You’ll take your overpriced medicine from your out of network pharmacy and you’ll like it. At the fake markup price. And good luck getting that ultrasound, they’re going to code the billing wrong so instead of it being $40 it’s $1000. That’s freedom talking.
Healthcare!?! Who needs healthcare when Congress is giving us our god given freedom of domestic surveillance capitalism, which is the freedomist freedom that ever freedomed, you filthy communist!
So anyway, I started violating civil liberties… PEW PEW
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.
Healthcare? Nah, let’s fight about it for decades and never give people anything meaningful. Education? Nah, let’s make our people go neck deep into debt and still fight about it for decades. Ban TikTok? Hold my bribery, you got it. Gimme 24 hours and you got it, boss.
Just as a reminder, we have been ‘fighting for 15’ since 2012. But when it comes to leveraging foreign companies with bans to force them to sell to US oligarchs we can move at blazing speed through the least functional congrss in recent history. There are two very different Americas depending on how much money you have.
This is not a ban and it was never meant to be. They just force tiktok to sell the US market to a US company. Said US company will continue the platform just like it is at the moment, just with a bit more of that sweet American propaganda mixed into it. Tiktok won’t be gone, all that data will just go to the NSA instead of the CCP, that’s all they wanted.
Seriously! Ban everything that is bad for people! That has never backfired ever
I mean, remember when we banned all those really bad and dangerous horror comics and nearly collapsed a whole industry of artists, publishers, and distributors for an entire generation so we could feel morally superior about our own hypercritical actions and interests?
Fuck IKR, call the cops because someone side swiped your car and you’ll get no response. Get on FB or Twitter and talk about how you’re planning a bombing and federal agents will show up at your house.
A lot of people started their businesses on Tiktok. The Tiktok algorithm is actually way better than that of Instagram to reach your target niche. A lot content creators and marketing exes do realize this.
I don’t understand the mentality of users, of course of obviously older generation here, that realize Tiktok did in fact change a lot of people’s lives. It’s not just an app for dancing.
They’re also all printed, and with the same font. I’m assuming it’s a stock photo, but if that’s from a real protest I don’t trust those protestors.who the hell gets a protest sign printed?
No *one outside of some influencers were paid lmao. People contacted Congress but they weren’t paid, and a quick Google search brought up zero result of people being paid *outside of the influencers. So I’d love to see where you’re sourcing this from.
Edit: Correction - about 30 influencers were paid to visit events for Tik Tok. I’ll rescind saying that literally no one was paid: that’s point is wrong. My main point was that average users weren’t paid to call into Congress. And the vast majority that called in or have talked out against the ban did so of their own volition rather than being paid as implied by OP’s comment
Its because the company literally paid shills to stump for them in person, call Congress, etc.
The way it was presented was that they paid average users to call Congress which is disingenuous. I’ll admit I was wrong when I came to the influencers being paid for in person events, but that’s only a smaller group of people and events. The vast majority were not paid and did so of their own volition.
Edit: Didn’t realize OP and the replier were different people. That’s also on me.
While some influencers report paying their own airfare to Washington, everyone we talked to took the free hotel. It’s unclear precisely what folks were offered as part of the trip to Washington, but seemingly everyone got one perk or another. Beyond the more than 30 influencers in attendance, along with their travel buddies, WIRED counted 10 other people who were, in one way or another, at the Capitol on behalf of TikTok.
30 influencers and their plus ones and 10 other people are paid. These are only people that wired has talked to, so there might be more people being paid one way or another.
And “everyone we talked to took the free hotel”: everyone wired has talked to has received some benefit from tiktok.
I don’t really know the scale of the rally, but seeing the rally photo from different sources: duckduckgo.com/?q=dc+tiktok+protest&iax=images&ia… , it seem like most cameras are pointing towards the same 15 people, all with signs distributed by tiktok.
I don’t think I will be as confident as you about the size of the protest. Even if there were 100 people there, that still means over 50% of the protesters received direct compensation from TikTok specifically for this protest.
I believe they are talking about a specific community that has formed over TikTok, a very anticapitalist and cosmopolitan one, and not about the platform itself.
If your algorithm is favoring that content, your short videos will be full of people talking about all things wrong in our global state of affairs; alternatives and temporal solutions (that happen to harm corporations, ironically because the information is becoming popular thanks to one, so I guess it’s the ladder to get to the rooftop); global situations that are not talked or barely talked on regular news (like Congo, Palestine, etc.); the truth behind Western propaganda and lies, especially the ones against populations and ideologies (e.g., “this country doesn’t prosper because they’re [whatever]” vs “we exploited and condemn this country to scarcity for decades and lied about it”); etcetera. In my time there, I’ve learnt a couple things.
I know that these content creators will find another platform if TikTok goes down. Lemmy has shown me that social media can be free of corporations, but that’s something many people are not aware of yet, especially since the techy people that could explain it on TikTok are not there.
So… yeah, TikTok has some interesting sides content-wise. There’s even the rumor that this is one of the reasons they want it banned in the U.S.
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)
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.
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.
Yes, I very much value free market but ethical principles need to be kept. Social media companies, however, fail to follow the basic ethics and disrespect privacy.
If social media apps exist to slurp up as much user info as possible, and they do, then it makes sense to be concerned about the government that they’re subject to.
Why is it okay for domestic companies to collect the same data and sell it to China, then?
This shouldn’t just affect foreign companies if it’s about data collection. It should have been an actual privacy bill. US citizens’ privacy will be no better after this.
With the sort of detailed personal profile a social media app has on you, they could target your specific beliefs, religious convictions, sexual preferences, political affiliation, fears, interests, desires, etc. to manipulate your opinion in their interests. Doing this on a population-wide scale is what social media platforms are all about (i.e. targeted advertising). It’s wise to be concerned about an adversary having such a tool at its disposal. And this is true for all countries, not just the US.
The United Kingdom is not an adversary of the United States. In fact it’s one of our closest allies. But, if anything, that suggests this law isn’t enough, not that it’s too much.
And the fact that a foreign adversary obtained this information was very bad, agreed? Clearly, it makes sense to take steps to keep that kind of information out of adversarial hands.
The law affects social media apps based in North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia. These four countries are already restricted from participating in sensitive areas of the US economy, with forced sale being an option. The only really novel part of this law is applying such restrictions to software.
You’re missing my point. The adversaries have many more avenues than just TikTok (like breaching the domestic companies that collect the data). The law is too specific and therefore does not actually protect us in any real way, at least not on a personal level.
Does it stop my data from getting to the CCP? Nope, so I would say it’s too specific. The problem is not TikTok exclusively, the problem is that the data is collected and sold in the first place. This doesn’t stop that.
Also, it leaves a bad taste when you say it was crafted to narrowly skirt the 1st amendment. That’s not a good thing, so I’m not sure why you’re trying to imply that it is.
No, but it does prohibit companies in those four sanctioned countries from operating social media apps in the US. The fact that it’s not a perfect protection is no good reason not to do it. The fact that it was written with an eye towards the first amendment is not a valid criticism.
If this bill passes and any of you criticizes China/Russia for banning Facebook/Instagram/Twitter etc… under the name of “lack of freedom of speech”. I will be laughing. A lot.
They should have taken the harder route. Something like requiring all software that uses algorithms to manipulate their users to share their algorithms with an auditing body, or to provide a manipulation-free environment otherwise. Every time a change is made, that change must go through the auditing body. Of course Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Google would have a hissy fit, so such a thing would never fly. Or just ban algorithms that manipulate users.
An outright ban of a particular piece of software sets a terrible precedent in an increasing Orwellian future. They didn’t even ban Kaspersky when Russia attacked Ukraine, they just all said, “you probably shouldn’t trust this, but keep using it if you want” and that’s software that has full access to a computer at a very low level.
I have news for you, China has already banned everything and if any western app exists in China, it must have its servers in China and it only works in “cooperation” in a local chinese company(which has complete or partial ownership of the chinese part of the app). Have you ever heard the Great Firewall of China?
That’s basically what the US asked of Tik Tok. They wanted their servers in the US (so they did) and then they wanted them in cooperation with a US company (which they did, Oracle I think it was). And it still wasn’t enough. And now everyone is clapping as the US becomes more and more like China.
First of all, i was answering to someone who seemed like a tankie making a bad faith argument.
The fact that Trump is about to get re-elected as president, seems to indicate that information warfare is very effective. Foreign countries can tap in whatever resentment there is, amplify and guide it. And next thing you know, Ukraine no longer exists.
GOP has gone from the party of McCain who warned the US about Putin, and who Obama laughed at and every democrat accused him of having Cold War mentality, to the party of “Yeah, Putin is cool and the US should be more like Russia”, in just a couple years.
Personally, i am a very big “fuck it” man, if humans arent capable of making very basic and easy decisions, let Trump get elected and Russia/China do information warfare(while shielding their own population from it). But some people seem to care about the world and they need to decide what they want.
They have to decide whether they want to use authoritarianism to “save” democracy, or risk it all by having a liberal society and hope people can eventually get educated to make informed decision(while information warfare risks bringing the country to a civil war). As i said, decisions have consequences.
The difference is that in countries that are not dictatorships you have alternatives that don’t seek to suck dry every bits of user data for profit and control.
There are services, like tor, proton, tuta, signal, session, blair, matrix, mastodon, wikipedia, and private and secure OS like graphene, calyx etc., seek to keep user data out of their control and respect user choice.
I have yet to see alternatives like these in a dictatorship. If so, I would have much less problem about China’s GFW. It is annoying that I have to keep wechat in its own profile, because I have no way to communicate with people in China, or communicate with others outside when I visit China.
That being said, I am not a fan of countries banning services for no good reason, but I don’t know if I want to make an exception for instagram and tiktok etc, because they are very much designed to be manipulative.
But I definitely don’t think any countries should ban services that are private, essential, and don’t impose manipulative algorithms, like signal, session, mastodon, tor, legitimate VPNs, GrapheneOS, etc. including wikileaks.
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