That last part is becoming less and less relevant .... someone is spying but it isn't for the benefit or under the control of a country. More and more, the spying is meant more for the purposes of commerce and finance, for money and control. For business interests which is what major governments mainly represent.
So if an American company collects user data and sells it on the open market to a hostile foreign nation, and accepts money to run propaganda, that’s A-OK?
Late 18th century. The chaos of the French Revolution arguably diluted its viability as an example to other countries, despite the structure of democratic government being objectively better, so you can argue that we were still on the cutting-edge through the 19th century, even, when most countries were still autocracies or constitutional monarchies with extremely questionable de jure voting systems.
I would argue as late as the 1950s, our democratic structure was closer to average than below-average, but by the 1970s, what gave the US more in-common with other developed democracies was that we had extensive practice with our democratic system; by then our structure was not just hopelessly outdated, but a structure that no one in their right mind would take seriously as a foundation for a new government. Come the fall of most of the single-party Soviet-backed regimes of the 1990s, and the only countries we actually beat out for being a 'good democracy' are ones that... well, are only questionably democracies to begin with. And even then, most of them have structures that are superior to our's; only a tradition of civic participation has led us to hobble on as long as we have without becoming an outright authoritarian state.
Though this might be the last month I can say that, which says a lot about the failures of our shitshow of an attempt at implementing democracy.
The majority of the population could not vote, either due to their skin color, sex, or degree of property ownership (colony by colony/state by state as I recall).
The majority of the population could not vote, either due to their skin color, sex, or degree of property ownership (colony by colony/state by state as I recall).
Yeah, you should look into other governments of the period.
Just to be specific, your argument is that the United States of the late 18th century can be considered a “trail blazer” in terms of democratic achievement. You are agreeing to my assertion that the franchise can be used as a measure of democracy, and you are asserting that the United States was uniquely forward in this area. This follow up statement is limiting this to a comparison of similar governments of the 18th century?
Which is a comparison that makes complete sense. When you say that someone is leading the way, you are clearly referring to them being at the forefront at the time when they were leading the way. Any system that was a trail blazer 100+ years ago should be outdated by now, unless progress stopped or went backwards in the meantime.
Probably no nation ever should last for more than 100 years. That seems to be about the time it takes for things to go bad, even if they were good to start with.
And of course there are countries like modern Russia that should have lasted for about 5 years.
And one naturally says the reason why we are in such a mess is not simply that we have wrong systems for doing things—whether they be technological, political, or religious—but we have the wrong people. The systems may be alright, but they are in the wrong hands, because we are all in various ways self-seeking, lacking in wisdom, lacking in courage, afraid of death, afraid of pain, unwilling really to cooperate with others, unwilling to be open to others.
If he meant "this system isn't democratic enough", hard agree. It sounded like the "the founders wanted a republic and we should stop trying to be a democracy" you hear from MAGAs.
Well, the founders wanted an oligarchy, and we have an oligarchy...
The first step to fixing the problem, is admitting we have a problem: The US was never intended to be a democracy for anyone except oligarchs, and it's still not a democracy for anyone but oligarchs.
On paper, it was a rejection of monarchism, so a step away from centralized control - but, in the same sort of way as the Magna Carta, where they didn't make the leap all the way to popular democracy, and instead sought to partially democratize power only among the ruling class. More democratic features have been added since then (suffrage, equal protection clause, etc.), though not nearly enough. IMO we do need to completely throw the system out and start over, only carrying over things for the sake of streamlining/continuity.
When a person says the US is a republic, not a democracy, I take it as them defining "democracy" as a "pure democracy" only, despite the fact that there are other kinds, such as republics. Kinda like saying "that's not a dog, it's a Labrador."
Those are valid criticisms, but can equally be applied to all of the rest of our main social media platforms.
I’m not seeing a big difference here between TikTok and YouTube except that one is not able to be influenced or backdoored by the US government and the other is.
In essence the optics here look an awful lot like the US simply doesn’t like other nations mining their citizens data that they want for themselves, and having foreign control of the type of news being fed by their algorithm.
Just remember that before Snowden dropped a dime on the NSA, similar suspicions sounded pretty wacky too
In essence the optics here look an awful lot like the US simply doesn’t like other nations mining their citizens data that they want for themselves, and having foreign control of the type of news being fed by their algorithm.
Well duh? Why do you think China blocks a lot of the US social media?
But… US companies are allowed to sell the data of citizens to other countries? Do they want some taxes before they give arbitrary your info that is literally unusable for anything aside from customizing ads
This argument bleeds from so many wounds! With how much could have Cuckerberg bribe both parties?
It'd be much more surprising to see the Awmerican government manipulating the algorithms etc to push propoganda narratives whereas it's a pretty safe assumption that's the case on tiktok.
Edit: Sorry, do downvoters think the American government is adjusting social media algorithms? Or do folks not believe China would do so?
To be clear, you imagine the Chinese government, which has a large group dedicated to censoring all internet communication/social media behind the Great Firewall, has decided that it would be rude to tweak algorithms to push similar narratives to what the Party would push?
Or what, China's very public efforts to shape global narratives only goes as far as public and global policy but they respect the sanctity of your social media feed?
There is sooooo much weird conspiracy shit in these comments. The government is banning TikTok becuase they collect too much data and the Chinese government could eaisly get access to all of it. The correct thing to do would be to regulate data collection but that would be problematic for Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple..etc etc... so instead they just ban TikTok. All this TikTok refusing to spread deep state US govt propaganda horse shit is a bit past nuts.
I hope you mean Google, they track you all over the web whether you want to be tracked or not just because lazy web developers can't be bothered to host their own fonts (and other ways but that's just one example). You have to deliberately download or use TikTok for them to get your data.
You're right, Google controls what I see and pushes right wing propaganda to my phone. TikTok's algorithm actually works to serve me content based on my interests, and I have true political discussion and discourse there.
Android will push notifications for news articles that you may be "interested" in. I think it used to be called Google Now.
Congress is concerned about theoretical propaganda, but it's a reality in nearly every major news outlet and tech companies, but zero concern when it fits a certain narrative.
Huh. Curious. I've been using Google Now, and after that, its successor, for a long time. Rarely do I see any political propaganda. Just sane reporting. I'm based on Northern Europe though.
Social media, the big ones that everyone uses, are a blight on society. They are worse than cancer and they need regulation and control.
Really, the bigger problem is the monetization of data, and the ever-deeper orificices that they try to dig into for said data.
But I digress.
At the same time, they are private industries running a public (ish) forum.
Historically, we'd expect the forum owners to be responsible about the content they are presenting, and ensure that it doesn't reflect poorly on them or their community.
In other words...you wouldn't see the grocer keeping hate speech up on his community board...but if you did, I'm sure a lot of people would choose a different grocer.
The social media giants are taking a page right out of the book of Mormon, and gotten itself so engrained into modern society that trying to separate yourself from it will, at some level, result in social exile. That's bad.
Now theres a company backed by an increasingly adversarial nation-state that is in charge of a shit ton of that data. That's bad.
There's a lot of bad. Ultimately, it's a highly nuanced issue.
Of course it's more worrying to the American government when it's a foreign government spying on their citizens. It's not really a double standard but rather just sensible from the gov's pov.
Tiktok got banned not for peddling "chinese propaganda" but instead not peddling the US one.
All the major tech companies in the US take measures to ensure content deemed unworthy by the government never become mainstream or viral.
This is done under the pretense of stopping "hate speech" or "terroristic propaganda" but often include things like pro-palestinian content or class struggle content (like luigi mangione stuff).
Tiktok was bold enough to not do that by default, cuz they wanted someone to ask them to do this and then it would become a huge scandal about how the US suppresses free speech. And US gov don't want to do that for this exact reason as well. So they decided to ban it.
Remember talks for this "law" were initiated when all of a sudden tiktok became a host for pro-palestinian voices. We should ask ourselves, how is it that 60% of americans want the government to stop arms sales to israel but this 60% never shows up on the big social media platforms. But on other platforms like here in lemmy and tiktok, pro-palestinians is the majority.
For further reading, listen to employees fired from big US tech companies for voicing their concerns over the palestine issue, or read Meta's new terms and conditions specially the section on "dangerous organizations and individuals".
I didn't say tiktok is the bastion of free speech. They only do this in the Palestinian case because it does not serve them anything to be against palestine. We can criticise one party without making the other one some kind of "moral hero" of a story.
Not to defend tiktok (to this day I have not ever used it), but if the issue is the tracking and data collection, you could ban/regulate that specifically instead of singling out the app.
It is obvious that they want the other (US-based) companies to be able to continue collecting that data so they can gain access to it if they want/need it. It's bullshit, but it's clearly what they want.
But that being bullshit does not mean that they are wrong in not wanting the one that is under the control of a foreign adversary having access to that data. Two separate things.
False dichotomy. They could’ve been banned on legitimate pretenses AND other reasons threatening power.
If they were legitimately only banned for “tracking the location in the US and gathering large amounts of data”, then just about every single social media service would be under investigation for the same reason. But do we currently see that happening?
They're owned by a Chinese company so the Chinese govt has this information. I'm not saying it's a good reason to ban it, or that there isn't another secret reason, or that American companies don't gather the same information. This was the problem all along - China receiving vast amounts of information about Americans. Actually the US was probably worried about China spreading their viewpoints, now that I think more about it. IDK
Of all the social media popular in the US, only one of them is doing that tracking and is under the thumb of a foreign adversary. That is specifically the line drawn in the law. I'm actually curious if WeChat shouldn't fall under it too?
If they were legitimately only banned for “tracking the location in the US and gathering large amounts of data”, then just about every single social media service would be under investigation for the same reason.
We aren't talking about TikTok simply gathering the information though, are we?
But yes, absolutely. Let's do it. And we know that: just because the other companies aren't being investigated/regulated in the same way, does not mean that it shouldn't happen at all. That's not how it works.
Also, you are making a fallacious argument yourself... If we were talking about banning US social media sites in China, then the comparison holds (and even then, it's not 1:1 given the political structure of the CCP vs. that of the US). Otherwise, TikTok is clearly unique among them in that the Chinese Government ostensibly has access to any and all information that is being collected.
There is a reason China made their own version Facebook. Because they don't want us to have all that information on their citizens.
These are very loose terms. Pretty much every major website saves IP addresses when you create an account (to prevent abuse/spam detection). And you can get location info from the IP address. Hence the first condition would be true for all of those websites.
Next, any website/app that builds a recommendation system will save user interactions to build the "algorithm". So every social media with an algorithm will fall into this category.
With enough bending of terminology, we might be able to prove that the lemmy also collects user data (although it will be really hard cuz the algo here is based on upvotes and time posted iirc). And "large amount" part is just legal filler words.
Thank god for bold platforms like TikTok that refuse to push US propaganda. Really smart of them to not censor valuable information as a way of fooling the US government into exposing its evil censorship ways. TikTok's fate in the US was never a topic before the current wave of pro-Palestinian activism started. It certainly wasn't one of Trump's main talking points ten years ago. Good thing he changed his mind after getting his hands on some Chinese money lucrative investmenet from Chinese citizens that are not at all connected to Tencent.
None of this discourse on combatting foreign information manipulation started over a decade ago, its all about censoring pro-Palestine voices here and now. TikTok and China in general are known for their calm, collected attitudes toward Muslims. They certainly would never weaponize a contentious topic every which way imaginable in pursuit of financial and geopolitical goals. We need more of these open and bold platforms.
I feel like with all the posts I ramble on (and TRY to pare down) in Lemmy, I could just have easily had a somewhat healthy blog going by now...that nobody would read because it wasn't on Medium or some other monolith. XD
Funny how the Chinese are using Palestinians to try to further their own geopolitical position. It's almost like the October 7th attack as engineered by Israel AND Iran. You know who Irans allies are... Right?
That is quite the logic. That it is the fault of the militarized resistance against a colonial state (just a political party really, but putting that aside) that the colonial state's prime minister is using genocide against their people to hold onto power.
At some point you have to actually ask yourself, am I apply equal standards for assigning blame across the spectrum?
edit : ooooh the wee St Petersburg trollies are tryin’ ta tryin’ ta ain’tcha!
News flash, responder-guys: if you’re even humans & not the AI bots who took most of your colleagues’ jobs, you’re still always be undervalued by your bosses. They’ll never, ever save you: they’ll save their Teslas and stock portfolios instead. Your life kinda sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it AND YOU CHOSE THIS LIFE, DIDNT YOU. Free yourself. Quit this shit job and go back to school before it’s too late.
You're on the Fediverse. Most of the people here are already actively avoiding Facebook and Xitter. Unfortunately, getting the US, EU, etc. to ban American propaspyware companies is, uh, extremely unlikely. China, however, has banned them long ago, which is why I don't see why people think it's hypocritical of the US government to ban Chinese social media.
Have you tried actually comparing the content on Tiktok vs other social networks? Or are you just regurgitating some talking point?
From the few years I've been on Tiktok, it is by far the least toxic and bigoted social network I've seen, Lemmy included.
I'm no fan of China, but if we're considering "being less bigoted" to be commie propaganda, then we need to take a look in the mirror. Absolutely throwing the baby out with the bath water here
Try saying negative stuff about China on .ml
I doubt that they are not completely undermined by the Chinese intelligence. (They delete every post critical about china).
So being vigilant is the only way to avoid getting manipulated.
.ml might just be useful idiots tbh. But I remember speedrunning an /r/sino ban and that took me all of 1 minute, with a comment that wasn't even critical about China. It was a thread about how it's awesome that the west can't live without China for 5G connectivity and I said that "maybe it isn't all that great that an entire industry has been entirely centralized to one country" just to see if an absolutely lukewarm take would get banned. It did.
Not sure that it’s “most” anymore. Propaganda huffers realized there was more new land to destroy / minds to influence & they had to come settle here too
Can someone explain to me how it's worse for a foreign government to have your information than your own government having that same information? Your own government is far more likely to actually be able to do something about you.
Blah blah blah "we built our own great firewall and painted it red white and blue, and even banned the use of vpns to get to foreign sites which even China doesn't do. We're totally the good guys BTW."
Americans are so fucking stupid, oh my god.
@EDIT: So it turns out the RESTRICT Act, that I was thinking of, and which banned VPNs, was shot down. And the current and approved Tiktok ban law doesn't do that. So. My b. This one is on me. I stand by "Americans are so fucking stupid oh my god", though, because you're still cheering for loss of net liberty.
as an American yeah, seeing this post is just depressing. like people are actively cheering a loss of internet freedom. the government doesn't care about bytedance or else capcut would have to go too. they care about controlling information, tiktok has been essential in issues like Palestine, even if I don't like the platform itself I can admit that.
I think the idea of the government banning entire websites (or really any information in general) is horrifying. The fact that so many people in America seem to be enthusiastic or at least indifferent to new forms of government censorship shows how far along we are to complete fascism. Information is meant to be free, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. The fact that’s we’re having these conversations is disgusting.
I was thinking of the RESTRICT act from 2023, which did ban the usage of VPNs (and was the "Original" Tiktok ban law)
Apparently in the year and change I spent not really caring (look, this is an American problem, y'all slam your metaphorical penises in the car door at least three times a day. And I have my own country's dick-slammings to care about. I only hear about it when it's particularly egregious or when I see a meme like this that is cheering for the dick-slamming) the RESTRICT act got shot down, and another one was quickly drafted.
The one that was approved does not ban VPNs. So. That's on me. My b.
Anyway, given y'all are under Trump's thumb now, I give it eeeeh six months before RESTRICT 2: Censorship Boogaloo starts making the rounds.
Actually fight against that rather than pretending too, Israel and Russia have destroyed the US from within far more than China... Maybe tackle the active objective threats rather than potential ones
Russia is a menace to US's peasantry, as they might drag the US to a(nother) proxy war.
Whereas China is a menace to the US's aristocracy, in the sense that China is currently richer than the US of A, and despite thousands of articles about how "CHINA'S ECONOMY WILL COLLAPSE TOMORROW!" for the past 15 years, it has yet to happen.
Ergo, the US government won't do shit about Russia, but will bend over backwards for anything related to China.
Actual regulations on data privacy and algorithmic manipulation. It's not that complicated. The EU figured it out. Fuck me, my own country, Brazil, a third world hellhole, figured it out. We have very strict rules on data protection.
Ofc, this would never happen because 1. Big corpos own the US government and actual regulation on privacy would hurt THEM, and 2. The US Government actually WANTS algorithmic manipulation to happen, except they want THEIR algorithmic manipulation and not anyone else's.
What? Wechat is a thing here? I have literally never heard about Wechat like anywhere, pretty sure more people know about Lemmy in the US than Wechat lmao
Reader's Note - There has been no evidence submitted showing any of the allegations towards TikTok are true. In fact TikTok publicly embarked on a project to silo all US Data.
Lol, fair play, I editorialized the titles too. But really once you click into them it's super obvious these guys have an axe to grind. For example, (from the relevant paper) they state that serving up less Anti CCP content is a bias. But they compare it to YouTube and Instagram. Two services pretty famous for taking people down far right tracks if you let their algorithm auto play. So in this case even a neutral position is going to have less Anti-CCP propaganda.
And the entire paper is flawed in this way. The baseline they establish is itself flawed. They also claim causation but can only show correlation with their skewed baseline.
The team next looked at engagement to see if this explained why anti-CCP content was performing less well. But it found that TikTok users “liked or commented on anti-CCP content nearly four times as much as they liked or commented on pro-CCP content, yet the search algorithm produced nearly three times as much pro-CCP content”. This didn’t happen on Instagram or YouTube.
Yes. I already said it was censorship. Again: how is this pro-CCP propaganda? Do you understand the difference between censorship and propaganda?
If you don't think that suppressing content that goes against a point of view whilst simultaneously boosting content that agrees with a point of view is propaganda, I suppose you must think Twitter's recent developments over the past two years (or so? Time is getting fuzzy) are not a propaganda effort either.
My point is: if we all would use a more broad definition of the term propaganda, instead of calling nothing but political messaging we didn't like propaganda, we'd all live in a more politically literate society.
I think this meme actively reduces media literacy.
I happen to like that tiktok spreads information about the genocide in Gaza, which is being shadowbanned on the western platforms.
Context is important. The current context of the tiktok ban is that it's hard for the US to control the political message with that big of a platform not under US control.
I happen to dislike censorship, even if it is done by the west.
I happen to like that tiktok spreads information about the genocide in Gaza,
So in the interest of that, you chose to deny that Tiktok is used to push CCP propaganda.
which is being shadowbanned on the western platforms.
Some of the Western platforms run by billionaires, yes, whom I explicitly compared to the CCP in the original comment.
Context is important. The current context of the tiktok ban is that it’s hard for the US to control the political message with that big of a platform not under US control.
You think it's the US government which is pushing Facebook and Twitter to censor Palestinian voices?
I happen to dislike censorship, even if it is done by the west.
But you'll tolerate it, if it pushes one view you do like? Or just if it's not done by the West?
So in the interest of that, you chose to deny that Tiktok is used to push CCP propaganda.
There's a difference in not knowing and denying.
Some of the Western platforms run by billionaires, yes, whom I explicitly compared to the CCP in the original comment.
Yeah, when you ignored the context of the OP.
You think it's the US government which is pushing Facebook and Twitter to censor Palestinian voices?
Are you always this nitpicky?
But you'll tolerate it, if it pushes one view you do like? Or just if it's not done by the West?
No. I prefer a wide range of different news sources where I can judge the biases. I can still get good information from Tiktok if I know that I should be critical concerning anything about China's policy.
So you'd prefer it if Facebook/Twitter/Google/Microsoft/Amazon are the only ones in control of mass online discourse? (That's the type of strawman you're constructing of me)
As I said elsewhere, knowing it but still denying it, is considerably worse than being ignorant or confused.
Yeah, when you ignored the context of the OP.
... what context in the OP did I ignore?
Are you always this nitpicky?
This is what you said:
The current context of the tiktok ban is that it’s hard for the US to control the political message with that big of a platform not under US control.
I didn't realize that it was nitpicky to dispute a point.
No. I prefer a wide range of different news sources where I can judge the biases. I can still get good information from Tiktok if I know that I should be critical concerning anything about China’s policy.
You shouldn't be getting any of your information directly from social media. Furthermore, propaganda is like advertising - you are not immune to it. The "I'm too smart to be fooled" approach just makes you a mark.
So you’d prefer it if Facebook/Twitter/Google/Microsoft/Amazon are the only ones in control of mass online discourse? (That’s the type of strawman you’re constructing of me)
I would prefer it if none of them did, and if Facebook or Twitter or Google catches a ban, I won't be defending them as news sources which don't spread propaganda, "and if they did, so what?"
Since this is the place for the most serious discussion:
If US lawmakers focused on protecting American's privacy with some sensible privacy laws coughGDPR equivalent cough, we could avoid pulling out the ban hammer to play whack-a-mole on these companies.
Companies would simply be punished by the law for being malicious or irresponsible with your data, forcing industries to take privacy seriously and make investments in protecting and not leaking it.
It will be banned for a short while, long enough for Trump to enforce sale to Meta in exchange for their absolute hard turn top to bottom in everything they do to help spread misinformation and keep the plebs angry.
if Vine was still here (let alone brought back) it would become just as bad as TikTok. Social medias can have their golden age but they will inevitably turn into shit, vine was simply shut down before its golden age came to an end
I always thought Vine was so stupid and pointless, but I thought the same thing about Twitter and it sold for $44 billion dollars, so what do I know? I miss the old Internet when content was more than a blurb, and conversations were deep and meaningful.
It sold for $44 billion dollars, so it was definitely worth that to the people who cashed the check. It doesn't matter what we think it was worth, that's how enormous their payday was. Motherfuck, I should have coded that shit back in the day!
Americans complaining about other countries meddling in their affairs is such a hilarious hypocrisy. You guys have been the worst for ruining other countries around the world.
I found it interesting that this Tiktok regulation talk hit peak fervor around the time that youths were using tiktok to fully grasp the severity of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Meanwhile mainstream corporate media was painting a very different and dishonest story of the genocide.
We need broad regulation for social media in the US, not cherry picked fervor for political reasons.
My wife quit it and was back on it a week later. Apparently it's very addictive. As someone who is on Lemmy a thousand times per day, I guess I can understand. I don't consider it quite the same though since we actually talk here, and discuss things beyond pressing like buttons on glorified commercials.
Tiktoks have a comment section, and people can reply to comments.
There is a char limit, and while that makes nuance difficult, it also inhibits unhinged rants
If the govt cared about your data privacy, they would create data collection regulations that they could then use to ban tiktok if/when they violate them.
Disclaimer: I am not saying Tiktok is a great app with zero issues. This is a concern about causing long term problems by using a short term easy solution.
Good luck criticizing a user’s choice of platform hoping to get them to leave. I’m just happy to see one less corporate platform.
“You really shouldn’t jump rope on the train tracks. It’s not safe.”
“What’s not safe about jumping rope? Everybody jump’s rope.”
“It’s not jumping rope that’s the problem, it’s the train tracks.”
“I think I’m smart enough to know if a train is coming. It’s not like the train is coming for me specifically. I’m not that important. I don’t have anything valuable enough for the train to take from me anyw-“ splat
I might be killed, but seeing the comments i feel like lemmy is getting too into the zone of umm like judging the action based on the person instead of judging the action/statement itself, yeah the US gov is a piece of shit, and also they probably don't have the peoples best interest in mind, but the act of banning tiktok, according to me, is a right move, i can see nd myself have felt the humongous mental impact it has on teens (like me) basically killing their attention span, and making them feel like they need to pick up their phone, heck kids cant read 10pages from their physics book, infact reading a page only thoroughly is a tough task for most of them, and i m not talking abt a few select cases, i can see this in 95% of kids (this is anecdotal tho), ever since i stopped using reels/tiktoks/shorts, i can feel my mind improving
Also the whole slew of misinformation and propaganda tiktok is, is another issue
Again I agree with ppl that the US doesn’t hv the ppls best interest, but i do feel this might help atleast some ppl break their addiction, so many I know are aware they r addicted but can’t stop, banning the app altogether might help
Fuck you. I'm going to RedNote. Purely out of spite. Because I'd rather dropship my DNA to the Communist Party of China HQ than give my data to Zucc or Elon.
TikTok has been under control of the State Dept for years, since TikTok transferred custody of US servers to Oracle. The ban is to force a sale to a US competitor, and decrease transparency on censorship activities, especially regarding Palestine and pro-communism material.
Gross to see this kind of disinformation on Lemmy. Too bad freedom and open information lost in a major way. This will be a dark day in history. Nobody benefits except the genociders.
The interest your domestic and foreign corporate social media platforms have in you are VASTLY different. It's naive to equivocate them. Yes, TikTok should get "banned", which will just be pulling the app from the app store and likely still available as a web app maybe through a VPN. They're just going to create more friction in getting access.
Instead of advocating for spyware, perhaps we should be highlighting open alternatives?
As if any of the other social media networks aren't doing the same shit. I'd rather have China spy on me than an American company. They can't use my data to fuck me over.
Nah they want your money and attention same as the Americans
I will say that being from Latin america I am fundamentally less scared of China than I am scared of the US. The US took my country's future from us twice, both times in living memory, and one I was already around for.
While the worst thing China has done here is uhhh
Buy land to open a factory in our sovereign soil and illegally mistreat workers in that factory.
Really not anywhere near the same level as backing two far right coups.
I have news for everyone ITT: TikTok is not leaving the US. A friend works in their North America business division, and they are fully planning to split off a satellite company that is (at least nominally) US-based and compliant with local law. They have been working on the transition for many months.
Factually untrue, the only person who has control of what the algorithm shows you on any social media is the end user. So say8ng that it is used to spread propaganda (which that's super vague), is blatantly false. Pretending otherwise is just being willingly ignorant to how the technology works. Hell, a 6 year old understands how the algorithm works and how to shape it. Plus, US based users have their data stored on US servers hosted by Oracle, China has no access to it. Do two seconds of research and you will see that I'm correct
LMAO, The company that makes the algorithm has control over what that algorithm "weighs" it's not that hard for them to tweak the values so it "weighs" whatever propaganda or content they want to push more of much higher than other content.
It's true, the end user does have some influence on the algorithm, but when they have it tweaked to "weigh" pro-CCP or pro-Right-wing trash much higher than other content it doesn't take much to end up falling back. For example, watching part of single pro-Trump video would make the algorithm push much more Trump trash where it would take 5 "normal" fully watched videos to continue showing "normal" videos.
And that's assuming the average user is even aware enough to influence it to that degree, which they don't.
Plus, US based users have their data stored on US servers hosted by Oracle, China has no access to it.
Yea, the data is stored in the US, but it still influences the TikTok US algorithm (because they have a separate algorithm for China ofc) which is still wholly controlled outside of the US
The last panel applies to every other social media, just replace the spying country.
That last part is becoming less and less relevant .... someone is spying but it isn't for the benefit or under the control of a country. More and more, the spying is meant more for the purposes of commerce and finance, for money and control. For business interests which is what major governments mainly represent.
And as soon as the government wants it, most companies hand it right over.
Reminds of my favourite description of the US ....
"The US isn't a country, it's a corporation with a military"
And it doesn't matter who or why, either - as soon as someone hoards other people's data, someone else will try to steal it.
surveillance capitalism…
Right? Now do Facebook.
Yes, and that's why US companies aren't banned by the US. The foreign power having so much propaganda power was the danger.
So if an American company collects user data and sells it on the open market to a hostile foreign nation, and accepts money to run propaganda, that’s A-OK?
That capitalism baby! I suppose Congress can at least control who Facebook et al. are selling to through sanctions and such.
They could but they haven’t, so this ban is just racist economic protectionism.
I'm not sure what race has to do with economic protectionism, but it's really a combination of all of the above.
If I wanna get my propaganda from more than one world power, that's my right under the first amendment. Or it was.
Same reason why China bans a shitload of sites. It's fine when you do it to your own citizens
Lemmy begs to differ
There are multiple instances pushing propaganda and most data can just be scraped by bots. It may be harder, but capitalism finds a way.
The multiple instances:
The last panel also hurts us - fellow non-americans :(
Jokes on you, I use lemmy
On Arch tho?
Literally made by communists
Jokes on you, you use it too
I'm impervious to communism, comrade.
edit fuck!
I'm pretty sure the NSA and its chinese counterpart never heard about ActivityPub.
They out here. Both of them. This post smells just like one tbh.
? Who's out here?
The people that countries pay to pretend to be normal everyday users in order to spread state propaganda?
Edit: in this case 'both' refers to the image particularly portraying two countries
That's not what the meme is about. It's about the company collecting data and giving it to their government
Edit: and adjusting the algorithm to their favor
And the very next day:
We were trailblazers for a time. Other than that, we were always kind of fucked as a democratic system.
What time was that? (genuinely curious)
Late 18th century. The chaos of the French Revolution arguably diluted its viability as an example to other countries, despite the structure of democratic government being objectively better, so you can argue that we were still on the cutting-edge through the 19th century, even, when most countries were still autocracies or constitutional monarchies with extremely questionable de jure voting systems.
I would argue as late as the 1950s, our democratic structure was closer to average than below-average, but by the 1970s, what gave the US more in-common with other developed democracies was that we had extensive practice with our democratic system; by then our structure was not just hopelessly outdated, but a structure that no one in their right mind would take seriously as a foundation for a new government. Come the fall of most of the single-party Soviet-backed regimes of the 1990s, and the only countries we actually beat out for being a 'good democracy' are ones that... well, are only questionably democracies to begin with. And even then, most of them have structures that are superior to our's; only a tradition of civic participation has led us to hobble on as long as we have without becoming an outright authoritarian state.
Though this might be the last month I can say that, which says a lot about the failures of our shitshow of an attempt at implementing democracy.
The majority of the population could not vote, either due to their skin color, sex, or degree of property ownership (colony by colony/state by state as I recall).
Yeah, you should look into other governments of the period.
Just to be specific, your argument is that the United States of the late 18th century can be considered a “trail blazer” in terms of democratic achievement. You are agreeing to my assertion that the franchise can be used as a measure of democracy, and you are asserting that the United States was uniquely forward in this area. This follow up statement is limiting this to a comparison of similar governments of the 18th century?
Late 18th century, yes. And if I hear pop history myths about the Iroquois, I will be irritated.
Which is a comparison that makes complete sense. When you say that someone is leading the way, you are clearly referring to them being at the forefront at the time when they were leading the way. Any system that was a trail blazer 100+ years ago should be outdated by now, unless progress stopped or went backwards in the meantime.
And how was the situation in the rest of the world?
Before any of us were alive. Some would say before centralized banking in the early 20th
Democracy is the worst form of government...
Except for all other forms.
Probably no nation ever should last for more than 100 years. That seems to be about the time it takes for things to go bad, even if they were good to start with.
And of course there are countries like modern Russia that should have lasted for about 5 years.
—Alan Watts, Mind Over Mind
I think “For a minute or two” is a more apt answer.
Now do one with Xinnie the Pooh
Neither he nor his country seem to be on their way out currently. Same old authoritarianism as usual.
Do hollywood next (aka the propaganda machine of the US).
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
North Korea is also. Democratic Republic too!
So much good, amirite?
Hey now! The US is much more democratic, because we get to choose between two hand picked selections from our oligarchs.
I mean yeah the US absolutely is much more democratic than North Korea, but it's the lowest of bars
A republic is a kind of democracy.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
In other words, a republic is a kind of democracy.
Oh my god, can you people shut up with this already.
The senate, and SCOTUS are verrrry democratic.
Not having primaries for either of the two available parties is very democratic.
The electoral college is the most democratic way to make sure the minority voice maintains a dictatorship.
If he meant "this system isn't democratic enough", hard agree. It sounded like the "the founders wanted a republic and we should stop trying to be a democracy" you hear from MAGAs.
Well, the founders wanted an oligarchy, and we have an oligarchy...
The first step to fixing the problem, is admitting we have a problem: The US was never intended to be a democracy for anyone except oligarchs, and it's still not a democracy for anyone but oligarchs.
On paper, it was a rejection of monarchism, so a step away from centralized control - but, in the same sort of way as the Magna Carta, where they didn't make the leap all the way to popular democracy, and instead sought to partially democratize power only among the ruling class. More democratic features have been added since then (suffrage, equal protection clause, etc.), though not nearly enough. IMO we do need to completely throw the system out and start over, only carrying over things for the sake of streamlining/continuity.
When a person says the US is a republic, not a democracy, I take it as them defining "democracy" as a "pure democracy" only, despite the fact that there are other kinds, such as republics. Kinda like saying "that's not a dog, it's a Labrador."
But I like fish.
He wrote "it's not a democracy, it's a republic" originally.
I was explaining my fish preferences.
I tried to hold on to the red snapper but I took what was in the box.
No need to keep commenting
Why not? It’s fun. Plus I hate it when the herring bones get stuck in my teeth.
Do you not love fish?
No I didn’t.
Those are valid criticisms, but can equally be applied to all of the rest of our main social media platforms.
I’m not seeing a big difference here between TikTok and YouTube except that one is not able to be influenced or backdoored by the US government and the other is.
In essence the optics here look an awful lot like the US simply doesn’t like other nations mining their citizens data that they want for themselves, and having foreign control of the type of news being fed by their algorithm.
Just remember that before Snowden dropped a dime on the NSA, similar suspicions sounded pretty wacky too
Well duh? Why do you think China blocks a lot of the US social media?
To prevent cancer
But they haven't blocked all social media, just prevented their citizens from interacting with other people
But… US companies are allowed to sell the data of citizens to other countries? Do they want some taxes before they give arbitrary your info that is literally unusable for anything aside from customizing ads
This argument bleeds from so many wounds! With how much could have Cuckerberg bribe both parties?
It'd be much more surprising to see the Awmerican government manipulating the algorithms etc to push propoganda narratives whereas it's a pretty safe assumption that's the case on tiktok.
Edit: Sorry, do downvoters think the American government is adjusting social media algorithms? Or do folks not believe China would do so?
Bruh, facebook just changed their terms of service to be pro US right wing propaganda...
You don't get the difference between changing the algorithms vs allowing different content?
And also didn't notice the vocal feedback about the change vs say hearing nothing about any algorithm changes?
You know what they say about assuming...
To be clear, you imagine the Chinese government, which has a large group dedicated to censoring all internet communication/social media behind the Great Firewall, has decided that it would be rude to tweak algorithms to push similar narratives to what the Party would push?
Or what, China's very public efforts to shape global narratives only goes as far as public and global policy but they respect the sanctity of your social media feed?
Well I guess you're both asses then
There is sooooo much weird conspiracy shit in these comments. The government is banning TikTok becuase they collect too much data and the Chinese government could eaisly get access to all of it. The correct thing to do would be to regulate data collection but that would be problematic for Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple..etc etc... so instead they just ban TikTok. All this TikTok refusing to spread deep state US govt propaganda horse shit is a bit past nuts.
Both are bad, one is worse.
I hope you mean Google, they track you all over the web whether you want to be tracked or not just because lazy web developers can't be bothered to host their own fonts (and other ways but that's just one example). You have to deliberately download or use TikTok for them to get your data.
Not to mention meta. They'll do all of the above and when they're done sell the data to the highest bidder.
You're right, Google's tracking is way more pervasive and far less optional.
You're right, Google controls what I see and pushes right wing propaganda to my phone. TikTok's algorithm actually works to serve me content based on my interests, and I have true political discussion and discourse there.
Google doesn't push right wing propaganda to my phone. Do they only do that to US citizens?
I'm Canadian - 2 weeks before the election I started getting about an article per day pushed to my Android phone, for a few days.
Now when you say "pushed to", where and how did that actually manifest "on" your phone.
Android will push notifications for news articles that you may be "interested" in. I think it used to be called Google Now.
Congress is concerned about theoretical propaganda, but it's a reality in nearly every major news outlet and tech companies, but zero concern when it fits a certain narrative.
Huh. Curious. I've been using Google Now, and after that, its successor, for a long time. Rarely do I see any political propaganda. Just sane reporting. I'm based on Northern Europe though.
Polly wants a cracker
Imagine cheering that your government decided witch social media are you allowed to use.
Oh yeah, I forgot the other social media apps don't collect data and spew propaganda. Oh wait... They do.
Yeah but only for the benevolent western ultra rich oligarchs, so it's gucci.
Yeah, only AMIERICAN companies can spy on our citizens and flood them with propaganda!
USA! USA! USA!
This is my problem with it.
Social media, the big ones that everyone uses, are a blight on society. They are worse than cancer and they need regulation and control.
Really, the bigger problem is the monetization of data, and the ever-deeper orificices that they try to dig into for said data.
But I digress.
At the same time, they are private industries running a public (ish) forum.
Historically, we'd expect the forum owners to be responsible about the content they are presenting, and ensure that it doesn't reflect poorly on them or their community.
In other words...you wouldn't see the grocer keeping hate speech up on his community board...but if you did, I'm sure a lot of people would choose a different grocer.
The social media giants are taking a page right out of the book of Mormon, and gotten itself so engrained into modern society that trying to separate yourself from it will, at some level, result in social exile. That's bad.
Now theres a company backed by an increasingly adversarial nation-state that is in charge of a shit ton of that data. That's bad.
There's a lot of bad. Ultimately, it's a highly nuanced issue.
Of course it's more worrying to the American government when it's a foreign government spying on their citizens. It's not really a double standard but rather just sensible from the gov's pov.
Tiktok got banned not for peddling "chinese propaganda" but instead not peddling the US one.
All the major tech companies in the US take measures to ensure content deemed unworthy by the government never become mainstream or viral.
This is done under the pretense of stopping "hate speech" or "terroristic propaganda" but often include things like pro-palestinian content or class struggle content (like luigi mangione stuff).
Tiktok was bold enough to not do that by default, cuz they wanted someone to ask them to do this and then it would become a huge scandal about how the US suppresses free speech. And US gov don't want to do that for this exact reason as well. So they decided to ban it.
Remember talks for this "law" were initiated when all of a sudden tiktok became a host for pro-palestinian voices. We should ask ourselves, how is it that 60% of americans want the government to stop arms sales to israel but this 60% never shows up on the big social media platforms. But on other platforms like here in lemmy and tiktok, pro-palestinians is the majority.
For further reading, listen to employees fired from big US tech companies for voicing their concerns over the palestine issue, or read Meta's new terms and conditions specially the section on "dangerous organizations and individuals".
Ah yes, TikTok, the land free of censorship. Where you can’t say “gay” and must insert a stupid little asterisk.
I didn't say tiktok is the bastion of free speech. They only do this in the Palestinian case because it does not serve them anything to be against palestine. We can criticise one party without making the other one some kind of "moral hero" of a story.
The user you are answering to isn't making "the other party" any kind of moral hero, it's literally just criticizing TikTok.
It’s outright shadowbanned at best and straight up banned at the isp level at worst.
That’s why tik tok is getting banned, because US spooks can’t control it.
They track the location of people in the US and gather large amounts of data. They didn't get banned for refusing to spread US propaganda.
Not to defend tiktok (to this day I have not ever used it), but if the issue is the tracking and data collection, you could ban/regulate that specifically instead of singling out the app.
Ding ding ding
It is obvious that they want the other (US-based) companies to be able to continue collecting that data so they can gain access to it if they want/need it. It's bullshit, but it's clearly what they want.
But that being bullshit does not mean that they are wrong in not wanting the one that is under the control of a foreign adversary having access to that data. Two separate things.
And the US social media companies are filled with spooks.
False dichotomy. They could’ve been banned on legitimate pretenses AND other reasons threatening power.
If they were legitimately only banned for “tracking the location in the US and gathering large amounts of data”, then just about every single social media service would be under investigation for the same reason. But do we currently see that happening?
They're owned by a Chinese company so the Chinese govt has this information. I'm not saying it's a good reason to ban it, or that there isn't another secret reason, or that American companies don't gather the same information. This was the problem all along - China receiving vast amounts of information about Americans. Actually the US was probably worried about China spreading their viewpoints, now that I think more about it. IDK
Of all the social media popular in the US, only one of them is doing that tracking and is under the thumb of a foreign adversary. That is specifically the line drawn in the law. I'm actually curious if WeChat shouldn't fall under it too?
We aren't talking about TikTok simply gathering the information though, are we?
But yes, absolutely. Let's do it. And we know that: just because the other companies aren't being investigated/regulated in the same way, does not mean that it shouldn't happen at all. That's not how it works.
Also, you are making a fallacious argument yourself... If we were talking about banning US social media sites in China, then the comparison holds (and even then, it's not 1:1 given the political structure of the CCP vs. that of the US). Otherwise, TikTok is clearly unique among them in that the Chinese Government ostensibly has access to any and all information that is being collected.
There is a reason China made their own version Facebook. Because they don't want us to have all that information on their citizens.
I thought it was because they wanted to be in charge of what was censored and what wasn't and was left able to be seen and shared amongst users.
Also, what Chinese Facebook? Xiaohong Shu or DaZhong DianPing are probably closest... But still way off.
So does facebook, twitter, google, microsoft, and pretty much every mobile app development shop.
These are very loose terms. Pretty much every major website saves IP addresses when you create an account (to prevent abuse/spam detection). And you can get location info from the IP address. Hence the first condition would be true for all of those websites.
Next, any website/app that builds a recommendation system will save user interactions to build the "algorithm". So every social media with an algorithm will fall into this category.
With enough bending of terminology, we might be able to prove that the lemmy also collects user data (although it will be really hard cuz the algo here is based on upvotes and time posted iirc). And "large amount" part is just legal filler words.
As does all the American owned networks. That’s not the reason. Not pushing American propaganda is the reason.
That’s what they’re telling you, and since when are they telling the truth?
I think aliens did it.
Facebook does the same tracking and data harvesting. Is Facebook up to be banned? It isn't the tracking and data harvesting.
Person 1: I think it's because the tracking and data harvesting
Person 2: that's an obvious lie (see above)
You: I think aliens did it
Shut up alien
hankie hugger, yall ain’t gonna win this one
Thank god for bold platforms like TikTok that refuse to push US propaganda. Really smart of them to not censor valuable information as a way of fooling the US government into exposing its evil censorship ways. TikTok's fate in the US was never a topic before the current wave of pro-Palestinian activism started. It certainly wasn't one of Trump's main talking points ten years ago. Good thing he changed his mind after getting his hands on
some Chinese moneylucrative investmenet from Chinese citizens that are not at all connected to Tencent.None of this discourse on combatting foreign information manipulation started over a decade ago, its all about censoring pro-Palestine voices here and now. TikTok and China in general are known for their calm, collected attitudes toward Muslims. They certainly would never weaponize a contentious topic every which way imaginable in pursuit of financial and geopolitical goals. We need more of these open and bold platforms.
I wasn’t sure this was an actual a tankie rant or sarcasm until the
Its just another troll. You give them labels like tankie but they are just trolls.
Yuppp. Newsflash, Chinese government is committing a genocide against the Uighur peoples
Know what the other “tell” is? They write a wall of text. Big thick paragraphs. It’s a thing, start looking for it.
Who? People with a lot to say?
& when you call them out they want to lead you down this endless response chain. You wonder if they get bonuses for it
Oh yeah, nothing like hallucinating that everyone you talk to is an enemy, and when they complain, well that just proves it.
No, that’s neurodivergence.
I feel seen. LOL
I feel like with all the posts I ramble on (and TRY to pare down) in Lemmy, I could just have easily had a somewhat healthy blog going by now...that nobody would read because it wasn't on Medium or some other monolith. XD
Funny how the Chinese are using Palestinians to try to further their own geopolitical position. It's almost like the October 7th attack as engineered by Israel AND Iran. You know who Irans allies are... Right?
And "Israel" fell right into their trap by...committing genocide.
Bibi did. The guy who would be in prison for corruption charges without Hamas being retards. HURRDURR
That is quite the logic. That it is the fault of the militarized resistance against a colonial state (just a political party really, but putting that aside) that the colonial state's prime minister is using genocide against their people to hold onto power.
At some point you have to actually ask yourself, am I apply equal standards for assigning blame across the spectrum?
Hamas is being used as a pawn. Should read some Sun Tzu
I've read Art of War. Do you have an actual point?
No I don't. I apologize. Lost a close family member a few days ago and I'm lashing out inappropriately
FTFY
edit : ooooh the wee St Petersburg trollies are tryin’ ta tryin’ ta ain’tcha!
News flash, responder-guys: if you’re even humans & not the AI bots who took most of your colleagues’ jobs, you’re still always be undervalued by your bosses. They’ll never, ever save you: they’ll save their Teslas and stock portfolios instead. Your life kinda sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it AND YOU CHOSE THIS LIFE, DIDNT YOU. Free yourself. Quit this shit job and go back to school before it’s too late.
whataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhatabout tho?
(For anyone reading this in the future: they made that edit addressing "responder-guys" when the comment had only one reply lol 🤡)
You should probably ready the wiki article on whataboutism, so that you understand how to use it correctly next time.
nice try sweetcheeks but as predicted, a second came
Oh is that what you were doing? Predicting?
Well, that's the law. If it helps you, I think China should ban Facebook... Oh, wait.
I'm wrong or the whole thing of the USA is the "freedooom"?
Actually it's "Freedom (terms and conditions apply)".
Go away CCP shill
Why are you mad at the truth? We've known for over a decade that Facebook steals your data and listens to your conversations...
Cuz logical fallacy commie dibshits
I don't think that means what you think it means
It means your facts hurt their feels.
Cambridge analytica you fuck
Yeah but not Facebook and Twitter and other American ones. Right?
You're on the Fediverse. Most of the people here are already actively avoiding Facebook and Xitter. Unfortunately, getting the US, EU, etc. to ban American propaspyware companies is, uh, extremely unlikely. China, however, has banned them long ago, which is why I don't see why people think it's hypocritical of the US government to ban Chinese social media.
But they claim that China banning the apps is authoritarian. The hypocrisy isnt in banning the app, it's in their claims about motivation to do so.
Yea but we're not getting anywhere with "tolerance 100%"
The Chinese government is a tyrannical undemocratic dictatorship and I'm OK with not tolerating them or their propaganda wing.
Have you tried actually comparing the content on Tiktok vs other social networks? Or are you just regurgitating some talking point?
From the few years I've been on Tiktok, it is by far the least toxic and bigoted social network I've seen, Lemmy included.
I'm no fan of China, but if we're considering "being less bigoted" to be commie propaganda, then we need to take a look in the mirror. Absolutely throwing the baby out with the bath water here
Fixed that for you.
You fixed nothing, just added some whataboutisim nonsense.
Try saying negative stuff about China on .ml I doubt that they are not completely undermined by the Chinese intelligence. (They delete every post critical about china).
So being vigilant is the only way to avoid getting manipulated.
.ml might just be useful idiots tbh. But I remember speedrunning an /r/sino ban and that took me all of 1 minute, with a comment that wasn't even critical about China. It was a thread about how it's awesome that the west can't live without China for 5G connectivity and I said that "maybe it isn't all that great that an entire industry has been entirely centralized to one country" just to see if an absolutely lukewarm take would get banned. It did.
Yeah, it's strange. Like even slight criticism. I mean that's okay, but what about actual constructive discussions? None!
If you are not allowed to criticize a system, that system is inheritly flawed. But that's my personal take on this.
Someone ban this man NOW
Ah, but they also delete every post that isn't critical of Western countries.
I haven't seen a proof of intelligence on .ml yet.
Not sure that it’s “most” anymore. Propaganda huffers realized there was more new land to destroy / minds to influence & they had to come settle here too
Can someone explain to me how it's worse for a foreign government to have your information than your own government having that same information? Your own government is far more likely to actually be able to do something about you.
Blah blah blah "we built our own great firewall and painted it red white and blue, and even banned the use of vpns to get to foreign sites which even China doesn't do. We're totally the good guys BTW."
Americans are so fucking stupid, oh my god.
@EDIT: So it turns out the RESTRICT Act, that I was thinking of, and which banned VPNs, was shot down. And the current and approved Tiktok ban law doesn't do that. So. My b. This one is on me. I stand by "Americans are so fucking stupid oh my god", though, because you're still cheering for loss of net liberty.
as an American yeah, seeing this post is just depressing. like people are actively cheering a loss of internet freedom. the government doesn't care about bytedance or else capcut would have to go too. they care about controlling information, tiktok has been essential in issues like Palestine, even if I don't like the platform itself I can admit that.
Also 100% clear that facebook, google, twitter... are all doing the same but for US intelligence
I think the idea of the government banning entire websites (or really any information in general) is horrifying. The fact that so many people in America seem to be enthusiastic or at least indifferent to new forms of government censorship shows how far along we are to complete fascism. Information is meant to be free, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. The fact that’s we’re having these conversations is disgusting.
What are you talking about? The GFC tries its absolute best to block VPNs and other circumvention methods.
I guess they're not banned, but they're blocking them.
Who is "we" in this context? VPNs are certainly not banned in the United States.
Do you have a source for this?
I did, but then I realised I'm wrong about the VPN thing.
I was thinking of the RESTRICT act from 2023, which did ban the usage of VPNs (and was the "Original" Tiktok ban law)
Apparently in the year and change I spent not really caring (look, this is an American problem, y'all slam your metaphorical penises in the car door at least three times a day. And I have my own country's dick-slammings to care about. I only hear about it when it's particularly egregious or when I see a meme like this that is cheering for the dick-slamming) the RESTRICT act got shot down, and another one was quickly drafted.
The one that was approved does not ban VPNs. So. That's on me. My b.
Anyway, given y'all are under Trump's thumb now, I give it eeeeh six months before RESTRICT 2: Censorship Boogaloo starts making the rounds.
I'm not American though.
Replace the yous for theys. Same thing.
Right, I just wanted to correct the mistake
Theys Americans is so dumb.
Coming from someone who confidently believed a law that didn't exist was in effect, these words are a bit flat.
Better words would be "people in general are so fucking stupid", and you are not immune to that.
when exactly did that happen
"Freedom is when you let foreign governments spy on your citizens"
What do you suggest? Allow a foreign nation to destroy you from within?
Actually fight against that rather than pretending too, Israel and Russia have destroyed the US from within far more than China... Maybe tackle the active objective threats rather than potential ones
Russia is a menace to US's peasantry, as they might drag the US to a(nother) proxy war.
Whereas China is a menace to the US's aristocracy, in the sense that China is currently richer than the US of A, and despite thousands of articles about how "CHINA'S ECONOMY WILL COLLAPSE TOMORROW!" for the past 15 years, it has yet to happen.
Ergo, the US government won't do shit about Russia, but will bend over backwards for anything related to China.
Actual regulations on data privacy and algorithmic manipulation. It's not that complicated. The EU figured it out. Fuck me, my own country, Brazil, a third world hellhole, figured it out. We have very strict rules on data protection.
Ofc, this would never happen because 1. Big corpos own the US government and actual regulation on privacy would hurt THEM, and 2. The US Government actually WANTS algorithmic manipulation to happen, except they want THEIR algorithmic manipulation and not anyone else's.
Yes please
They're suspiciously selective about what foreign interference they're ok with.
The US is doing it just fine on our own.
Hell, an election here just voted in fascism like its the 1920s again.
Non Americans do that all the time, exceept we have at least one more choice than americans.
What? Wechat is a thing here? I have literally never heard about Wechat like anywhere, pretty sure more people know about Lemmy in the US than Wechat lmao
What the hell is WeChat? Did that WeWork guy start a social media service?
Oh fuck this future! Anyways, thanks for the information.
"It's okay that the CCP pushes propaganda because billionaires do it too" - Tiktok defenders
(there are several people in this thread who would not mind banning certain lemmy instances on this basis)
Reader's Note - There has been no evidence submitted showing any of the allegations towards TikTok are true. In fact TikTok publicly embarked on a project to silo all US Data.
OK, but find me an exact quote that actually says that. Not something that sorta sounds like that, but that exactly.
https://lemmy.world/comment/14436163
What kind of propaganda is the CGP pushing, exactly? Is it with us in the room, right now?
This is not news,
This has been known for years.
I promise, the CCP does not need you to play devil's advocate; they advocate plenty well for themselves.
The first one is NCRI and the second one is paywalled.
NCRI is known for hit songs like -
Colleges that deplatform conservatives are anti-semitic;
DEI causes violence, and my favorite;
Luigi Mangione's support means the left are digital insurgents
The paper referenced gives an overview of its methodology and its data.
The three 'hit songs' you cite appear to actually be:
Foreign funding decreases democracy and increases antisemitism in universities
Some DEI programs are instituted in a counterproductive way
and
Use https://12ft.io/ to bypass the paywall if you're interested in past discourse on the matter.
Lol, fair play, I editorialized the titles too. But really once you click into them it's super obvious these guys have an axe to grind. For example, (from the relevant paper) they state that serving up less Anti CCP content is a bias. But they compare it to YouTube and Instagram. Two services pretty famous for taking people down far right tracks if you let their algorithm auto play. So in this case even a neutral position is going to have less Anti-CCP propaganda.
And the entire paper is flawed in this way. The baseline they establish is itself flawed. They also claim causation but can only show correlation with their skewed baseline.
Yea, they were comparing tiktok to other american-owned social media sites, which are guilty of exactly the same thing themselves.
Any site that doesn't explicitly push anti chinese content is going to look like a pro-chinese bias
Umm, that's not really propaganda, homie. That's simple censorship. There's a difference.
The very next thing said in the article:
Yes. I already said it was censorship. Again: how is this pro-CCP propaganda? Do you understand the difference between censorship and propaganda?
If you don't think that suppressing content that goes against a point of view whilst simultaneously boosting content that agrees with a point of view is propaganda, I suppose you must think Twitter's recent developments over the past two years (or so? Time is getting fuzzy) are not a propaganda effort either.
Dude is just arguing semantics, that “propaganda” necessarily has to be a misleading message in favor of its sender.
Of course, tailoring of information by omission is also propaganda.
My point is: if we all would use a more broad definition of the term propaganda, instead of calling nothing but political messaging we didn't like propaganda, we'd all live in a more politically literate society.
I think this meme actively reduces media literacy.
In this house, we only like propaganda that's covering up genocide. /s
China also covers up genocides... as does the US... As does Russia, as does almost every nation-state.
The Tiktok ban was mainly instigated because tiktok spread news about the genocide in Gaza
China has its genocides going on to ya know
Nice whataboutism, I guess?
In that case, "in this house" we like Tiktok?
I happen to like that tiktok spreads information about the genocide in Gaza, which is being shadowbanned on the western platforms.
Context is important. The current context of the tiktok ban is that it's hard for the US to control the political message with that big of a platform not under US control.
I happen to dislike censorship, even if it is done by the west.
So in the interest of that, you chose to deny that Tiktok is used to push CCP propaganda.
Some of the Western platforms run by billionaires, yes, whom I explicitly compared to the CCP in the original comment.
You think it's the US government which is pushing Facebook and Twitter to censor Palestinian voices?
But you'll tolerate it, if it pushes one view you do like? Or just if it's not done by the West?
There's a difference in not knowing and denying.
Yeah, when you ignored the context of the OP.
Are you always this nitpicky?
No. I prefer a wide range of different news sources where I can judge the biases. I can still get good information from Tiktok if I know that I should be critical concerning anything about China's policy.
So you'd prefer it if Facebook/Twitter/Google/Microsoft/Amazon are the only ones in control of mass online discourse? (That's the type of strawman you're constructing of me)
As I said elsewhere, knowing it but still denying it, is considerably worse than being ignorant or confused.
... what context in the OP did I ignore?
This is what you said:
I didn't realize that it was nitpicky to dispute a point.
You shouldn't be getting any of your information directly from social media. Furthermore, propaganda is like advertising - you are not immune to it. The "I'm too smart to be fooled" approach just makes you a mark.
I would prefer it if none of them did, and if Facebook or Twitter or Google catches a ban, I won't be defending them as news sources which don't spread propaganda, "and if they did, so what?"
The United Nations Human Rights Council doesn't seem to think so. It put this to bed two years ago. https://www.euractiv.com/section/eu-china/news/setback-for-the-west-un-body-rejects-historic-debate-on-chinas-human-rights-record/
You should actually read that article and not just the title. What happened there was entirely political.
Id rather listen to China's own words: https://www.cpiml.net/liberation/2020/08/chinas-concentration-camps-for-uyghurs-in-chinas-own-words
i like my all-american freedom and liberty data collection and propaganda
FreeDumb™️
They should force TikTok to be sold to the Taiwan government.
Since this is the place for the most serious discussion:
If US lawmakers focused on protecting American's privacy with some sensible privacy laws coughGDPR equivalent cough, we could avoid pulling out the ban hammer to play whack-a-mole on these companies.
Companies would simply be punished by the law for being malicious or irresponsible with your data, forcing industries to take privacy seriously and make investments in protecting and not leaking it.
Ho hum. TikTok ain’t going anywhere.
It will be banned for a short while, long enough for Trump to enforce sale to Meta in exchange for their absolute hard turn top to bottom in everything they do to help spread misinformation and keep the plebs angry.
That assumes ByteDance and TikTok approve a sale... They've been very adamant they will not.
Maybe bring back Vine or something.
if Vine was still here (let alone brought back) it would become just as bad as TikTok. Social medias can have their golden age but they will inevitably turn into shit, vine was simply shut down before its golden age came to an end
I always thought Vine was so stupid and pointless, but I thought the same thing about Twitter and it sold for $44 billion dollars, so what do I know? I miss the old Internet when content was more than a blurb, and conversations were deep and meaningful.
Twitter isn't and wasn't worth $44 billion.
Controlling the narrative is, though.
It sold for $44 billion dollars, so it was definitely worth that to the people who cashed the check. It doesn't matter what we think it was worth, that's how enormous their payday was. Motherfuck, I should have coded that shit back in the day!
A dollar is only a good price for an elephant if you need an elephant and have a dollar.
Except they've banned 1 source for appeasement rather than enact a strong law or policy for long-term safety.
Well yeah. Why would corporations write laws against their own self-interest?
Americans complaining about other countries meddling in their affairs is such a hilarious hypocrisy. You guys have been the worst for ruining other countries around the world.
Well, yeah. That's why we know it should be banned.
L take.
I found it interesting that this Tiktok regulation talk hit peak fervor around the time that youths were using tiktok to fully grasp the severity of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Meanwhile mainstream corporate media was painting a very different and dishonest story of the genocide.
We need broad regulation for social media in the US, not cherry picked fervor for political reasons.
Yet they had the excuse and idiots like op are cheering on their censorship
Actual privacy laws like the Eu? Nah let's just make an american version of the Great Firewall.
That was the catalyst that made them realize they didn't have the sway to control the narrative on tik Tok and that they had to destroy it.
Problem is that insta also had the same content and plenty of folks saw it there too but the focus was on Chinese influence.
They already knew they could control zuckyboy though.
It was being taken down on insta.
Eventually but my partner still saw the genocide there.
As someone who dropped TikTok around 3 years ago, the next month or two are going to be very amusing.
My wife quit it and was back on it a week later. Apparently it's very addictive. As someone who is on Lemmy a thousand times per day, I guess I can understand. I don't consider it quite the same though since we actually talk here, and discuss things beyond pressing like buttons on glorified commercials.
Tiktoks have a comment section, and people can reply to comments.
There is a char limit, and while that makes nuance difficult, it also inhibits unhinged rants
This article from 2024 gives a pretty good rundown as to why using this reasoning to ban Tiktok will set a very bad precedent:
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/14/1251086753/tiktok-ban-first-amendment-lawsuit-free-speech-project-texas
If the govt cared about your data privacy, they would create data collection regulations that they could then use to ban tiktok if/when they violate them.
Disclaimer: I am not saying Tiktok is a great app with zero issues. This is a concern about causing long term problems by using a short term easy solution.
I think tiktok should be banned for its addictive algorithm. It is far worse than any other social media for that reason.
Yeah, so prepare for battle between people who want to tell you that their empire is better.
Obviously the US. China imports and exports everything through the oceans. Have fun with Russian potatoes dumb dumb CCP members xD
Good luck criticizing a user’s choice of platform hoping to get them to leave. I’m just happy to see one less corporate platform.
“You really shouldn’t jump rope on the train tracks. It’s not safe.”
“What’s not safe about jumping rope? Everybody jump’s rope.”
“It’s not jumping rope that’s the problem, it’s the train tracks.”
“I think I’m smart enough to know if a train is coming. It’s not like the train is coming for me specifically. I’m not that important. I don’t have anything valuable enough for the train to take from me anyw-“ splat
I might be killed, but seeing the comments i feel like lemmy is getting too into the zone of umm like judging the action based on the person instead of judging the action/statement itself, yeah the US gov is a piece of shit, and also they probably don't have the peoples best interest in mind, but the act of banning tiktok, according to me, is a right move, i can see nd myself have felt the humongous mental impact it has on teens (like me) basically killing their attention span, and making them feel like they need to pick up their phone, heck kids cant read 10pages from their physics book, infact reading a page only thoroughly is a tough task for most of them, and i m not talking abt a few select cases, i can see this in 95% of kids (this is anecdotal tho), ever since i stopped using reels/tiktoks/shorts, i can feel my mind improving
Also the whole slew of misinformation and propaganda tiktok is, is another issue
Again I agree with ppl that the US doesn’t hv the ppls best interest, but i do feel this might help atleast some ppl break their addiction, so many I know are aware they r addicted but can’t stop, banning the app altogether might help
Not only on american citizens...
TikTok singlehandedly got a neonazy elected in eastern Europe.
X got one elected in the US so I guess they’re 1-1 in that regard :’)
Putin?
Georgescu in Romania. Who campaigned exclusively through Tiktok. The election was temporarily suspended through.
Yeah the Putin backed far righter.
Good for Romania.
Fuck you. I'm going to RedNote. Purely out of spite. Because I'd rather dropship my DNA to the Communist Party of China HQ than give my data to Zucc or Elon.
It wasn't. There's zero proof of this currently.
The app is banned because congress can't control. They want you using the platforms where you can't become class or politically aware.
Disinformation.
TikTok has been under control of the State Dept for years, since TikTok transferred custody of US servers to Oracle. The ban is to force a sale to a US competitor, and decrease transparency on censorship activities, especially regarding Palestine and pro-communism material.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/tiktok-chinese-trojan-horse-run-by-state-department-officials/284353/
Gross to see this kind of disinformation on Lemmy. Too bad freedom and open information lost in a major way. This will be a dark day in history. Nobody benefits except the genociders.
Lol @ america being the only non-chinese country in the world
The interest your domestic and foreign corporate social media platforms have in you are VASTLY different. It's naive to equivocate them. Yes, TikTok should get "banned", which will just be pulling the app from the app store and likely still available as a web app maybe through a VPN. They're just going to create more friction in getting access.
Instead of advocating for spyware, perhaps we should be highlighting open alternatives?
That's my birthday lmfao
Just checking your password is *******, right?
You actually mixed up a couple characters, it's *******
Ah that's what I got wrong.
I wonder if op has a strong opinion about china.
As if any of the other social media networks aren't doing the same shit. I'd rather have China spy on me than an American company. They can't use my data to fuck me over.
I mean, yeah they can. Anyone with data on you could fuck you over. In fact, the more data, the easier to fuck you over.
Maybe I should have worded it differently. They're far less likely to fuck me over. I have nothing the Chinese government wants.
Nah they want your money and attention same as the Americans
I will say that being from Latin america I am fundamentally less scared of China than I am scared of the US. The US took my country's future from us twice, both times in living memory, and one I was already around for.
While the worst thing China has done here is uhhh
Buy land to open a factory in our sovereign soil and illegally mistreat workers in that factory.
Really not anywhere near the same level as backing two far right coups.
China cannot put me in jail. The US can.
I have news for everyone ITT: TikTok is not leaving the US. A friend works in their North America business division, and they are fully planning to split off a satellite company that is (at least nominally) US-based and compliant with local law. They have been working on the transition for many months.
Why is there so much political messaging right now
Fuck off with all the democracy doomsday posting, I just want to see funny memes
Just the usual Americans thinking the world revolves around them and we should all accommodate their derangement.
God forbid a foreigner talk about anything though.
Tankies malding cuz they can't come out and say "nooo how will I goon to teenagers now"
Factually untrue, the only person who has control of what the algorithm shows you on any social media is the end user. So say8ng that it is used to spread propaganda (which that's super vague), is blatantly false. Pretending otherwise is just being willingly ignorant to how the technology works. Hell, a 6 year old understands how the algorithm works and how to shape it. Plus, US based users have their data stored on US servers hosted by Oracle, China has no access to it. Do two seconds of research and you will see that I'm correct
LMAO, The company that makes the algorithm has control over what that algorithm "weighs" it's not that hard for them to tweak the values so it "weighs" whatever propaganda or content they want to push more of much higher than other content.
It's true, the end user does have some influence on the algorithm, but when they have it tweaked to "weigh" pro-CCP or pro-Right-wing trash much higher than other content it doesn't take much to end up falling back. For example, watching part of single pro-Trump video would make the algorithm push much more Trump trash where it would take 5 "normal" fully watched videos to continue showing "normal" videos.
And that's assuming the average user is even aware enough to influence it to that degree, which they don't.
Yea, the data is stored in the US, but it still influences the TikTok US algorithm (because they have a separate algorithm for China ofc) which is still wholly controlled outside of the US