It's not about privacy. China and the US have all the data on you they could want. It's about control. TikTok has successfully activated their base to contact their representatives with a notification from the app. It shows that they could use it to influence our politics.
China recognizes the danger, hence all western apps being banned. If they recognize the danger, then they must also recognize the utility. Are they using it? It's hard to say, but TikTok is what that would look like.
Sure, but as far as I'm aware they're American companies. Americans are allowed to influence our elections. Foreign agents are not. Whether they're doing it on behalf of China or not, they're foreign agents with a lot of political power, and have been shown to use it for their own self interest.
Billionaires might as well be considered foreign agents. They're parasites who are doing a lot more damage to the country than any actual foreign agent has ever managed.
The problem, from the government's perspective, is that there's no way to only see some of the fnords. If we teach people to recognize Chinese propaganda, they'll start to recognize American propaganda too. Better to keep us stupid and then control who's allowed to talk to us in the first place.
I hate tiktok. I am not from the US, but banning the app that is most popular among young people while raiding dozens of university campuses? Don't sound like a great way to get young people trust the system...
My tiktok feed was filled with videos from the protests, and has been filled w info on Palestine for the past half a year. I don't think this ban is a coincidence. Tiktok always has the fastest transmission of information from people on the scenes, kinda like Twitter back in the day.
Governments banning social media based on who can use it to spy on who, instead of creating privacy regulations and enforcing them to create and regulate markets, which is kinda what they should do, to make it so it doesn't matter who owns which app. Taking an opportunity and shitting all over it for some childish standoff should be beneath us.
It wont work either, there's so many legal tricks that can change the owner of a company without actually changing who controls the company.
"TikTok was evil and controlled by China, so we banned it. Oh look, here's a totally new website called TokTik owned by a US Citizen named Mr. ILoveChina who built a TikTok replacement in 15 minutes by hiring foreign consultants for 2 cents an hour."
I think the tiktok fiasco is just another wrong solution to a problem. The problem is data collection and mismanagement of it; and no one is getting 'royalties' for their data being sold or used.
I assume the US government wants to force a sale to a US tech company, no? Who would presumably profit from said successful app. Why not just outright ban it here? By kill I just mean make unusable. But you knew that, silly.
Thats one of the options ByteDance has. The US government can’t force a company in a different sovereign nation to sell anything. ByteDance has two options, their app is banned in the US, or they have the opportunity to sell it to a U.S. company. That’s up to ByteDance and the CCP, not the U.S. government.
Is there precedent for something like this? I'm clearly just a regular dummy but I can't think of anything similar ever happening in this country. To me, it just seems like a bureaucratic way of strong arming a sale.
Has an enemy foreign nation with a vested interest in the mass-collection of US citizens data and the unfettered ability to manipulate and misinform the American populace, especially the youth…
…also had the means to do so, with absolutely no oversight by the government of those US citizens? No I don’t believe so. China’s influence on the minds of the average American has never been this pervasive, it is indeed unprecedented and a bona fide national security risk.
If you’re suggesting that what the government actually wants is that data for themselves… idk maybe, but not really? TikTok is the 4th largest social media service, the other 3 being American owned already, with much larger user bases, of which most TikTok users probably also use. TikTok doesn’t really have anything that the U.S. market doesn’t already have and in greater quantity. Maybe if TikTok was a company based out of Switzerland, then I might raise an eyebrow. But the fact that it’s Chinese of all things, the national security reason is just already a solid reason to ban TikTok. Whether or not there’s an interest in US government control over that data is little more than a footnote in the conversation.
The bill is worded so vaguely, it could be applied to anything. This is a massive overreach and the fact that you aren't concerned is alarming. You just don't give a fuck bc you don't like TikTok, but this isn't just about TikTok.
That's ridiculous. Government doesn't move that quickly. They've been thinking about how to deal with foreign interference for years. Also, I hate to break it to you, but the Palestine thing isn't that interesting or important in the grand scheme. At best, the Palestinians, like the Houthis and Hezbollah, are pawns used by Iran to stir up trouble from time to time. This conflict has been going on for 80 years already and the overall trend in the Middle East is toward peace and economic integration with Israel. No one is going to push the Jews into the sea and liberate Palestine for the Palestinians.
If you don't think Israel "that interesting or important" to the US government, you haven't been paying attention. full stop. This isn't about Palestine, its always been about Israel. They send way too much money to us politicians, including the one in the white house, for it to not matter "in the grand scheme". AIPAC money alone should be enough to convince you.
Perhaps I misspoke. I mean to say that the periodic flare-ups with the Palestinians are not that important anymore. They used to be. But nowadays, Israel's neighbours aren't invading with tanks and, as I said, the overall trend is towards peace and economic integration with Israel. I agree with you that Israel is important to the US for many good strategic and political reasons.
I've been paying attention to the Middle East for almost 40 years, punk. What? Iran, like, literally just sent drones into Israel? Oh no, literally what will we do? Like, oh my god, this is so terrible.
You can't take and hold territory with drones, especially not Iranian drones. Iran is not invading Israel. Grow up and go learn something.
Iran might not be invading Israel anytime soon but they sure arent "trending towards peace" like you claim. You're wrong about this one, and your anger betrays you here. It might shock you to learn that even at your age, you can still learn something, too. At least I know I'm uninformed and look for the truth instead of just spouting off bullshit with nothing to back it up.
Can someone make a federated decentralised alternative for these fellow addicts? At least they won’t be at mercy of geopolitical powers but only our local, innocent, slightly mad admins.
I realise though that it would take gargantuan effort$
A federated alternative for that already exists - peertube. Adapting it to a short form video format wouldn't be that difficult. However, running it (any video streaming platform) is expensive. How do u plan to fund it?
Chew responded to the latest moves in a video posted by the official TikTok account. "Make no mistake, this is a ban," Chew said in the video. "A ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice."
Lemmy users are just going to believe whatever they want to believe, instead of actually checking the facts.
It's 100% about privacy. Data collection, and algorithm manipulation to sway what users see in the interest of the Chinese government. If users think Russian interference is a problem, we'll this amounts to the same thing.
So it's about foreign policy and not privacy. Or does the law somehow affect Facebook products too which are the same crap from an individual privacy perspective?
If it was actually about privacy then the US would be introducing data transparency and control laws (which only kicks in here if TikTok doesn't sell to a US company). Whether it's the US wanting to stream their own bullshit to kids or just that sweet sweet ad revenue, this is in no way about privacy or "protecting the children".
How so? If you're concerned about propaganda, require every company operating within the US to show users exactly what data is collected and allow them to delete any or all of it as desired. Show users to the technical extent possible what data has connected them to suggested videos or ads. Put the power of users' hands to understand and control how they are targeted.
Not exactly the same problem. In the same way that gun control doesn't address the problem of hostile foreign militaries. Yes, both involve guns, but the laws and policies that address one are inapplicable and inappropriate to the other.
The law in question addresses the problem of foreign adversaries having easy access to manipulate US public opinion. The law you suggest addresses the problem of advertisers having that access. Both are serious concerns, both need to be addressed, but they are not the same problem and the solutions are markedly different.
There are a million startups chomping at the bit to create or have their existing app become the TikTok replacement in the event it does get banned.
This is the nature of American Capitalism. A monopolistic entity is broken up for this reason or that thereby making way for competition. According to all those economists, competition is good and breeds innovation.
I don't have a problem with this. Next go for Google, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft too.
This isn't an anti-trust case, it's just anti-China posturing and lobbying from Meta and friends bearing fruit. Google and Meta will fight for the users and their monopolies will grow even more menacingly bloated
China takes a protectionist stance towards many industries, whereas the US claims, not entirely correctly, to be a bastion of free trade. I'm not sure US citizens want their government taking cues from the CCP either
Perhaps, but not when you're supposed to be the bastion of free speech. And while there is the aspect of this being about domestic neerdowells not getting their beaks wet. There's plenty speech suppression involved as well. I think the stunt ticktok pulled in this case backfired spectacularly. It had been lurking in the background for a while. But it seems they felt urgency after that.
I'd still have a problem with this even if they shut down sites like stormfront as well. But at least that would be consistently wrong. Not hypocritically wrong.
What prevents a few US Citizens from forming a totally new and independent company called BitDance and then ByteDance sells them TikTok for $3.99, and then BitDance hires a company from China to help consult on the algorithms they use.
Ah, the only time you’re going to hear that from the Chinese company is when they want you to prevent someone coming between them and their data feed and profits.
Nevermind the algorithms that suppress voices they don’t want to be heard.
Either TikTok will win in court and overturn the law (possible), be sold (unlikely) or shut down (likely). I can't see TikTok being sold being allowed by China, and even selling part of the business just creates a new global competitor to extend out of the US.
Multiple competitors will appear in the meantime hoping to get the displaced activity. TikTok is hugely profitable and a dominant replacement in the US would make a lot of money. This will be seen as an opportunity to make a lot of money for the winner.
I can see Meta trying to make a TikTok like clone, Google trying to leverage YouTube shorts, and Elon Musk trying to revive Vine at Twitter, plus lots of startups (mostly. American but possibly from other nations) vying to win the audience.
Ironically the more interesting battle may be outside the US - TikTok versus whatever US app comes along.
The deadline is after the US election - this could also all be political grandstanding and the politicians expectation might be that the law won't stand up in court anyway.
unless the bill has changed since the last time I read it, there were fines for hosting the service in US datacenters, and fines for companies allowing US data to exist in non-us datacenters. I don't think you could interpret the bill as imposing a civil penalty to a user using a vpn and accessing it.
Exactly. I read Division H of the bill (the more important to me), and civilians would only be impacted if they distribute a banned app or something. ISPs could potentially be culpable though, but I'm pretty sure that's related to hosting the infra for something like TikTok and not just allowing traffic to it.
So yeah, using a VPN with TikTok would totally work. Not sure if you could get updates to the app over VPN though, that depends on how the stores handle regions.
I'm saying if you're reporting your location as the EU, could you get updates through the App Store? Or would it know you're a US customer and disallow it, even if you report that you're in the EU? Or does it use GPS location?
I would guess that it goes off of the lowest common denominator between IP address geo-location & billing address. If either of those say US, google/apple would probably be required not to distribute it.
If you can use tik tok you can use a VPN. I click my VPN to start it and it auto connects. You think tapping 1 button on your phone is too hard for people who tap one button on their phone to open tik tok?
All the public will have to do is type "tiktok.com" in their browser and their computer will connect to directly to servers in China. For now, they don't even need a VPN.
Then our politicians will start discussing a national firewall. We'll show that we're better than China by doing the same things China would do (/s).
I think it's ironic this is posted here on Lemmy, which is what it is today mainly thanks to users of another service freaking out over how they will manage without their API access to bullshit aggregated content mixed with astroturfing.
Reddit and TikTok are incredibly different. And most of us that came over here from Reddit were there and we all saw the quality of Reddit going downhill for a long time. And when Reddit decided to try to be more like a TikTok style company, we all bailed.
So it’s not that ironic. We all willingly left when a company made one more decision screwing us over. These people are clawing at their phones to stay on an app.
Most of the people who used the 3rd party apps weren't people who just doom scrolled shit that was fed to them. Most of them had all the default shit blocked or unsubed. It was all niche stuff the majority was subed to that had very little ad revenue for reddit. It's why the protests didn't really work, reddit didn't give a shit about the million or so people who went with niche subs using 3rd party apps.
Hi, I contribute to a number of projects that require incredibly specific information to facilitate (GPGPU kernel optimizations and unit tests for BLAS) and I use Reddit to collaborate with other engineers to solve issues like doing calculus on Lie groups resulting in a divide by zero because some non-zero groups multiply to zero in the middle of the calculation. The best engineers and mathematicians I know moved here, so I moved with them to continue the dissemination of these principles. The majority of memes and shitposts offer a common forum to get real work and study done in a way that publicly offers those solutions to anyone asking the same questions. Reddit wants just the shitposts and astroturfing, so they can keep it. I have work to do.
If they banned lemmy and reddit you would be freaking out too. The difference is many people run their businesses on tik tok. Your making fun of people who are losing their livelihood.
More productive? Dog they are small businesses that are using tik tok as a store front. Like how people run business through Facebook. What your saying is "fuck these people they should just go work a soul crushing job at a big corporation like me"
There are non-scam companies on TikTok. I don't use it but it's easy enough to see. People use it to hustle their marketing and advertising, some people even hire to fill that role.
First example that comes to mind is from years ago, but a dude started and grew a business in Miami for selling exotic fruits that are unique to Florida to anyone online. Something like $100 for a seasonal, shipped overnight, cooler of exotic fruits with info/instructions. He got a girlfriend and she made their popularity explode using TikTok. The best way I can describe her videos is making it seem like you're bougie if you subscribe to their seasonal boxes monthly.
Whatever she did worked though. Not a scam, you pay and get the fruit.
Lemmy I could live without. If any users are making their livelihoods on Lemmy or Reddit, they should find something more productive to do.
by Stovetop@lemmy.world
I nominate this for the least aware comment on lemmy. We truly have a gem here. "If someone is making their living in a way I don't understand, they should get a real job. After all, it doesn't affect me, so it must be fine."
Truly well-spoken, just look at all of the many high-paying jobs available to people of all skill levels, I mean, it's not enough that an entire generation needs to hustle and convert every waking moment into opportunities to generate capital in order to barely survive.. but also please do it in a way that Stovetop understands and supports. Otherwise, it's not "productive", whatever high-minded values that meaningless phrase is supposed to represent. Clueless.
Null empathy, null emotional intelligence, null consideration. Truly a masterpiece.
Stovetop please stay the way you are, we want to study you.
What sort of living do you think users are eking out on Reddit or Lemmy?
Social media commerce is all scams and influencers. There are much more productive things people could do to contribute to the betterment of society without trying to capitalize the brain space of gullible and vulnerable people.
The world of late stage capitalism. When "scammer" starts to become a common profession.. perhaps instead of asking why everyone is becoming a scammer, ask what type of system rewards and necessistates it, and why?
There are hints in this discussion to what is wrong with the world we inhabit that leads people down this path, and that is the picture I want to draw for you.
In short, people are extremely desperate. Some might think this is just how things are, but I happen to be one of the people who thinks it is by design. The richest want to keep the workers hungry, afraid, lacking security, and the house (in which they have financial stake in) can rake in the gains. The intentional applied divisiveness of capitalism.
In that context, I wanted to point out the privileged life that you likely live in order to not realize the desperation that drives someone to capitalize on every financial opportunity available, even the crazy ones. My statement isn't in favor of making revenue on X, Y, or Z platform, my statement is in critique over your critique of how others earn a living, as well as your disregard for their situation. I was urging you to walk a mental mile in someone else's shoes.
Also I apologize for mocking you, it's not personal but I couldn't resist taking the piss out of your comment.
I mean, people probably aren't making a living on Reddit or Lemmy, but those aren't actually getting banned. Tiktok is, and people are actually making a living off of tiktok.
Well, I'm freaking out a bit despite hating TikTok and believing it's harmful to the average user. I don't believe in censorship, and I think banning an app like this is a form of censorship.
That said, even if Lemmy and Reddit were banned, I would probably react similarly. I don't need Reddit or Lemmy and can do without, but I disagree very much with the censorship.
Nah. Lemmy is a software. Reddit is an entity. They could try to ban specific Lemmy servers. They've tried to go after torrent tracker sites with little to no success. This wouldn't be any different.
I think it's illuminating and hilarious that they're actually going through with this though. I've long made the statement that capitalists and Leninist are kissing cousins on all the worst possible fronts. And here's another data point.
There's what they claim to be and what they are. What they claim to be, is a transitional centralized system of government aimed at jump starting communism. What they are is that without a mechanism or plan to transition. Ending up in EVERY SINGLE GROUP that has tried devolving into an authoritarian suppressive system. Benefitting largely those at the top.
The Party heads in Moscow benefited far more than the average citizen of the Soviet Union. Nearly every modern Russian oligarch has a direct line that can be drawn back to former party leadership. Xi Jinping does not live in government block housing like a regular citizen. Nor do any of the families of top party members. And should a Chinese citizen complain. They will be brutally ostracized and excluded from society at best. Jailed for life or slaughtered if they're not so lucky. Capitalists salivate about being able to do that with impunity. They still do it. Just not with impunity yet.
You use it to advertise and show off your items without having a actual shop. Tik Tok also has a shop you can buy from and you can list your items on there.
The closest thing I can think of that's similar to it would be Etsy but instead of having just pics of your products you can have short videos of it.
The algorithms for all those sites are way worse tho, I get much less variety of content, and much less news/politics content that interests me. Frequently those feeds area few months behind. You don't know what you're talking about.
I loathe tiktok but if someone had banned Reddit while I was still using it I would have been hella mad. On the other hand it would have been "How will I manage without unhinged shitposts mixed with ads" from the outside
That's probably fair enough. I don't watch shorts on any site anywhere. I tend to opt for the 20 minute 30 minute or longer videos. Sitting and working on things when I get home.
This, basically. Google took YouTube and made its algorithm push more long form content for the purpose of generating revenue from ads. Not saying TikTok doesn't have ads in my feed but at least I can skip literally all of them.
I just want to not see them. I dont watch shorts and I never will. Youtube can go fuck itself because I fucking refuse to watch anything in fucking portrait mode let alone narrowed down in timescale to roughly fuck all.
I concede. Can't argue with facts like that. You'd have to be brainwashed to want to be spied on by one less entity. Oh wait my mistake. You have no facts. You're just expressing a baseless useless opinion that isn't worth shit. Have a nice day :-)
Funnily enough. If you weren't jumping to conclusions about things not being said. I actually agree with you on that. I think it's hypocritical that the government is doing this. I'm still allowed and have good reason to dislike tiktoc more.
You're welcome to go look at my post history from the last few days. I've made the exact argument that it is hypocritical. And believe me I'd rather move off to something like peer tube entirely. But there's logistics still needing to be addressed before that. And currently we're largely stuck in a few inescapabe duopolies. Least worst of two inadequate choices. And yes YouTube wins that technically by being mildly less manipulative. Not by much. Believe me I know how much their algorithm stirs the pot trying to get engagement.
And yes I know it's not a debate. That was specifically why I said that. To point out that it wasn't a debate that there were no accusations of fact or anything being discussed there. You were simply jumping to a conclusion that was unsupported.
I got no love for NYT. Again mister not yet month old account. Look at my post history. I regularly point out our medias fash bias. What evidence do you have that China. A country known for meddling in and manipulating business in China. Is not meddling in and manipulating this particular Chinese owned brand.
Let it not be neglected that you just moved your goalposts. But if you feel so strongly about this. Surely you must have some hard evidence to share with us poor brainwashed plebs. 😏 Starting to smell awfully hexbear/grad.
I don't care about creating a track record on my social media accounts, I share personal details often enough and hop between accounts. Weird thing to bring up. Is account age the new dick measuring contest?
What goalposts did I move? I called you brainwashed, and then I told you why I said that. You're using debate-bro buzzwords that you don't understand.
I'm not saying China isn't meddling (although the evidence presented in the NYT opinion peace honestly seemed pretty week to me), but the US-based social media companies are definitely spying. The US could outlaw the spying, but instead they have made a massively overreaching bill. It applies to any company with at least a 20% stake by people/entities based in countries seemed "foreign adversaries". It's ridiculously unconstitutional. And you're being brainwashed and fearmongered into defending it.
You know exactly why we bring it up. And you know just how pathetic that rebuttal was. I don't have to tell you that's for sure.
Bragging about having multiple accounts for the purpose of ban evasion is a bold strategy cotton. We'll see how it plays out. But I don't think it's quite the reputational flex you think it is.
And what's with bringing up the NYT bullshit again. I already said I don't trust nor am I referring in any way to the New York times. You keep bringing this up like you're making some sort of point. Having some sort of conversation with someone no one else can see. Are you broken? The fact that China controls and manipulates every single business that operates inside China is something that's been reported on for decades. Through multiple Outlets and multiple sources. It's not something controversial unheard of or without base.
I absolutely think it's hypocritical and stupid that the United States is Banning tiktok without at least Banning daily wire and other similar Outlets as well. They're all manipulative propaganda ultimately. Although I don't think we should be banning any of them myself. Just saying they'd be less hypocritical if they did.
It's clear you REALLY like Xi though sport. Maybe someday he will notice you. But I know for sure that I won't. Bye grad.
I ... do not care about reputation I just comment on posts. You are playing Dick Measuring Contest and I don't even have one.
Not bragging about the multiple accounts, just explaining to you. 🤷🏻♂️
You complained about me moving the goalposts and now you're mad I brought up the NYT and explained more deeply why I called you brainwashed? You didn't even tell me how I moved the goalposts, did you forget about that and decide to just focus on trying to discredit my existence? That goalposts thing didn't work I guess?
You're not listening to what I'm saying. The tiktok ban is a massive overreach of government power. If the government wanted to prevent spying, they could have passed a law about spying and collecting user data. TikTok operates as a business in the US and would be subject to those laws.
I'm not "grad" but I am a leftist, that's not something I am trying to hide nor is it something I am ashamed of, and the fact that you think that's a bad thing is not surprising whatsoever because you've been brainwashed into defending fascist government laws such as this Adversarial App Ban. It honestly sounds like you don't even know what's going on? You want Daily Wire banned? That's not an app, it's a media outlet, and that would be a massive First Amendment breach.
I actually get pretty good info from TT. Lawyer insight on Trump trials, video quotes from politicians, summaries of new laws, science summaries for dummies that don't have physics degrees, etc.
