this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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It's a good start tho. Fuck the CCP.
Banning TikTok and not banning Meta and Google is a stupid idea that will just give more power to the fewer people with less competition. They are all bad of course and they should all be banned, but giving one bad group all the power is worse then letting two bad groups compete for power.
OK, you have this all wrong. Let me explain what the differences is. Tiktok has NO COMPETITION. Tiktok's ***intent *** is not like the others. The others are competing for ad revenue. Tiktok's purpose is solely to influence us Americans. Tiktok doesn't care about your ad revenue or even a sustainable business. They are banked rolled by the CCP.
If META or Google(um...what social media company does google have?) was banked rolled by Russia and had its servers all there and the app was installed on 75% of all Americans, they essentially have eyes and ears on everyone in America. But they are not owned by Russia. Its own by stakeholders who only care about money and how much they will make them.
While I agree that META and Google(really google?) has too much control over our data, at the very least the intent is not to disrupt the American democracy.
I'm sorry, what evidence do you have that they don't care about ad revenue, or that no other businesses are interested in influencing elections?
They'll double down on condescension, derision, and dismissiveness in order to maintain a rhetorical higher ground while never doing any work to substantiate their point.
Inevitably, they'll distort your question to something you're clearly not saying and answer that. It's all very predictable and still frustrating. The only thing left for them is to ignore your question because they don't have answer to it.
They haven't even bothered to answer lol
Google owns Youtube (and gmail, most popular mail provider). You should think more deeply about what ads are and what are governments motivations. It is both the same thing. Google and META want power, they want money, because money is a voting power for allocation of resources in the society. Chinese governments want power, so they can have more money and more voting power for allocations of their resources.
The nationality of people in these governments doesn't matter at all to them. Chinese government doesn't care about regular Chinese citizens no more then US government does about their own. They simply care for their own power/money. And that is their interests.
Google and META work with the governments, they have actual NSA offices and follow any orders from the government, just like TikTok does. The problem here has nothing to do with what country it is in, it is simply that one set of rich folks are bothered that they can't control something other rich folks are controlling. People, in both cases, suffer and have no power whatsoever in the process.
Meta has zero interest in destabilizing the American democracy. China does. China wants to take over Taiwan. Meta doesn't.
You see where I'm getting at? It's in Meta's best interest to have a vibrant democracy and a strong economy. China does not.
Meta doesn't give a flying fuck who owns the south China seas. Guess who does and has the tools to influence the people who vote for the politicians that will ignore an invasion to Taiwan?
Sure China probably wants money. But imagine how much money they can have if they influence America not to step into an invasion into Taiwan. 90% of the world's semiconductors would be under the influence of China.
Meta has a vested interest in making money. This has caused them to force polarizing content onto users pages, even when the information presented is false. They have worsened the political divides in America, and caused a significant number of people to believe lies about their fellow citizens.
The fact is Meta has damaged democracy for it's own profit.
Mate look at neo-fascist/white supremacist content on Facebook and tell me with a straight face that Facebook isn't destabilizing American democracy.
Also, fuck their rebranding. It's always going to be Facebook for me.
Yup. This, 100%. But good luck getting the kids to understand it.
They are already infected. Only way to kill a cancer is to nuke it. Ban Tiktok. Fuck the CCP.
Absolutely agree. There’s nuance that people today just don’t seem to get. This is the age of polarization. There is no grey area anymore.
TikTok has no competition? Reels for Instagram, Shorts for Youtube.
They copied TikToks format, because it does that format very well.
TikTok is not competing for your wallet. They are competing for your influence and from the sound of it, it's working.
You’re just wrong. It’s an app, dude. The most influence it has had on my life is show me things I’m interested in. Get a grip.
I don't use the app, do you get to pick each video like you do on YouTube or does it automatically find videos for you?
You can do both. I usually just let it show me videos, because they’re usually really interesting. There will always be videos that get through that are like little tests to see if you’ll like the content or not.
For example, I’m more interested in world affairs and technology. I get plenty of videos about those subjects. Then, once in awhile, they’ll throw a car mechanics type of content at me because I thought one video was interesting and liked it (stuff to make sure you keep your car in the best shape it can be, etc.) so it throws those videos at me and sometimes it is hit or miss.
You can always tell when someone has not used the app, because their opinion is always that it must be harvesting SO MUCH DATA! When (on iPhone at least) it asked me for my camera and location once and has not ever asked me since. I denied it of course because fuck that, and I also used Apple’s hide my email feature to create a dummy email for the app because I too used to shit on the TikTok because I too thought it was just a bunch of people doing stupid shit and dancing or whatever. Turns out I was wrong! It’s almost like if you used it, you could form a better opinion than TikTok = China = Bad
Well, China = Bad. No contest there. Uyghurs concentration camps, Tibet, South China sea conflicts, conflict with India, illegal policing in other countries, Taiwan. The list is literally endless.
If TikTok is rolled into that is what we are discussing.
Letting them show you videos they think you want to see is fine. If TikTok was a traditional corp not owned by the CCP.
Now, by default, it seems like they are curating videos to interest you.
WHAT IF the CCP decided to influence your thoughts by giving you a style or tone of a video that starts hinting its OK for China to invade Taiwan. Maybe you like history and they gave you a video showing how sad the CCP when KMT was ruthless animals.
Or you like car videos and they start showing you videos on how Chinese cars are superior to American cars and then conveniently tell you that the US government has a 100% tariff on all foreign electric cars and how you can never drive one unless you vote for X party.
It will seem innocent on the surface, and my example might actually be more intentional than what they will do to the American people.
The thing is, China already weaponized TikTok. A couple of journalists was stalked with data they obtained by TikTok. Why were they monitored? Because these journalists exposed that TikTok was sending data to the CCP. Another example. Tiktok sent a regional notification to users about the upcoming ban and got hundreds of people to call into the representatives, which they did, but without knowing the context. They literally didn't know why they were calling.
Well, no. Chinese government = bad, but the Chinese people themselves are not the issue. They are victims in their governments plots. You are preaching to the choir, my friend.
I think the Chinese government, much like our own here in the USA, is fucking garbage and should be completely reworked from the ground up BY THE PEOPLE. I feel more saddened for the Chinese people, as they have even less rights than we do (for now, since it seems like we want to be China/Russia SO BAD here in the states) and for Taiwan as the protest (which I saw on TikTok by the way!) for not wanting to become a part of China by force, which is absolutely fucking stupid and way way overreaching. Safe to say, I think all governments around the world are starting to get too confident, and think they can push little people like us around, when we vastly outnumber them. Anyway.
Not once have I seen anything that makes China look like any sort of good guy. Not one single time. I've seen plenty of videos about China, France, and even Canada and the USA all doing dumbass shit because our world is ran by little kids instead of adults. If it did show up, do you know what I would do since I am a sane person with a functioning brain? I would tell their little algorithm that I think the video/message is garbage, and move on to the next one. If they repeatedly kept showing me that kind of stuff, I would use the app less and less.
Do you have a source that isn't based with America's own narrative about the journalists stalker point? You see, here in the states, we also have a narrative to push just like the Big Bad China, so I wouldn't just thrust my trust into them either. Funny how journalism is well and alive, except for when it comes to pointing out the numerous amounts of shit that is god awful here that we do, like trying to take away food from kids in a building that is mandated by the government for them to be there! Why are no journalist interested in how Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are overran by quite a lot of Chinese and Russian bots that are actively influencing our own government and our own people? Just find it odd that we attack the Chinese so easily (as we should of course, but only with logical reasoning) but the unfettered data collection of our own companies here in the states is COMPLETELY fine!
TikTok did not send me any notification at all. The only reason I even heard of the ban, is from one of my favorite creators on the app itself, who actually took the time to print the bill off, give you the source of where he printed it (from the actual bill that is hosted by the government no less! and then read it off and explained why it was so fucking stupid to ban this singular app instead of, I don't know, banning them all together or restricting ALL apps equally so that we don't have ANYONE harvesting our data, which is by and large what is preferred by EVERYONE except the elite fucks who run our great little country, USA.
All I'm really trying to get across to you here, is that it sounds more like to me that you are the one propagandized, while I am just sitting here enjoying learning new and interesting things about the world and it's inhabitants, thanks to some silly little Chinese based app. Oh, and the funny videos are also pretty damn funny.
I'll 100% agree. The CCP is not China. China people are great. They are my people that was split by the civil war.
We are in a "used to it" kind of fear in Taiwan. The early morning fighter jet take-offs gets annoying, but the CCP ruled Taiwan would be much worse. While the USA has its sets of problems, at the very least the votes still sorta matter. If it didn't, we wouldn't have Trump.
While I don't use TT, I can't say what they feed users. I will say that nobody except the CCP knows what they are planning with your demographics. But the potential influence could be devastating. You don't know if they will flip the switch the week before they invade us. Or if they will do it after as damage control. Or they are trying to make Americans dumber since their own version of TT is geared more towards schooling and academics. https://kr-asia.com/how-bilibili-kuaishou-douyin-are-fostering-chinese-youngsters-education
As for the sources for journalist. Here:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/12/22/tiktok-tracks-forbes-journalists-bytedance/ https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/22/23522808/tiktok-journalists-data-accessed-bytedance-internal-audit https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-bytedance-workers-fired-data-access-journalists
My profession is in web ads. The company I work for buys hundreds of thousands of dollars of ads in all different kinds of medium. This is my personal take on why I don't think TT is not an ads tool.
1- Impressions. Basically how many eye balls are on your product and for how long. Since TT can skip ads, it's impossible for calculate how much a vendor needs to pay and worse, how much to pay the content creator.
2- They don't know how to monetize the platform. They are constantly changing the cost structure. And the changes are almost always 1/2 ass. It has become so difficult to budget because of the constant changes. We don't spend ad dollars there much anymore because of it.
3- Although TikTok has been improving its analytics tools, the ROI tool is completely shit.
4- TT has zero SEO value since it does not live openly like youtube. It doesn't seem like they care to expand it either.
These are just on the top of my head.
I 100% agree that American corporations should not have all our data. And we should fight with all our might to keep our privacy.
But that in lies the problem. BECAUSE the American corporate privacy is so "lacks", apps like TikTok will try and act like any other American corporation that is harvesting data to sell more ads and then sell more shit to us. But it's not like the other apps. It seems like its primary purpose is a psyop tool.
Senator I'm from Singapore
This is how elites can keep bamboozling us. How the fuck our life would improve without tiktok? At least If you ban every personalized social network or add strong regulation to them, but no, just ban tiktok and pretend you are doing something. CCP can eat shit, I'm worried about what is happening around me and not in a country in the other side of the planet.
If youre worried about what is happening around you, you should be worried about tiktok.
An adverserial nation in control of an algorithm that influences and effects behaviors here in the united states effects you.
China should not have influence on the united states this way, its a pretty simple conlusion.
Have you not once considered the NSA or silicon giants a potential adversary?
At least with NSA you could say for the purpose of national security, but Google would happily kill people for money if they figured out a way to not get caught.
No because if these silicon giants want to continue to do business in the USA, they would not try and influence the American people for a foreign adversary.
Tiktok's intent is not to make money. It's to influence us and use our data to spy on us. Did we all forget about the Forbes journalist that was tracked on Tiktok?
Yeah, they'll only have to influence the American people for a domestic adversary
Any examples on how this has taken effect?
Simple. When the bill was first introduced, TikTok blasted a notification telling people to call their congressman to stop them. We then had literal lemmings doing that exact thing without understanding the entire scope of the bill and why it's being done. Good fucking thing it was mostly younger kids.
Now imagine the same scenario where we have 18 year old voting adults. It can and would be able to sway an election or worse.
You mean like what Uber and Lyft did but nobody is talking about banning them? https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/4/21549760/uber-lyft-prop-22-win-vote-app-message-notifications
I completely understand why these companies are assholes, but we ALL understand why they are being assholes. Money. Greed. You gotta keep sqeezing the bottom half of Americans to get that fucking G6.
But Tiktok's intent is not money. Its power and intel. Power and influence on our American citizens. They don't care about your money. They want your data and so they can better influence you into thinking how they want you to think.
And what they want you to think directly benefits China. A weaker America is a stronger China. Fuck the CCP.
Uber and Lyft were telling voters to vote against their own interests and it worked. If you think that US companies aren't using your data to influence how you think then you're a prime example of their success. It's not just "innocent" money-making schemes, it includes manufacturing consent for wars.
Again. Asshole move. So they can make more money.
Now, how about the when TikTok influences Americans to vote to politicians that align with China. And let's just say..... China decides to invade Taiwan and America doesn't step in to stop it. Now they own 90% of advance semiconductors.
How about after China finishes with the south china seas then gets grabby and decide that Korea is now part of China again. Or when they finally invade India.
Imagine if they had a tool that can influence a country that would stop them.
None of that matters because the only thing that drives US foreign policy is money. Us whining about it because tiktok told us to would amount to nothing.
Not to mention common lemmy shills post this garbage up constantly to keep the youngins riled up. All ploys. All benefiting not us.
I would prefer legislation towards protecting our data rights too, but that ship sailed after we pissed net neutrality away, and that talking point is merely used as wedge between us. All to keep us mad at each other, ineffectual, and unlikely to vote.
For starters, TikTok algorithms are made to downweight any topics relating to subjects censored in China. HERE is a link to a study on the subject from Rutger's University and nonprofit NCRI. Since NCRI also directly advises Congress, it's a big part of the information available to legislators making this decision to force TikTok's sale.
Like this video?: https://www.tiktok.com/@cancelthisclothingco/video/7345905852164918570
I'm not going to click that, but idk probably. That's the point, downweighing can't be easily observed without a large dataset.
It's a video covering all sorts of forbidden topics in China and tagged with hashtags like #uyghur and #tiananmensquare but the video showed up on people's "for you" page and engagement/views was in line with most of his other videos. On the other hand, his videos where he brings up other topics like the CIA get outright censored. He uploaded a video about Palestine and tagged one with tags like #freepalestine and then uploaded the same video again without those hashtags and the one with the hashtags has <70k views versus the >930k views of the video without the hashtags.
So you're big "Gotcha" moment was to illustrate you didn't understand the concepts after they were explained to you. That science is wrong because you found a video with views on it?
That "sCiENcE" being:
So they work off the assumption that tiktok and instagram would have similar amounts of usage for the same hashtags. Fucking why? Did they not think different platforms would have different audiences?
Meanwhile I posted a clear example that demonstrates that not only do they not suppress content critical of China, they actually suppress content of certain sensitive topics for the US. You'd know that if you clicked the link, but you can't even be bothered to read your own link, so I guess my expectations of you were too high.
That difference amounts to nothing past hundreds of millions of users, much less constrained to US Based statistics. Basically the demographics would average out at that sample size.
People don't go to tiktok for the same reasons as instagram. It's not just a function of number of people. There are a lot of people on facebook but it's got a reputation as boomerville for a reason.
Reading your other comments, it reminds me of boomers on facebook. Have you ever used instagram? Try reading the comment section of a black guy or a woman or a muslim or worse all combined.