The only good thing it does is spread news that would otherwise be suppressed by local media and governments. The human-on-human interactions are mostly abusive. Sure, there are good people and good conversations… but they are drown in a sea of trolls and anger management issues.
Instagram reels and youtube shorts is structured in the same way (from what I can see superficially), though I dont use anything but Lemmy/YouTube. Though the common complaint I hear is that the algorithm is significantly worse on alternatives.
Not sure how this meaningfully changes anything other than forcing people to use another app that also violates their privacy.
I am not surprised that this is happening. What I am surprised is how many people have no idea how fucked up this law is or its implications, and are therefore defending it because “lawl le crinj china app xdxdxdxdddd”
Bro. This law literally bans the usage of VPNs to access foreign sites and services. Even China won’t fuck with that, and they invented the concept of having a separate internet that abides by their censorship. VPNs are legal and common there. Also, like, this thing we are using? The Fediverse? Where half the servers are not in the US of A? Say goodbye to IT as well.
Y’all are cheering for the building of “The Great Firewall, but painted Red White and Blue” but don’t even realise it because you think an app where some kids do dumb dances is literally the devil.
Anyway, enjoy your self-made dystopia, I’ll be here in the third world laughing at your faces.
I would like to note that my shitehole of a third world home country has public healthcare.
It’s not excellent, far from it, it’s in fact very flawed: It’s underfunded, depending on the area you’ll be “queuing up” for your consultation for so long that you’ll either recover on your own or drop dead, and sometimes doctors have to push ghetto treatments because the real thing is too expensive, so if you have the option, you’d rather not.
… But it exists, it genuinely saves lives, and also – In existing it also drives down the price of private healthcare, meaning that middle-class folks (like me!) can afford it without being sent over the poverty line.
Crazy how that works. We’ve been Murica’s bitch for two centuries now, but life here still seems miles kilometers better than over there.
Thank you thank you thank you. I know this is like beginners info for blocking ads, but using the internal web browser for Boost and what not made reading articles a fucking nightmare.
Now I can actually see that these articles have a story, and aren’t just all about hot milfs in my area.
Thanks a heap, i just switched from Liftoff to Sync last week (when liftoff stopped working) and thought i was just going to have to live with those ads. Much appreciated!
Tiktok is the only major social media platform that doesn’t demand a phone number to register or verify identity.
It is also the only social media platform that isn’t controlled by Meta or Google (reddit is now effectively in bed with Google).
Establishing and enforcing industry wide data security is a good thing, killing the only somewhat independent social media platform is a dictatorship style move.
What social media platform isn’t a security risk? Goggle knows everyone down to a T, and Meta’s platform has been used overseas for pretty awful things. The US government has not find any instances of information being systematically stolen by TT and send to Chinese government.
Being concerned is good, being concerned only about tiktok and without actual evidence is leaning into unsavory racial bias.
Again, shore up data security laws, enforce data security laws, don’t play on racial fear and trample 1st amendment.
Except you can’t take them all down. And nobody is talking about taking them all down in the US government.
I am absolutely not in favor of shutting down all social media platform.
Look at how our maim stream media censoring news coming out of Gaza, it’s hard to imagine the current level of outrage against the genocide being generated without tiktok and Instagram.
They now serve an important function and that is vital.
Fun fact, Facebook was caught doing the same thing with its apps. Hell, Facebook was caught FORCING YOUR MICROPHONE ON AND RECORDING YOUR CONVERSATIONS
It is also the only social media platform that isn’t controlled by Meta or Google (reddit is now effectively in bed with Google).
Even if it weren’t puppeted by the CCP, ByteDance still makes a little over half what Meta does. By essentially any definition, it’s a massive company that’s in the same league as Alphabet and Meta.
Also… “The only” one? You’re literally on the Fediverse now. Smaller, yes, but you didn’t say “the only major one.”
If you were trying to make an argument to support TikTok, it’s a bad one.
While it may not be directly controlled by the CCP, the Chinese government still has the power to coerce ByteDance’s executives to cooperate on a whim. Tech moguls have already been disappeared, so it’s fairly obvious money can’t buy anyone complete protection.
Depending on what your news sources are, ByteDance has likely been sharing US data with China. This is magnitudes worse than a company selling data for profit to advertisers. Because of the prevalence of the app, it absolutely has the potential to be weaponized. It doesn’t take much to understand how a shitty little app could be leveraged to cause chaos. It’s about who really holds control over the company.
In my own personal opinion, short form videos are fucking cancer. All media companies that promote them need to fuck off.
The smaller “independent” banks are the same way. The only people that have the influence to start large companies are people that are deeply rooted in the CCP or have close ties to their central bank, which is CCP controlled.
We'd ALL be much better off, and a similar outcome could be achieved, by putting to law strict data security and privacy rules. Plus it wouldn't inevitably be challenged on very reasonable 1A grounds. But that isn't as politically possible because so many -- especially conservatives -- don't believe in the liberty of privacy.
We had the million man march and stuff way before the internet. I’m not sure why I think this, but I think it may prevent organization more than it enables it.
That’s a big part of it too, but i think an even bigger part is the use of TikTok in counter culture. It is definitively the largest gathering of counter culture on the web. They fear losing control of the narrative. The intelligence agencies already control Meta and google. They have members on TikTok’s board. Social media is an avenue for consent manufacturing for our government, and any deviation from their manufactured line is unacceptable.
I think anything that comes even close to disenfranchising a segment of voter that even hypothetically should lean more towards Biden than Trump in this election cycle is idiotic.
I don’t care about the morality of any of it. Well deal with that on the backend of whatever preventing Trump from taking office looks like. What’s 9 more months of Chinese spyware and stupid dances going to hurt? Nothing. If it even costs Biden 1/4th if a percent in November, don’t fucking do it. Whatever it takes to win and I mean whatever.
Bid n pushing for shit like this when all of our futures on the line is incredibly fucking stupid. People supporting this action are also idiots.
There i elaborated if you need it chewed up and spit in your mouth baby birds.
Couldn't agree more. I want tik tok banned. I want much stricter and broad as fuck data privacy laws. But doing this now is a terrible idea. Like holy shit wait until next year. It feels like a trap is being set.
Except that the trap is Biden’s political instincts. Biden didn’t win 2020, the BLM movement which had just spent 4 years on the streets resisting fascism, which was engaged and activated, they stopped Trump in 2020. Mass voter activation and outreach; an engaged and activated political population with the singular goal of stopping Trump: they won 2020. Biden got carried along for the ride. Problem we face now is that a Boomer (is he even a boomer?) who got handed second base by another batter thinks he hit a double. His instincts are shit. His politics are shit. He’s a stand-in we all voted for in lieu of voting for something much worse, and that’s precisely the problem. He shouldn’t be making political or campaign decisions, because it wasn’t his politics that got him into office. This is the fundamental problem at the core of blue-no-matter-who as a voting strategy.
Every move Biden’s had to make on his own volition and world view has been a terrible one. He’s a fucking idiot and we’re told were stuck with him? Except that I don’t actually believe we’re stuck with Biden. Its 2020 all over again. Biden’s not going to get elected on his own volition. Its not him being elected (again), its “Not Trump”. We could have gotten an old boot left out in the rain elected in 2020, the anti-Trump sentiment was so strong. Its the same game this year. If any blue will do, we should try a different blue that isn’t working to actively disenfranchise their base. Any generic blue state governor. West coast has plenty, just grab one. But Biden trying to turn the Democratic party to the right is so fucking stupid, its about the only strategy that could be employed that will lose the election for the Democrats. He’s setting us up for disaster and people here are cheering it on.
even if we did, I don’t think people would be interested in using a replacement without a recommendation algorithm that’s powered by tracking every millisecond you spend in an app in order to tailor the content to your interests.
Instagram Reels is the exact same model as tiktok, but that’s allowed to stay, because of murrica and freedom or something.
The only real concern with tiktok is the worry about data collection. But if they cared about that, then they’d pass laws on it. It’s only because it’s not a US company profiting from the data collection of their property. Sorry, I mean free citizens.
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