• FrankFrankson@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    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.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      This is a pretty sane explanation.

      I’m also at least partially convinced that it’s motivated by our social media giants’ interest to “think of the children” their competition away.

      Seeing as the order was basically “Get bought by an American corpo or get banned.” They either plunder the competitor’s insane data collection, userbase, and profits, or kick them off their corner.

      • Tja@programming.dev
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        5 days ago

        You can also see it as retribution.

        “Get bought by a Chinese entity or get banned” is the default posture of the Chinese government. BMW China is Chinese. Samsung China is Chinese. Panasonic China is Chinese. GM China is Chinese. If TikTok US is forced to be American, it wouldn’t be the most unfair thing this week.

          • Tja@programming.dev
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            4 days ago

            Well, let’s set the bar at not having concentration camps or not going to jail or being made “dissappear” for criticizing the government. For now…

            • CharmOffensive@lemm.ee
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              I’m not sure that’s a bar you even clear, given the ice “detention centres” you set up domestically and places like abu ghraib or Gitmo you run on foreign soil. And as for criticising the government, what’s the practical use if a felon and a billionaire can rig your election without any repercussions anyway?

              “I can call trump a criminal online, that’s freedom right there!”

              “Will he actually be arrested?”

              “Well no, but it feels good to say it”

              • Tja@programming.dev
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                I don’t know who is this “you” person mentioned, but I’m thankfully not American and my country has done nothing of sorts.

                Plus people are not tortured even in ice centers. Gitmo is another story, but those are war crimes, not genocide. I know, weird argument, but I like to be precise m

                • CharmOffensive@lemm.ee
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                  People aren’t tortured with an iron maiden, but when you have conditions like under trump in 2020, and the suicide rate in ice detention jumped 11 times higher than the previous 10 year average, I don’t think you can suggest ice detention is that far away from concentration camps.

                  Also, Gitmo isn’t for enemy combatants - they can chuck anyone suspected of terrorism in there, even US citizens. It most definitely isn’t exclusively “war crimes”.

    • SamboT@lemmy.world
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      I mean occams razor is the best way to feel sane in the disinformation age so im with you. But i think its more accruate to do our best understand what is possible and suspend holding a specific belief like that because it doesnt matter if you are right or wrong. Many things could be true at the same time, especially with who you ask.

      Kind of makes our conversations worthless, which i think is the strategy of disinformation. We cant know, so should we really be claiming whats true or not? Seems like we should just offer what seems most likely rather than tell everyone they are wrong unless you have information sources to help them understand why they are likely wrong.

    • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
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      You make a good point and then draw the wrong conclusion.

      You hit the nail on the head with what they should be doing (broad industry regulations), but then you COMPLETELY missed the point you made. Congress is NOT banning TikTok because they collect too much data, they’re banning it because it’s TikTok and the “data” is just an excuse…otherwise they’d pass real data privacy laws.

      Another platform will pop up over the next week if TikTok is banned. What they want is to sell TikTok to someone that will change the platform because it’s too powerful. This isn’t to push “government propaganda”, but simply to change the algorithm to not be so good. They don’t want you to gain class consciousness or have political discourse, they want you to be distracted with silly cat videos and memes…and maybe a side of culture war, but nothing else.

    • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world
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      Well yeah, but it’s the US government which hasn’t ever done anything problematic before. I’m sure it’s for everyone’s best interest. /S

      Which if that were true, still wouldn’t matter.

      • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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        Im assuming your point is that if the us government does 1 bad thing, every move it makes is bad? If not, what is your point?

        • Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works
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          Uhh. The user is saying that the US government has a long history of both corruption and abuse of power. Source: I am American.

    • recreationalcatheter@lemm.ee
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      Imagine using being unfathomably addicted to trusting an app parented and developed in a country where you can’t criticize your leaders.

      • PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee
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        Imagine trusting an app owned by billionaires that just paid off the government to remove their competition.

        You’re an idiot if you trust any social media platform at this point.

          • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Got no more retort? Did you change your mind or just decide to stop thinking about it to save your precious idea of your country.

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              Still responding 3 days later, my comments must have cut deep lol. I replied to PyroNeurosis cause I actually cared for their reply, and then moved on to other discussions on this platform more meaningful than your retorts.

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                People do sure like to avoid information that proves them wrong. I like making sure that they don’t forget.

          • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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            Brother, that is still the laws on the books. Age does not matter. Do you really not understand that? Do you think laws expire? Did you choose to not understand? What’s your deal? You live inside your own nightmare.

      • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
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        Thankfully, that doesn’t apply to us using the app because the Chinese government doesn’t govern us.

        Meanwhile, the US government absolutely influences the flow of information on US hosted social media sites, so uh, let’s be upset at all of them regardless of location!

      • MrMcGasion@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • 0ops@lemm.ee
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          Not to mention meta. They’ll do all of the above and when they’re done sell the data to the highest bidder.

      • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
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        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.

        • Victor@lemmy.world
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          Google doesn’t push right wing propaganda to my phone. Do they only do that to US citizens?

          • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
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            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.

            • Victor@lemmy.world
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              Now when you say “pushed to”, where and how did that actually manifest “on” your phone.

              • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
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                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.

                • Victor@lemmy.world
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                  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.

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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      Foreign governments are supposed to buy information from American social media companies. Tik Tok cut out the middleman so they’re getting banned.

    • JargonWagon@lemmy.world
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      It probably won’t make a difference for you, but if you worked in a government facility and they’re spying on you, obtaining credentials, obtaining information on infrastructure in the energy sector, government facilities, etc., getting network credentials, getting floorplans, getting times where a changing of the guard occurs, etc. - any foreign entity can use that info to tear a country down from the inside and kick off a full scale war.

      Local government isn’t going to self-saborage with that information. Yeah, spying on the citizens is awful and we should avoid any apps/devices that do that too, but that’s not as bad as war unless it gets so bad that it gets to a point of civil war which seems unlikely.

      inb4 tankies claim “conspiracy”:
      China hacked US Telecom Infrastructure
      China hacking US Treasury
      Two recent events I was able to dig up fairly quickly. Wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more. Apparently they tapped Trump’s phone too, but not sure how credible the article/source is.

      • hark@lemmy.world
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        That’s true but it doesn’t apply to the vast majority of people. People who work in the government should be more aware of these things and I believe the tiktok ban started as only on government devices which is a lot more reasonable than a blanket ban.

    • samus12345@lemm.ee
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      Yup, much better to let a foreign evil government have your data than the local evil government that actually has control where you live.

    • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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      Not a foreign gov. China.

      This is analogous to the diff between Ireland having nukes and Russia having nukes.

      • hark@lemmy.world
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        Okay, what is China going to do about me calling their president winnie the pooh or bringing up tiananmen square or whatever?

      • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz
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        So can you answer the question now that we know it’s China? Why is it worse that China has user info over the US?

  • De_Narm@lemmy.world
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    The last panel applies to every other social media, just replace the spying country.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      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.

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        At this point, the line between business and government in the US is almost non-existent, so definitely still a government using your data for the propaganda machine.

        • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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          Reminds of my favourite description of the US …

          “The US isn’t a country, it’s a corporation with a military”

    • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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      Yes, and that’s why US companies aren’t banned by the US. The foreign power having so much propaganda power was the danger.

      • AppleTea@lemmy.zip
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        If I wanna get my propaganda from more than one world power, that’s my right under the first amendment. Or it was.

      • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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        Same reason why China bans a shitload of sites. It’s fine when you do it to your own citizens

      • De_Narm@lemmy.world
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        There are multiple instances pushing propaganda and most data can just be scraped by bots. It may be harder, but capitalism finds a way.

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    Oh yeah, I forgot the other social media apps don’t collect data and spew propaganda. Oh wait… They do.

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    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

    • 0ops@lemm.ee
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      I don’t use tiktok because I don’t want to get addicted personally, and I know a few people who borderline are.

      That’s not the point though, not the real one anyway. Even if this ban was going through with good intentions, it doesn’t actually solve anything. Everyone will just find a new PRISM-compatable app to get addicted to. The government’s “action/statement itself” is precisely the problem. If they passed a law that forbid certain addicting behaviors, and TikTok ran afoul of that law, then I’d likely be in support, because it bans those behaviors in general. But that’s not what’s happening here, instead the government is targeting the individual company, so it’s pretty clear to me that the cited privacy and addiction concerns are only an excuse. Don’t take this combatively, I just think this is important, but I think that ironically you’re the one who needs to separate the action from the actors. I think you’re underestimating how dangerous a precedence this sets.

      • Hmm i get ur argument, but still i do believe that banning that app will still have some net positive impact, i understand that this doesn’t really fix the problem by its root, maybe i m biased, but i just want the people around me to get a chance to get off that app, thats why banning it, while i agree with not with so good intentions, still might give some sort of positive impact on people who cant concentrate on anything for more than a minute, i just don’t jive well with the mentality here that the ban in nd of itself is wrong, i understand tho that the US has its own interests and doesn’t give many fcks abt ppl

    • WhoLooksHere@lemmy.world
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      Sure, I don’t think any disagrees that there’s side effects that aren’t good for anyone, never mind teens.

      But there’s nothing that you’ve written that’s specific to Tik Tok. It’s not substantially worse than American alternatives. Facebook has known for years the negative effect, study after study has come out. What legislation was passed to protect that?

      So why target Tik Tok specifically?

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      We were trailblazers for a time. Other than that, we were always kind of fucked as a democratic system.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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          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.

          • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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            Late 18th century

            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).

            • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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              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.

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                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?

                • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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                  Late 18th century, yes. And if I hear pop history myths about the Iroquois, I will be irritated.

                • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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                  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.

        • Bacano@lemmy.world
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          Before any of us were alive. Some would say before centralized banking in the early 20th

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
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        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.

    • gnomesaiyan@lemmy.world
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      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.

      —Alan Watts, Mind Over Mind

      • samus12345@lemm.ee
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        Neither he nor his country seem to be on their way out currently. Same old authoritarianism as usual.

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        A republic you say?

        Republic just means a country without monarchy.

        China is a Republic

        North Korea is a Republic

        The US is a Democratic Republic

        Where do you think the name of the political party “Democratic-Republicans” come from?

          • samus12345@lemm.ee
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            Because democracy is an abstract name for a system and republic is the more concrete result of that system

            In other words, a republic is a kind of democracy.

        • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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          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.

          • dx1@lemmy.world
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            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.

            • samus12345@lemm.ee
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              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.”

            • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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              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.

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                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.

  • just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    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”.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      Ah yes, TikTok, the land free of censorship. Where you can’t say “gay” and must insert a stupid little asterisk.

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        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.

        • Tja@programming.dev
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          The user you are answering to isn’t making “the other party” any kind of moral hero, it’s literally just criticizing TikTok.

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      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.

    • ToucheGoodSir@lemy.lol
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      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?

      • dx1@lemmy.world
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        And “Israel” fell right into their trap by…committing genocide.

        • ToucheGoodSir@lemy.lol
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          Bibi did. The guy who would be in prison for corruption charges without Hamas being retards. HURRDURR

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            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?

    • Saryn@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • ilega_dh@feddit.nl
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        I wasn’t sure this was an actual a tankie rant or sarcasm until the

        TikTok and China in general are known for their calm, collected attitudes toward Muslims

        • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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          Its just another troll. You give them labels like tankie but they are just trolls.

    • ConnecticutKen@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • Anas@lemmy.world
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        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.

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        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?

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          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

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          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?

      • just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        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.

      • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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        So does facebook, twitter, google, microsoft, and pretty much every mobile app development shop.

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        As does all the American owned networks. That’s not the reason. Not pushing American propaganda is the reason.

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
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      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.

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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        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.

        • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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          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.

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            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

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            The Chinese American government is a tyrannical undemocratic dictatorship and I’m OK with not tolerating them or their propaganda wing.

            Fixed that for you.

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        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.

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          .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.

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            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.

  • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
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    I think tiktok should be banned for its addictive algorithm. It is far worse than any other social media for that reason.

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      I think it should be banned because of all the noisy cunts using it on public transport.

      • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
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        Companies should not be free. Only people should be free. Companies exist to do what we want them too.

        • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
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          Citizens should be free to choose which social media platforms there wish to use.

          Companies are not free, which is why they must operate within the regulations and laws that protect consumers and the nation as a whole.

          Banning TikTok only violates the freedom of citizens and does nothing to protect consumers or the nation. Your argument makes zero sense in this context.

          • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
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            And yet if a company is poisoning peoples minds they should be stopped from using it.

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              Okay, so shut down twitter, Facebook, Fox News, rebel News, etc. Oh, what’s that? You only want to shut down platforms that you disagree with? So “poisoning minds” was just a false projection.

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                  You act like citizens are being handed crack cocaine.

                  It’s just videos. If you don’t believe in people having free will to watch videos on the Internet, you don’t believe in freedom.

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    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.

    • cheers_queers@lemm.ee
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      Companies would simply be punished by the law

      can you show me any recent examples of this happening with any effectiveness?

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    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

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      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?

    • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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      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?

      • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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        Bruh, facebook just changed their terms of service to be pro US right wing propaganda…

        • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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          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?

        • Lauchs@lemmy.world
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          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?

    • theUwUhugger@lemmy.world
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      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?