupt. I saw deep space imagery from JWST and followed along the Voyager 1 communications issues. I get a stream of physicists and physicians sharing about the latest in their field.
It helped me realize many limiting beliefs I’ve had about myself and I love myself more than I ever have.
I could have done those things elsewhere, too. But just like Pandora / Spotify are a tool to discover things you like that you didn’t know before, so is algorithmic video delivery.
Is everything on any social media good? I’m sure there are corners of Tiktok that are as deplorable as anywhere else.
I probably shouldnt be celebrating this but I am. I fucking despise Tiktok with a passion, I hate its users, its creators, I hate the short form content trend it started and its algorithm based content delivery systems that every other app copied but worse, I hate the sexualisation of minors and peddling that content to pedos, I hate the clout chasing in general, I hate tiktok trends and “challenged”. and I hate the general brainrot it has caused.
Yeah but that’s just on YouTube and Facebook now. Nobody is going to regulate them in the slightest.
It is a slap in the face if they want to say it is too influential to have an adversarial state control it, at the same time leaving it fine for local billionaires to do the exact same things.
You’re saying people in the US would keep using it if it were banned in the US but still available in the rest of the world? How? It wouldn’t be available on app stores, and the website would be blocked by American DNS servers. Most TikTok users aren’t tech savvy enough to get around bans.
I guess you focused on the “ineffectually” part indicating that US users would “ignore the ban.” Fair enough. But I think the comment is more about ByteDance not caring about losing the U.S. market.
Not relevant to the thread, sure. But the parent poster’s point was something along the lines of “like ByteDance will give a damn - they still have the rest of the world market, so they will happily accept the ban.”
But you’re right. Not exactly relevant to the thread.
I hate its users, its creators, I hate the short form content trend it started and its algorithm based content delivery systems that every other app copied but worse
I mean… eh? TikTok is hardly the first platform to embrace short-form video. I think the dislike for the app is overblown.
The style is reflective of the medium. No point in making big budget audio/visual multi-hour immersive experiences for a cell phone screen with some headphones. The media has to be short because its for an audience that’s stealing time in the middle of a commute or during a break at school or the office. The continuous-feed style is something we just managed to achieve with high speed mobile internet (TikTok would have been impossible on a dial-up device).
Its a young medium. People are still learning what works and what doesn’t. And its as prone to getting enshittified as every other venue, thanks to the endless need for higher profits.
But as someone who grew up watching Albino Blacksheep and YTMND meme-tier content and owns a DVD of Super Bowl Commercials, I gotta say that we’ve had a lot worse.
I hate the general brainrot it has caused
People say this shit about every medium. And there’s definitely awful pieces of individual content.
But a lot of it just comes down to the hyper-sensationalist marketing. And its common to every conceivable media, from Comic Book style front page of print to the “Bwooooong!” they put in every new movie trailer.
If TikToks suck, its largely because they’re aping the worst aspects of all the other established media forms.
The media has to be short because its for an audience that’s stealing time in the middle of a commute or during a break at school or the offic
Except most people you speak to will tell you they spend hours in bed scrolling. Short form took off because it drives higher engagement.
And its as prone to getting enshittified as every other venue, thanks to the endless need for higher profits.
Except its never not been shitty. I wa son it back when it was musical.ly it has much of the same problems.
Albino Blacksheep and YTMND meme-tier content
Which are far more creative than doing whatever the current trend is, or a thirst trap or click bait.
People say this shit about every medium. And there’s definitely awful pieces of individual content.
But with tiktok you can feel it. I hate short form but still end up scrolling mindlessly through YT shorts or IG reels. And it really does measurably affect your attention span. And it’s so noticeable that the user base openly acknowledges the brain rot.
most people you speak to will tell you they spend hours in bed scrolling
This seems like an exaggeration on a number of fronts. But even if you can find folks doing this, what’s the counterfactual? Would these same people be out hitting the gym or gardening or curing cancer? Or would they just be watching TV or reading a book, instead?
Short form took off because it drives higher engagement.
There are folks binging seasons worth of Netflix who would argue otherwise.
Which are far more creative than doing whatever the current trend is
They’re absolutely not. Go back through the dredges of the '00s-era content mill and you’ll find plenty of low-effort crap. Hell, YTMND was the pinacle of low effort crap. It was shit you could crank out in ten minutes with MS Paint and a collection of mp3 snippets.
And it’s so noticeable that the user base openly acknowledges the brain rot.
You’d have heard from folks reading tabloid news or watching reality TV decades ago.
Would these same people be out hitting the gym or gardening or curing cancer? Or would they just be watching TV or reading a book, instead?
I mean ive personally just zoned out scrolling short form and missed my chance to go to the gym before. obviously might not be the case for everyone but is certainly plausible.
There are folks binging seasons worth of Netflix who would argue otherwise.
That doesnt disprove what I said at all.
They’re absolutely not. Go back through the dredges of the '00s-era content mill and you’ll find plenty of low-effort crap.
Creativity != effort and even then most tiktok stuff is as low effort as it gets.
I mean ive personally just zoned out scrolling short form and missed my chance to go to the gym before.
I’ve seen people scrolling in between reps at the gym. But, again, would this not have been a problem if you’d been blogging instead of TikToking? Or Netflix binging?
That doesnt disprove what I said at all.
Multi-hour tv series are not short form.
Creativity != effort
A picture of a celebrity attached to a quote from a movie played on a loop is neither.
I’ve seen people scrolling in between reps at the gym. But, again, would this not have been a problem if you’d been blogging instead of TikToking? Or Netflix binging?
The point is short form content enables that behaviour more than other things. Its taken off specifically because its addicting and makes you think “its only a short/reel/tiktok just one more… okay one more…etc” that you dont get with hour long netflix episodes.
Multi-hour tv series are not short form.
No one is arguing otherwise and long form content just existing doesnt disprove that short form drives higher engagement. Its like saying “Taylor swift songs are the most popular” and replying “but ACDC exists?” That doesnt disprove the original statement.
A picture of a celebrity attached to a quote from a movie played on a loop is neither.
The point is short form content enables that behaviour more than other things. Its taken off specifically because its addicting and makes you think “its only a short/reel/tiktok just one more… okay one more…etc” that you dont get with hour long netflix episodes.
I simply haven’t seen anything to support this claim.
No one is arguing otherwise and long form content just existing doesnt disprove that short form drives higher engagement
You haven’t established anything to disprove. You’ve just asserted it with some personal anecdote about missing a gym appointment.
Its like saying “Taylor swift songs are the most popular” and replying “but ACDC exists?”
its algorithm based content delivery systems that every other app copied but worse
always has been, with twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat, youtube, uhhhhh… vine, yeah, just mentioned that one. discord, tinder. literally everything.
I hate the sexualisation of minors and peddling that content to pedos
Look at what the great adpocalypse of youtube was ostensibly about, then look at what it was really about. In any case, always has been.
I hate the clout chasing in general
Always has been.
I hate tiktok trends and “challenged”
Assuming you mean “challenge”, you could check out the harlem shake, the ice bucket challenge, god, there’s a lot of them honestly. Gangnam style. I think probably this is just like, meme culture more broadly, which, say it with me now: always has been.
Me too. I see no issue with banning it. I’ve said this before, but people are only outraged because they’re addicted to it and may possibly lose it. Fuck tik tock. Among your examples, I will add the misinformation pounding left tok with things like autism and other mental disabilities. Plus, the way people are self diagnosing themselves and acting like it’s a fashion statement is outrageous. And then you have the outrage bait videos that explicitly cherry pick information for viewers while holding back the full context of things, which is a tactic there’s already far too much of in this country.
pounding left tok with things like autism and other mental disabilities. Plus, the way people are self diagnosing themselves and acting like it’s a fashion statement is outrageous
[Respectfully] fuck off.
Anyone the bemoans “self diagnosis” is just a classist dickhead.
Get the fuck over it. The self diagnosing bullshit on tick tok does more harm than good, so no, I don’t think I’ll “fuck off”. Couldn’t help but notice you glazed over the sentence I wrote and willfully ignored the misinformation part in an effort to make it look like i have an issue with disabled users. Classic. News flash, but as someone with 2 autistic children who were medically diagnosed, seeing this “put a finger up for x, if you have more than 3 fingers you are autistic” fad is absolutely bullshit self diagnosis being flaunted like its “cool” when they dont even have a medical diagnosis. I have nothing further to say to you. Have a nice day!
It’s really nice you have the money to get your kids diagnosed. But I really need you to pull your head out of your arse and realise that poor people exist and gasp they can be autistic too.
It would cost me a month and half of wages to get an autism diagnosis, then another month and half of wages if I wanted and ADHD one as well.
So can you maybe see why people sleep diagnose and don’t just get an “official” diagnosis?
I mean you probably don’t given how much a conceited reprobate you are being over this.
Willing to bet you’re one of these autism speaks parents as well.
Yeah bud, so anyway self diagnosing as a fashionable accessory is bullshit, and you can fuck off. It’s called insurance. It costs nothing to get diagnosed, and it’s not that hard to get state assistance, which I did, for their diagnosis, after fighting tooth and nail for 2 and a half years to get my children the help they needed. You clearly have no idea how this works, and I’m not going to go out of my way to explain it to you. Seeing people pretending to have autism (and some who straight up lied about having it-google it, I’m not doing it for you) when I fought so hard to get my kids their diagnosis simply infuriates me, and your spineless melodramatic bullshit isn’t helping . Since you’re going to sling insults at me because you don’t like my opinion, don’t expect me to respect you. Grow the fuck up, get off your ass, stop scrolling tik tok, and actually fight for your diagnosis instead of whining about how you can’t do it. I’m done wasting my time on you.
t’s called insurance. It costs nothing to get diagnosed
Like I knew you were a dumbass and a piece of shit already but my god you just keep getting dumber. Do you think everyone has insurance, can afford insurance, has insurance that covers these kinds of diagnosis, can afford their deductible?
2 and a half years to get my children the help they needed.
Why did they need help? They werent diagnosed at the time right? So they werent actually autistic right? Or did you diagnose them yourself by observing their behaviour?
Also, why did you have to fight so hard if its soooo easy to get a diagnosis? Or are you just bullshitting?
You clearly have no idea how this works,
Imma blow your mind here chief, so you have the USA right? Well theres actually things that exist outside of the USA. (crazy I know) entire countries in fact that have different ways of doing things like autism diagnosis. Im from one of those countries.
nd I’m not going to go out of my way to explain it to you
Well thats good since you clearly dont know wtf youre talking about anyway “iTs CalLeD iNsUrAnCe”
. Seeing people pretending to have autism (and some who straight up lied about having it-google it, I’m not doing it for you) when I fought so hard to get my kids their diagnosis simply infuriates me
So im going to ask you to rub your two braincells together and try to have a coherent thought for once. What do you think is worse? Entitled whiny babies like you being mildly annoyed by people you think are faking it? Or people that genuinely have autism getting harassed by losers like you and not being able to get the care they need.
Like lets make it about you, since thats all people like you actually care about: It took you 2 years for you to get your kids diagnosed, even when you were “fighting tooth and nail” for it on their behalf. And in that time, they were still actually autistic and not getting the help they needed right? How would you feel about someone insisting theyre not actually autistic, and just pretending to get attention and trying to stop them from getting help until you jumped through all those hops? pretty shitty right? So can you imagine that it might be harder for an adult to make that fight on their own? especially when theyre battling with their own Autism or ADHD? So it might take them even longer than 2 years to get a diagnosis?
ince you’re going to sling insults at me because you don’t like my opinion,
Im not slinging insults at you because I dont like your opinion. Im slinging insults at you because you’re a fucking disgraceful excuse for a human being with no compassion for anyone outside of your own life. And im fucking dismayed that you’re going to raise so kids to be exactly as vile of cunt as you are. Those kids deserve better than that. and I would have put my arguments in a nicer way to actually try and convince so, since I do know insulting someone makes them resist change harder, but it was apparent from your first comment that you have your head so far up your own arse that would never listen to a reasonable argument, so I might as well tell you how much a fucking piece of shit you are.
Grow the fuck up, get off your ass, stop scrolling tik tok, and actually fight for your diagnosis instead of whining about how you can’t do it. I’m done wasting my time on you.
Again, not like you care because you very very clearly only think about yourself and have a low key disdain for the poor and neurodivergent, but I have a full time job which is difficult for me (because you know ADHD and autism) and takes up pretty much all of my time and energy and leaves me with very little disposable income, yet I do actually save what I can and a formal diagnosis is one of the things im saving for, but putting together over 3 months salary for it is a tall order that will actually take me at least 3-4 years, and thats assuming prices dont rise further and I dont incur any other big expenses like a car breakdown.
Im sure thats a foreign concept to a classist piece of shit like you, but its the reality the millions upon millions of neurodivergent people face. And if you had literally a SIGNLE IOTA of empathy or compassion in you heart, you would be able to acknowledge it.
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