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JasonDJ ,

High school nerds pay attention. This is how you can make some money and have an excuse to talk to the hot girls…by installing a vpn on their phones so they can still have their tik tok.

Get one popular girls phone set up and every girl in the school will be hitting you up within a week.

LemmyKnowsBest ,

And why do you assume everyone including hot girls & popular girls aren't already capable of installing their own VPNs? Unless of course you mean the high school nerd is going to pay for our VPN service, then come on over!

JasonDJ ,

I’m sure some do. I haven’t talked to many high school girls lately.

If this goes through and this happened when I was in school…that’d be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’d probably never even think of it then. I’d probably luck into it by telling the rest of the nerd table at lunch, jock overheard, sell him my services, and then word of mouth from there.

That happening now…probably be the inspiration for the gen Z’s “American Pie”. Or “Superbad”.

locuester ,

Are you kidding? There isn’t a phone owning high schooler that doesn’t know how to vpn past their high school’s nanny software. You’re out of touch.

escaped_cruzader ,

aren’t already capable

Anyone who can read and follow directions is capable

Most people can't install a VPN, including hot or cold girls

JasonDJ ,

It’s more like most people are unwilling to find or read directions. Most people can do most things nowadays. They’re just unwilling to try.

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Most people can’t install a VPN,

My guy, do YOU know how to set up a VPN?

roguetrick ,

This shit is like saying most people can't connect to wifi. It's not exactly rocket science.

BreakDecks ,

And the cycle of infantalizing women continues...

Harbinger01173430 ,

Everything will keep going as planned /s

DingoBilly ,

Lemmy does draw a certain crowd unfortunately.

bluemite ,

That's mainly the internet, not just Lemmy

Euphoma ,

Highschooler here, everyone already uses vpn's to bypass the school firewall to view blocked sites and stuff while on school wifi.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

The kids are gonna be alright

fuckingkangaroos ,

They won't want TikTok once the chumps who follow them stop using it. They'll have to do something other than dancing for strangers to bolster their self-esteem.

Alpha71 ,

Sooo... How do Republican's square being the party of "Small Govt" and then interfering in a private business?

PilferJynx ,

They don't. It's all bad faith to get what they want - control.

whereisk ,

Government is bad except when it comes to brutal subjugation of out-groups I don't like, while the in-group gets protected and treated with kid gloves by the same.

Unfortunately most of them are the dupes not the protected class they think they are - "they're hurting the wrong people" summed it up when it was uttered..

retrieval4558 ,

Too lazy to look up who said it, but there's a quote I like that goes something like "conservative seeks to have an in group who the law protects but does not bind, and an outgroup who the law binds but not protects"

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In ,

Is it a private business if it's owned by the Chinese government?

Eiim ,

It's really not though? The Chinese government has a 1% stake in ByteDance. Meanwhile ~60% is foreign investors – believed to be mostly American.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In ,

Then it should be easy to buy out that 1% stake.

I'm not saying it's a good bill, but reducing interference by foreign governments in US sold products is not against any party's philosophies.

PriorityMotif ,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

Do you think that They could avoid doing something that the Chinese government tells them to do?

BreakDecks ,

You mean like how US ISPs wiretapped the Internet for the NSA? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

But really, how dare anyone but us do that.

PriorityMotif ,
@PriorityMotif@lemmy.world avatar

Yes, why not let everyone do it if someone else is already doing it.

nialv7 ,

You have a misunderstanding of how China's government operates. It does not matter how much stake the government holds, companies just cannot say no to the government's request. Otherwise you will be disappeared. See Alibaba for example.

Remember, China does not have a democracy.

Crikeste ,

Ooooof, somebody licking the boot of capitalism a little too hard.

ferralcat ,

That's literally the same thing the us government is doing here....

fuckingkangaroos ,

No. It's a malicious foreign entity.

Dra ,

Foreign policy

S_204 ,

Tik tok is at the root of so many of the social issues we're facing today. It's absolutely worse than Facebook, although both need to be addressed.

Zuberi ,

How?..

EncryptKeeper ,

It has a huge hold over our youth today, even folks up to 30. It’s so ubiquitous it’s used as a replacement for Google to find new information including political.

Problem is it’s absolutely chock full of misinformation and propaganda, which doesn’t just exist on the platform, but is actively pushed on American youth today.

Randomgal ,

It's full of misinformation and propaganda unlike... You know... All those super reliable objective sources of information that you use?

EncryptKeeper ,

Oh yes VERY unlike those. Anything that can be traced and verified, aren’t read to you by an AI voice or a white person claiming to be an American while trying very hard to suppress an Eastern European or East Asian accent. Another good trait to have would be anything that isn’t verifiably false.

Randomgal ,

You know the algorithm shows you what you interact with the most... Right?

EncryptKeeper , (edited )

It sure does, but it doesn’t only show you what you interact with the most. It shows you lots of other stuff too. The exact algorithm of which neither you or I are privy to so don’t get too cocky thinking you have it all figured out. After all “interacting with” can be something as small as lingering on a video just a bit too long. One second longer than your usual average view time. That’s all it takes for an algorithm to decide it’s worth it to push more content like it at you. And given that it’s a priority goal for propaganda, bots, and misinformation posters to craft their video in a way to maximize your engagement, that’s a trivial thing to accomplish.

Algorithms are by design, a way to remove your agency in finding information for yourself, and instead give the platform control over the information you see. This is very handy and even innocent when you just want to see memes that you personally think are funny, but very dangerous when it’s used to mislead you or influence your behavior and thinking. And most people aren’t smart or tech savvy enough to know how any of this works, which makes them very easy to manipulate.

Krauerking ,

Well that and whatever will keep you addicted and hopefully spending money.
Rage, bias confirmation, propaganda that hits the class or group you belong to. And the more you trust it the more they can use that trust.

nomous ,

Among other things.

If it only showed you what you interacted with the most it'd be less of an issue but that's not how it works. Thats not even how it works on YouTube.

S_204 ,

Thanks for proving why that platform is just so damned dangerous. The ignorance it inspires is shocking.

Same ,

Sorry but this is giving 'old man yells at clouds' energy. How is tiktok any worse than any other social media platform? They're all echochambers filled with misinformation, it just what happens when you get a lot of people online.

S_204 ,

That you're trying to 'they're all the same' bs shows how ignorant many people are on this. They're not all the same, this one is especially bad and it's not JUST because it turns you into a fucking retard when you use it.

pjwestin ,
@pjwestin@lemmy.world avatar

...TikTok would eventually be dropped from app stores in the US if its owner doesn't sell. It also would lose access to US-based web hosting services.

Oh no. Where would children act out jokes they stole from old tweets?

smolyeet ,

So many out of touch people in every thread that mentions TikTok. The same shit we did on YouTube , FB , Twitter, vine, etc is the same concept on TikTok. Memes evolve or new ones are born, that is nothing new

Misconduct ,

It's genuinely embarassing to see people here behaving this way. And disappointing.

Misconduct ,

Oh no... Someone that was told the opinion they should have about tiktok years ago never bothered to think about it for more that five seconds before repeating it

Did it hurt? Becoming a boomer.

Zuberi ,

Lemmy.world has horrible takes as usual when it comes to censorship of a platform lmao

SmilingSolaris ,

Who knew the magical word was China to turn everyone here into a meta lapdog

oatscoop ,
@oatscoop@midwest.social avatar

I'm pretty confident in saying the majority of users here don't like meta either -- the userbase on lemmy is predominantly people trying to avoid corporate social media.

ByteDance and Meta both privacy nightmares, it's just a question of what fucked up things they doing with the data.

SmilingSolaris ,

That is true, and we can bemoan the privacy concerns of tiktok and meta and such but this right here isn't a fix to privacy. It's just a change in who is abusing it. In that case, Id like to keep it with the Chinese. They have less control over my life than America already does. Let's spread it out a little bit lol.

pantyhosewimp ,

In this case, my enemy’s enemy is also an enemy. Life ain’t easy for a poor righteous teacher.

ItsMeSpez ,

The red menace has always been a winner.

Delta_V ,

An app would be allowed to stay in the US market after a divestiture if the president determines that the sale "would result in the relevant covered company no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary."

So apps can still be banned after divestiture, based on an arbitrary decision by one corrupt and potentially insane and/or senile person?

After all the talk of a "rules based order", I'm disappointed - this isn't a rule, its a leap of faith into the arms of serial liars.

FiniteBanjo ,

I don't see why users would even have a problem with this. Same services, more competitive market, and with less ties to an evil dictatorship should be celebrated, right?

herpaderp ,

It depends. I’ve heard second hand accounts that TikTok can push pro-Chinese propaganda, and whenever I pointed out that China isn’t some lefty paradise to some people in my life they were either shocked or fell into the “you’re falling in line with the Western Propaganda, I see 😏”

FiniteBanjo ,

I'm much less concerned with what they're giving than what they're taking with the app. It's been shown to collect message history and photo library data, that alone is a threat to us all.

herpaderp ,

I agree! Both are issues, but I was giving a different context where a TikTok user may not care about it being under the thumb of the CCP.

Misconduct ,

Why would I care? Is it somehow better for google or facebook to profit off of my data? China doesn't even solely own the app. They don't even own enough of the app to censor it and so it's banned in China lmao

irreticent ,
@irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

They don't even own enough of the app to censor it and so it's banned in China lmao

Why do you keep repeating that all over this post? It's not even true (unproven):

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-tiktok-banned-in-china/

Misconduct ,

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    Appoxo ,
    @Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Doesnt tiktok have a personalized feed for China that promotes healthy habits and everywhere else it's more likely to morph into brain dead content spirale?

    Misconduct ,

    Personalized feed? What? I've never heard of anything like that

    Appoxo ,
    @Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    One of the things I read about: https://nypost.com/2023/02/25/china-is-hurting-us-kids-with-tiktok-but-protecting-its-own/

    BUT I don't know if it's actually true.

    irreticent ,
    @irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

    TikTok is banned in China

    That remains unproven:

    "TikTok has never been available in China, as the country has its own version of the app, called Douyin. Both apps are owned by the same Chinese company, ByteDance. Thus far, we've been unable to find definitive proof that TikTok is or is not officially banned in China."

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-tiktok-banned-in-china/

    InternetUser2012 ,

    I feel there's a lot of China influence in this thread. I wonder why that is...

    bigMouthCommie ,
    @bigMouthCommie@kolektiva.social avatar

    sinophobia

    sailingbythelee ,

    CCP-phobia, I think. It is inappropriate to conflate the CCP with the Chinese people.

    yamanii ,
    @yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

    The world police is scared about the competition lmao, "only us should violate worldwide privacy!"

    maculata ,

    The world is on fire but the kids are upset that they have to use another platform for their stupid fucking dance videos.

    BTW: someone in the US should just make a similar app and call it tiktok. It’s not like China gives a crap about IP protection so turn about is fair play.

    Crikeste ,

    The world is on fire but lawmakers are doing petty antagonistic policy and turning a blind eye to atrocities.

    mechoman444 ,

    That's right. What's important is TikTok and Chinese interests of course. /S

    yarr ,

    I want my data to be centralized, profiled and used against me, but I want it by American corporations, dammit!

    autotldr Bot ,

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The House Commerce Committee today voted 50-0 to approve a bill that would force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the company or lose access to the US market.

    If the bill passes in the House and Senate and is signed into law by President Biden, TikTok would eventually be dropped from app stores in the US if its owner doesn't sell.

    These applications present a clear national security threat to the United States and necessitate the decisive action we will take today," she said before the vote.

    Gallagher also said his bill puts the decision "squarely in the hands of TikTok to sever their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party."

    While the bill text could potentially wrap in other apps in the future, it specifically lists the ByteDance-owned TikTok as a "foreign adversary controlled application."

    An app would be allowed to stay in the US market after a divestiture if the president determines that the sale "would result in the relevant covered company no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary."

    The original article contains 601 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

    EdibleFriend ,
    @EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

    But....how will we dance to save Roe vs Wade now????

    bartolomeo ,
    @bartolomeo@suppo.fi avatar

    U.S. lawmakers can't force anything on foreign corporations.

    If the bill passes in the House and Senate and is signed into law by President Biden, TikTok would eventually be dropped from app stores in the US if its owner doesn't sell. It also would lose access to US-based web-hosting services.

    ByteDance would be banned from the U.S. market and lose it's webhosting on U.S. servers.

    Also, what's with the "foreign adversary" status of China?

    stoly ,

    Actually a court in any country can prevent a company from doing something. When you do business in a country you have to abide by their laws.

    bartolomeo ,
    @bartolomeo@suppo.fi avatar

    That's right, I totally came off wrong. I meant that U.S. lawmakers can't force ByteDance to sell TikTok, as the headline implies.

    stoly ,

    Though possibly US operations could be sold off, whatever that would mean.

    UnderpantsWeevil ,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    Also, what’s with the “foreign adversary” status of China?

    China is attacking us by having a bigger economy

    bartolomeo ,
    @bartolomeo@suppo.fi avatar

    Lol yea. They also maintain control over their big corpos and that must be threatening to the 9 corporations in a trench coat that the U.S. calls a government. Still, the world doesn't need any more adversarial relationships, thank you very much U.S.A.

    UnderpantsWeevil ,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    Unironically, so much of US/China hostility boils down to corporate market share

    Linkerbaan ,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    The only social platform that doesn't try to actively censor Pro-Palestinian voices. What a coincidence that it's suddenly a security risk.

    Big ups to Rathbone https://www.tiktok.com/@rathbonemakesmusic/video/7289906736847129902

    scorpionix ,
    @scorpionix@feddit.de avatar

    Suddenly? It's been labeled Chinese spyware since day one.

    Linkerbaan ,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    And Twitter, Instagram and others are American spyware. The timing is very interesting since TikTok was the only platform not censoring Palestinians into oblivion especially at the start of the Genocide. Even now you can see a drastic difference in recommended content between TikTok and American based platforms. Which is a major reason that the youth reacts a lot different than boomers.

    Full control of social media must be held. Free speech btw

    mPony ,

    others are American spyware

    The M.O. of American business has always been clear: The internet exists to enrich the already-powerful. All Internet systems must be considered a possible vector for mission-critical business communication. As such, EVERY message sent over the internet must be viewable by those who might benefit from seeing it. Every phone call must be interceptable and traceable. Every new business idea must be known. Every new competitor must be stifled or bought out. Every piece of information which could be used to coerce or force compliance / silence must be gathered. If there is insufficient leverage then leverage must be manufactured.
    Yes this sounds like paranoid hyperbole. but it explains pretty much everything.

    Linkerbaan ,
    @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

    The classic "Freedom of speech except for platforms that say mean things about us".

    At least China is open about their censorship

    S_204 ,

    Ya, the site being abused by Iran, China and Russia isn't a problem. Nope not at all

    https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2024/02/06/iran-accelerates-cyber-ops-against-israel/#:~:text=This%20marked%20the%20first%20Iranian,UAE%2C%20UK%2C%20and%20Canada.

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