this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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People acting more terrified at the loss of tik tok from their lives than they did during covid, while losing people from their lives.
Tik tok might as well just change their name to empathy box, because they have convinced their users that the act of watching content on empathy box makes them more moral and politically aware than the rest of us.
At the end of the day, we have to be nervous when a foreign nation has content reach to 80℅ of Americans. This foreign nation is banning Americans from accusing it of genocide while allowing an economic incentive for Americans to accuse themselves and everybody else of doing it.
Deep down, every one of us knows tik tok is a power nobody can or should be trusted with.
So when are we shutting down Facebook for their 2016 targeted ad campaign specifically meant to fuck with an election?
I'm 100℅ in favor of breaking Facebook into 912 separate companies.
But not having the current political power to get that done doesn't mean we shouldn't do it to tik tok while we still have the power to.
That's not what they're talking about doing. They want to sell TikTok to a US interest. Not 900 of them. This is literally a chance for Musk, Zuckerberg, Apple, and Alphabet to grab up the best short form video app for cheap.
That's all it is. It is incredibly corrupt and the state department calls that out in other countries all the time.
China doesn't allow US social media in their nation, specifically for this reason.
There is no reason two belligerent states shouldn't be protecting their citizens from each other.
But I agree the citizens need to protected from their own governments as well.
How does us banning TikTok make us any better than China then? How does it make us any more free?
The whole point of freedom of speech is that everyone has it, even that speech you hate. The answer is more speech.
Lets see Biden grow a pair and go on new media and answer actual questions, not softballs. Then maybe people will start listening to him. And maybe he’ll learn what we’re actually concerned about.
Most companies in all industries should be broken up.
Don't use TikTok, don't really care too much either way, but watching this whole thing unfold is starting to open my eyes to the ways these companies can shape public opinion.
They're apparently sending notifications to people to contact their reps and it seems very likely that they're promoting content that advocates against the ban.
I'm not a fan of censorship or blocking internet services but TikTok really seems to trying to make a good case for it.
This isn't the first time a company has done that. Uber famously used pop up ads to get people to vote for a ballot proposition. Enron went so hard on PR that everyone blamed the government for people losing the pension that had already been embezzled by the executives.
Yeah but that's okay because they're American, right?
If you’re gonna ban this speech, then you should ban all speech from foreign governments, including the propaganda Israel is filling our country with for their genocide.
But this same congress who is so ready to silence China is unwilling to silence Israel. And Israel is not our ally. Our allies don’t try to drag us into genocides.
My understanding is that while rights are inalienable, meaning we recognize that Chinese citizens have the inherent right of free speech as well, not just in our direction, I'm not sure we grant free speech to mean a foreign state gets to use its technology to determine our national conversation.
I'm sure there would be teenage trans kids who through confusion ended up pro hamas, but I think tik tok could almost be accused of creating and fostering a movement that is certainly close to that very thing.
Wait. Are you blaming China for the anti Israel movement in politics?
That's... Impressive. Hilarious too but also impressive.
I never conflated a pro-hamas movement with an anti-israel one.
If there are leftists or vulnerable minorities who have become indoctrinated into pro-hamas rhetoric, yes, I clearly think tik tok is responsible because these kids certainly aren't reading it on on storm front.
I am not interested in having a conversation where you pretend I am talking about the pro Palestine/anti Israeli government movements.
My dude. No leftist is pro Hamas. Hamas wants to create a religious ethnostate just like Israel wants to create a religious ethnostate. We ARE pro Palestinian freedom. But Israel is the one who keeps making Hamas the dominant Palestinian political party, in order to use them as an excuse to continue their genocide.
Stop pretending to know what the left thinks when you’ve clearly never actually spoken to their members.
If something a person says that wasn't personally directed at you doesn't actually apply to you, they probably weren't talking about you.
Sure and my racist uncle's joke about drowning a random person totally isn't just his black guy joke barely concealed.
The narrative has for months been that anyone who is critical of Israel is Pro Hamas. And now you want us to believe that's changed when someone is defending the most breathtakingly xenophobic bill in modern times?
Lmao. No.
You aren't talking to a narrative, but rather a human being. You understand that, yes?
As an Australian who gets bombarded by the US point of view and agenda from their tech companies - I think America could do with an outside influence undermining the government's point of view.
As the post points out - the US government is doing an incredibly shitty job looking out for its citizens, and if they were afraid of a propaganda machine holding them accountable and creating civil unrest it might be for the best.
It's just a shame the power that owns the means to do that happens to be china. I wonder if things will return to normal once the citizens pack away the guillotine
Undermining the US government's point of view is one thing, but the argument could be made they are undermining your viewpoint more than the US government's.
Oh for sure. I guess I despair because I don't see a way out of the bullshit without civil unrest, but I think we have all grown weak and soft in the middle and are just willing to take it. I'm not sure it's possible anymore and feel like the human race as a whole are just becoming slaves.
I used to think the USA at least had a semblance of justice and fairness especially compared to China, but I think it really is just every man for themselves now and greed is all that matters.
It's not much better here in Australia either. There is no sense of community, or trying to build a better society. It's almost applauded to be corrupt and selfish.
Can you recommend a remote area of Australia that's not terribly prone to fires and has good Internet? I may have to join you in November.
The government does a shitty job, but it is representative. American culture is dominated by billionaire worship, consumerism, and greed. We shouldn't be so surprised when our elected officials share our values.
I disagreed with you up until this point. You're exactly right about this.
The problem is that nobody should have this kind of power. But our government thinks this kind of power is just fine as long as it's a US company they can control.
If nobody should have this power than nobody should have this power. Not China. Not Musk. Not Zuckerberg. NOBODY.
But we have a feckless, ineffective government written by racists 250 years ago and this is literally all they can do.
American social media companies are also controlled by foreign powers. I have no interests in common with the ultra wealthy and massive corporations that control this country. They are just as foreign to me as anyone in another country. I trust them less than I trust TikToc.
Right, but if you know all of them can't be trusted than the only logical thing to do is leave them behind, all of them.
Have you done so?
Actually, yes. The only exception would be YouTube, but I don't let the algorithm tell me what to watch. I have a handful of channels I follow, and sometimes look up a howto video.
you can subscribe to channels locally via newpipe or freetube, in case you want to degoogle.
I am much less concerned about foreign news reaching the American people than the outright lies being spread in the American news without people batting an eye. And the fact that a foreign government (Israel) literally owns our government.
Oh so a chinese news source pointed this out to the youth? Good. It shows that we are so sick of not being able to trust OUR news that we’re looking elsewhere. Banning TikTok won’t fix that. I won’t go back to CNN or Fox if you take away that option. I’ll continue to look elsewhere
Who’s next? Al Jazerra? The hindustan times? The BBC?
Are you actually fucking insane? How does the Israeli government literally own the US government? That's not even true figuratively. What the fuck are you saying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlKmWa8p4UM
?
AIPAC bragging about how they lobby (which we all know to mean bribe) every US leader. Doesn't get more blatant than that.
A promotional video of a lobby organization says they're doing a good job, therefore the Israeli government owns the US government?
We can all see the results where almost every politician on both sides fully support israel, even as they're committing genocide.
So glad to see this argument here.