• FrankFrankson@lemmy.worldEnglish
    848·
    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
      171·
      5 days ago

      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
        15·
        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
            4·
            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
              41·
              4 days ago

              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
                3·
                4 days ago

                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
                  21·
                  4 days ago

                  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”.

    • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
      54·
      4 days ago

      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.

      • WammKD@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        31·
        4 days ago

        Another platform will pop up over the next week if TikTok is banned.

        Or an existing social media will try to take its place; Meta and Google have sites which imitate TikTok’s UI (at least, in part).

        I don’t think it’s the only reason necessarily (and I’m inclined to agree your reasons are, at least, part of it) but I think the chance for U. S. companies to cannibalize TikTok’s market demographics is, also, a happy little coincidence of the consequences.

        • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
          31·
          4 days ago

          The thing with TikTok is almost all americans on it have gravitated away from other platforms because it has more to offer. I don’t think there’s a large demographic on TikTok who don’t precisely understand why they use TikTok over other platforms. (Edit: youth I suppose) I also believe this is why they want to force TikTok to sell, they want to have it exist as a platform but with new management.

          If TikTok doesn’t sell and it does get banned, I almost guarantee the demographic will quickly find themselves on another, likely Chinese owned, platform. This will still be a win for Congress as they’ll have fractured TikTok and weakened the demographic as a whole.

          Time will tell.

    • SamboT@lemmy.world
      2·
      5 days ago

      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.

      • MrMcGasion@lemmy.world
        304·
        5 days ago

        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
          5·
          4 days ago

          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
        72·
        4 days ago

        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
          1·
          4 days ago

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

          • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
            2·
            4 days ago

            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
              1·
              4 days ago

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

              • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
                2·
                4 days ago

                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
                  1·
                  4 days ago

                  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
    456·
    5 days ago

    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.worldEnglish
      11·
      4 days ago

      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
      166·
      5 days ago

      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
        124·
        5 days ago

        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.

    • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafeEnglish
      123·
      5 days ago

      Not a foreign gov. China.

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

      • hark@lemmy.world
        143·
        5 days ago

        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
        81·
        5 days ago

        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?

    • samus12345@lemm.eeEnglish
      51·
      4 days ago

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

  • De_Narm@lemmy.world
    1943·
    6 days ago

    The last panel applies to every other social media, just replace the spying country.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
      631·
      6 days ago

      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.

    • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
      115·
      6 days ago

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

      • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
        112·
        6 days ago

        So if an American company collects user data and sells it on the open market to a hostile foreign nation, and accepts money to run propaganda, that’s A-OK?

        • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
          61·
          6 days ago

          That capitalism baby! I suppose Congress can at least control who Facebook et al. are selling to through sanctions and such.

      • AppleTea@lemmy.zip
        5·
        6 days ago

        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
        3·
        5 days ago

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

      • De_Narm@lemmy.world
        191·
        6 days ago

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

  • Filthmontane@lemmy.world
    615·
    5 days ago

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

  • respectmahauthoritybrah@sh.itjust.works
    122·
    4 days ago

    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
      31·
      4 days ago

      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.

      • respectmahauthoritybrah@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        4 days ago

        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
      22·
      4 days ago

      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?

  • beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    7124·
    5 days ago

    FTFY

    edit : ooooh the wee St Petersburg trollies are tryin’ ta tryin’ ta ain’tcha!

    News flash, responder-guys: if you’re even humans & not the AI bots who took most of your colleagues’ jobs, you’re still always be undervalued by your bosses. They’ll never, ever save you: they’ll save their Teslas and stock portfolios instead. Your life kinda sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it AND YOU CHOSE THIS LIFE, DIDNT YOU. Free yourself. Quit this shit job and go back to school before it’s too late.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      312·
      6 days ago

      We were trailblazers for a time. Other than that, we were always kind of fucked as a democratic system.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
          361·
          6 days ago

          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
            71·
            6 days ago

            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.worldEnglish
              152·
              6 days ago

              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.

              • andros_rex@lemmy.world
                44·
                6 days ago

                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.worldEnglish
                  11·
                  6 days ago

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

                • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
                  4·
                  5 days ago

                  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
          3·
          6 days ago

          Before any of us were alive. Some would say before centralized banking in the early 20th

      • vga@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        5 days ago

        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.worldEnglish
      101·
      6 days ago

      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.eeEnglish
        41·
        5 days ago

        Neither he nor his country seem to be on their way out currently. Same old authoritarianism as usual.

          • samus12345@lemm.eeEnglish
            81·
            6 days ago

            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.todayEnglish
          41·
          5 days ago

          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
            1·
            5 days ago

            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.eeEnglish
              1·
              5 days ago

              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.todayEnglish
              1·
              5 days ago

              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.

              • dx1@lemmy.world
                2·
                5 days ago

                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.

    • boonhet@lemm.ee
      231·
      5 days ago

      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
        102·
        5 days ago

        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
          31·
          5 days ago

          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.

          • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
            103·
            5 days ago

            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

      • Zement@feddit.nl
        101·
        5 days ago

        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.

        • boonhet@lemm.ee
          9·
          5 days ago

          .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.

          • Zement@feddit.nl
            11·
            5 days ago

            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.

      • beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        11·
        5 days ago

        Not sure that it’s “most” anymore. Propaganda huffers realized there was more new land to destroy / minds to influence & they had to come settle here too

  • heavy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    241·
    5 days ago

    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.eeEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      Companies would simply be punished by the law

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

  • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
    174·
    5 days ago

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

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      6·
      4 days ago

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

      • Sorgan71@lemmy.world
        11·
        2 days ago

        Companies should not be free. Only people should be free. Companies exist to do what we want them too.

        • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 days ago

          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
            11·
            2 days ago

            And yet if a company is poisoning peoples minds they should be stopped from using it.

            • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
              1·
              2 days ago

              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.

                • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  2 days ago

                  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.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
      3·
      5 days ago

      This is my problem with it.

      Social media, the big ones that everyone uses, are a blight on society. They are worse than cancer and they need regulation and control.

      Really, the bigger problem is the monetization of data, and the ever-deeper orificices that they try to dig into for said data.

      But I digress.

      At the same time, they are private industries running a public (ish) forum.

      Historically, we’d expect the forum owners to be responsible about the content they are presenting, and ensure that it doesn’t reflect poorly on them or their community.

      In other words…you wouldn’t see the grocer keeping hate speech up on his community board…but if you did, I’m sure a lot of people would choose a different grocer.

      The social media giants are taking a page right out of the book of Mormon, and gotten itself so engrained into modern society that trying to separate yourself from it will, at some level, result in social exile. That’s bad.

      Now theres a company backed by an increasingly adversarial nation-state that is in charge of a shit ton of that data. That’s bad.

      There’s a lot of bad. Ultimately, it’s a highly nuanced issue.

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
      21·
      5 days ago

      Of course it’s more worrying to the American government when it’s a foreign government spying on their citizens. It’s not really a double standard but rather just sensible from the gov’s pov.

  • Lulzagna@lemmy.world
    126·
    4 days ago

    It wasn’t. There’s zero proof of this currently.

    The app is banned because congress can’t control. They want you using the platforms where you can’t become class or politically aware.