Both are bad, one is worse.
Oh yeah, I forgot the other social media apps don't collect data and spew propaganda. Oh wait... They do.
Yeah but only for the benevolent western ultra rich oligarchs, so it's gucci.
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.
Factually untrue, the only person who has control of what the algorithm shows you on any social media is the end user. So say8ng that it is used to spread propaganda (which that's super vague), is blatantly false. Pretending otherwise is just being willingly ignorant to how the technology works. Hell, a 6 year old understands how the algorithm works and how to shape it. Plus, US based users have their data stored on US servers hosted by Oracle, China has no access to it. Do two seconds of research and you will see that I'm correct
LMAO, The company that makes the algorithm has control over what that algorithm "weighs" it's not that hard for them to tweak the values so it "weighs" whatever propaganda or content they want to push more of much higher than other content.
It's true, the end user does have some influence on the algorithm, but when they have it tweaked to "weigh" pro-CCP or pro-Right-wing trash much higher than other content it doesn't take much to end up falling back. For example, watching part of single pro-Trump video would make the algorithm push much more Trump trash where it would take 5 "normal" fully watched videos to continue showing "normal" videos.
And that's assuming the average user is even aware enough to influence it to that degree, which they don't.
Plus, US based users have their data stored on US servers hosted by Oracle, China has no access to it.
Yea, the data is stored in the US, but it still influences the TikTok US algorithm (because they have a separate algorithm for China ofc) which is still wholly controlled outside of the US
Here is a video going over the bill in detail https://youtu.be/tMe3ZdWUnU8?si=-TSKsL2RW2wfzMsq
Tiktok got banned not for peddling "chinese propaganda" but instead not peddling the US one.
All the major tech companies in the US take measures to ensure content deemed unworthy by the government never become mainstream or viral.
This is done under the pretense of stopping "hate speech" or "terroristic propaganda" but often include things like pro-palestinian content or class struggle content (like luigi mangione stuff).
Tiktok was bold enough to not do that by default, cuz they wanted someone to ask them to do this and then it would become a huge scandal about how the US suppresses free speech. And US gov don't want to do that for this exact reason as well. So they decided to ban it.
Remember talks for this "law" were initiated when all of a sudden tiktok became a host for pro-palestinian voices. We should ask ourselves, how is it that 60% of americans want the government to stop arms sales to israel but this 60% never shows up on the big social media platforms. But on other platforms like here in lemmy and tiktok, pro-palestinians is the majority.
For further reading, listen to employees fired from big US tech companies for voicing their concerns over the palestine issue, or read Meta's new terms and conditions specially the section on "dangerous organizations and individuals".
It’s outright shadowbanned at best and straight up banned at the isp level at worst.
That’s why tik tok is getting banned, because US spooks can’t control it.
Ah yes, TikTok, the land free of censorship. Where you can’t say “gay” and must insert a stupid little asterisk.
I didn't say tiktok is the bastion of free speech. They only do this in the Palestinian case because it does not serve them anything to be against palestine. We can criticise one party without making the other one some kind of "moral hero" of a story.
Thank god for bold platforms like TikTok that refuse to push US propaganda. Really smart of them to not censor valuable information as a way of fooling the US government into exposing its evil censorship ways. TikTok's fate in the US was never a topic before the current wave of pro-Palestinian activism started. It certainly wasn't one of Trump's main talking points ten years ago. Good thing he changed his mind after getting his hands on
some Chinese moneylucrative investmenet from Chinese citizens that are not at all connected to Tencent.None of this discourse on combatting foreign information manipulation started over a decade ago, its all about censoring pro-Palestine voices here and now. TikTok and China in general are known for their calm, collected attitudes toward Muslims. They certainly would never weaponize a contentious topic every which way imaginable in pursuit of financial and geopolitical goals. We need more of these open and bold platforms.
They track the location of people in the US and gather large amounts of data. They didn't get banned for refusing to spread US propaganda.
These are very loose terms. Pretty much every major website saves IP addresses when you create an account (to prevent abuse/spam detection). And you can get location info from the IP address. Hence the first condition would be true for all of those websites.
Next, any website/app that builds a recommendation system will save user interactions to build the "algorithm". So every social media with an algorithm will fall into this category.
With enough bending of terminology, we might be able to prove that the lemmy also collects user data (although it will be really hard cuz the algo here is based on upvotes and time posted iirc). And "large amount" part is just legal filler words.
As does all the American owned networks. That’s not the reason. Not pushing American propaganda is the reason.
False dichotomy. They could’ve been banned on legitimate pretenses AND other reasons threatening power.
If they were legitimately only banned for “tracking the location in the US and gathering large amounts of data”, then just about every single social media service would be under investigation for the same reason. But do we currently see that happening?
So does facebook, twitter, google, microsoft, and pretty much every mobile app development shop.
hankie hugger, yall ain’t gonna win this one
Yeah, so prepare for battle between people who want to tell you that their empire is better.
Obviously the US. China imports and exports everything through the oceans. Have fun with Russian potatoes dumb dumb CCP members xD
Yeah but not Facebook and Twitter and other American ones. Right?
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.
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
Except they've banned 1 source for appeasement rather than enact a strong law or policy for long-term safety.
Well yeah. Why would corporations write laws against their own self-interest?
I'm not a fan of government banning stuff, but like... if they are gonna do it, ban Wechat too. My parent's be so deep in the Wechat propaganda, I wonder what they do without Wechat.
What? Wechat is a thing here? I have literally never heard about Wechat like anywhere, pretty sure more people know about Lemmy in the US than Wechat lmao
WeChat is very common amongst the Chinese diaspora worldwide. Everyone in China uses WeChat. Its like China's Facebook. Its either that, or just sms, which lack many features like, group chats, or some weird Lunar New Year gifs, stuff like that. So if you want to communicates with relatives that are still in China, or with other first-generation immigrants, WeChat is just the default method. But that's only for first-generation immigrants tho. People born ouside of China, Taiwan, or any Chinese-speaking areas would probably not use WeChat. I arrived in the US at before I was 10, I hate the idea of having any corporate apps on my phone, regardless of nationality. Many Chinese Americans born in the US just use the typical Instagram, Snapchat and stuff like that (and yes, some use TikTok as well, but that just a "kids these days" thing, nothing to do with ancestry)
What the hell is WeChat? Did that WeWork guy start a social media service?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat
TLDR: Chinese "Facebook" (actually its more like Facebook+Instagram+Twitter+ every social media combined into one + Googlepay/Applepay + A lot of government censorship)
Its app only, no webpage or computers, requires a smartphone, requires a phone number. How much censorship and survelliance depends on what phone number you use. Accounts with Mainland Chinese number will have a much stricter censorship and more data collected. Accounts with a western number will have less strict censorshop and less data collected (probably about the same amount of data collected by western corporate social medias).
As someone who dropped TikTok around 3 years ago, the next month or two are going to be very amusing.
My wife quit it and was back on it a week later. Apparently it's very addictive. As someone who is on Lemmy a thousand times per day, I guess I can understand. I don't consider it quite the same though since we actually talk here, and discuss things beyond pressing like buttons on glorified commercials.
Tiktoks have a comment section, and people can reply to comments.
There is a char limit, and while that makes nuance difficult, it also inhibits unhinged rants
And the very next day:
Hybrid Regime with democratic features
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
We were trailblazers for a time. Other than that, we were always kind of fucked as a democratic system.
Democracy is the worst form of government...
Except for all other forms.
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.
I think “For a minute or two” is a more apt answer.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Do hollywood next (aka the propaganda machine of the US).
Blah blah blah "we built our own great firewall and painted it red white and blue, and even banned the use of vpns to get to foreign sites which even China doesn't do. We're totally the good guys BTW."
Americans are so fucking stupid, oh my god.
@EDIT: So it turns out the RESTRICT Act, that I was thinking of, and which banned VPNs, was shot down. And the current and approved Tiktok ban law doesn't do that. So. My b. This one is on me. I stand by "Americans are so fucking stupid oh my god", though, because you're still cheering for loss of net liberty.
Americans are so fucking stupid oh my god
Coming from someone who confidently believed a law that didn't exist was in effect, these words are a bit flat.
Better words would be "people in general are so fucking stupid", and you are not immune to that.
even banned the use of vpns to get to foreign sites
Do you have a source for this?
I did, but then I realised I'm wrong about the VPN thing.
I was thinking of the RESTRICT act from 2023, which did ban the usage of VPNs (and was the "Original" Tiktok ban law)
Apparently in the year and change I spent not really caring (look, this is an American problem, y'all slam your metaphorical penises in the car door at least three times a day. And I have my own country's dick-slammings to care about. I only hear about it when it's particularly egregious or when I see a meme like this that is cheering for the dick-slamming) the RESTRICT act got shot down, and another one was quickly drafted.
The one that was approved does not ban VPNs. So. That's on me. My b.
Anyway, given y'all are under Trump's thumb now, I give it eeeeh six months before RESTRICT 2: Censorship Boogaloo starts making the rounds.
and even banned the use of vpns to get to foreign sites
Who is "we" in this context? VPNs are certainly not banned in the United States.
as an American yeah, seeing this post is just depressing. like people are actively cheering a loss of internet freedom. the government doesn't care about bytedance or else capcut would have to go too. they care about controlling information, tiktok has been essential in issues like Palestine, even if I don't like the platform itself I can admit that.
Also 100% clear that facebook, google, twitter... are all doing the same but for US intelligence
banned the use of vpns to get to foreign sites which even China doesn't do
What are you talking about? The GFC tries its absolute best to block VPNs and other circumvention methods.
I guess they're not banned, but they're blocking them.
"Freedom is when you let foreign governments spy on your citizens"
What do you suggest? Allow a foreign nation to destroy you from within?
They're suspiciously selective about what foreign interference they're ok with.
Actual regulations on data privacy and algorithmic manipulation. It's not that complicated. The EU figured it out. Fuck me, my own country, Brazil, a third world hellhole, figured it out. We have very strict rules on data protection.
Ofc, this would never happen because 1. Big corpos own the US government and actual regulation on privacy would hurt THEM, and 2. The US Government actually WANTS algorithmic manipulation to happen, except they want THEIR algorithmic manipulation and not anyone else's.
The US is doing it just fine on our own.
Hell, an election here just voted in fascism like its the 1920s again.
Yes please
Non Americans do that all the time, exceept we have at least one more choice than americans.
Maybe bring back Vine or something.
if Vine was still here (let alone brought back) it would become just as bad as TikTok. Social medias can have their golden age but they will inevitably turn into shit, vine was simply shut down before its golden age came to an end
I always thought Vine was so stupid and pointless, but I thought the same thing about Twitter and it sold for $44 billion dollars, so what do I know? I miss the old Internet when content was more than a blurb, and conversations were deep and meaningful.
The last panel applies to every other social media, just replace the spying country.
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.
surveillance capitalism…
And as soon as the government wants it, most companies hand it right over.
And it doesn't matter who or why, either - as soon as someone hoards other people's data, someone else will try to steal it.
Yes, and that's why US companies aren't banned by the US. The foreign power having so much propaganda power was the danger.
Same reason why China bans a shitload of sites. It's fine when you do it to your own citizens
If I wanna get my propaganda from more than one world power, that's my right under the first amendment. Or it was.
Right? Now do Facebook.
The last panel also hurts us - fellow non-americans :(
Yeah, only AMIERICAN companies can spy on our citizens and flood them with propaganda!
USA! USA! USA!
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.
Lol @ america being the only non-chinese country in the world
They should force TikTok to be sold to the Taiwan government.
Those are valid criticisms, but can equally be applied to all of the rest of our main social media platforms.
I’m not seeing a big difference here between TikTok and YouTube except that one is not able to be influenced or backdoored by the US government and the other is.
In essence the optics here look an awful lot like the US simply doesn’t like other nations mining their citizens data that they want for themselves, and having foreign control of the type of news being fed by their algorithm.
Just remember that before Snowden dropped a dime on the NSA, similar suspicions sounded pretty wacky too
In essence the optics here look an awful lot like the US simply doesn’t like other nations mining their citizens data that they want for themselves, and having foreign control of the type of news being fed by their algorithm.
Well duh? Why do you think China blocks a lot of the US social media?
It'd be much more surprising to see the Awmerican government manipulating the algorithms etc to push propoganda narratives whereas it's a pretty safe assumption that's the case on tiktok.
Edit: Sorry, do downvoters think the American government is adjusting social media algorithms? Or do folks not believe China would do so?
But… US companies are allowed to sell the data of citizens to other countries? Do they want some taxes before they give arbitrary your info that is literally unusable for anything aside from customizing ads
This argument bleeds from so many wounds! With how much could have Cuckerberg bribe both parties?
Ho hum. TikTok ain’t going anywhere.
It will be banned for a short while, long enough for Trump to enforce sale to Meta in exchange for their absolute hard turn top to bottom in everything they do to help spread misinformation and keep the plebs angry.
That assumes ByteDance and TikTok approve a sale... They've been very adamant they will not.
"It's okay that the CCP pushes propaganda because billionaires do it too" - Tiktok defenders
Lol, I don't give a shit about tik tok, I'm more worried about the First Amendment implications.
They could just declare Lemmy instances to be "foreign propaganda" and ban every instance they don't like.
(there are several people in this thread who would not mind banning certain lemmy instances on this basis)
Reader's Note - There has been no evidence submitted showing any of the allegations towards TikTok are true. In fact TikTok publicly embarked on a project to silo all US Data.
OK, but find me an exact quote that actually says that. Not something that sorta sounds like that, but that exactly.
What kind of propaganda is the CGP pushing, exactly? Is it with us in the room, right now?
This has been known for years.
I promise, the CCP does not need you to play devil's advocate; they advocate plenty well for themselves.
In this house, we only like propaganda that's covering up genocide. /s
China also covers up genocides... as does the US... As does Russia, as does almost every nation-state.
The Tiktok ban was mainly instigated because tiktok spread news about the genocide in Gaza
China has its genocides going on to ya know
The United Nations Human Rights Council doesn't seem to think so. It put this to bed two years ago. https://www.euractiv.com/section/eu-china/news/setback-for-the-west-un-body-rejects-historic-debate-on-chinas-human-rights-record/
i like my all-american freedom and liberty data collection and propaganda
FreeDumb™️
Americans complaining about other countries meddling in their affairs is such a hilarious hypocrisy. You guys have been the worst for ruining other countries around the world.
I found it interesting that this Tiktok regulation talk hit peak fervor around the time that youths were using tiktok to fully grasp the severity of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Meanwhile mainstream corporate media was painting a very different and dishonest story of the genocide.
We need broad regulation for social media in the US, not cherry picked fervor for political reasons.
Yet they had the excuse and idiots like op are cheering on their censorship
Actual privacy laws like the Eu? Nah let's just make an american version of the Great Firewall.
This article from 2024 gives a pretty good rundown as to why using this reasoning to ban Tiktok will set a very bad precedent:
If the govt cared about your data privacy, they would create data collection regulations that they could then use to ban tiktok if/when they violate them.
Disclaimer: I am not saying Tiktok is a great app with zero issues. This is a concern about causing long term problems by using a short term easy solution.
Good luck criticizing a user’s choice of platform hoping to get them to leave. I’m just happy to see one less corporate platform.
“You really shouldn’t jump rope on the train tracks. It’s not safe.”
“What’s not safe about jumping rope? Everybody jump’s rope.”
“It’s not jumping rope that’s the problem, it’s the train tracks.”
“I think I’m smart enough to know if a train is coming. It’s not like the train is coming for me specifically. I’m not that important. I don’t have anything valuable enough for the train to take from me anyw-“ splat
All American social networks are also spyware
I wonder if op has a strong opinion about china.
Tankies malding cuz they can't come out and say "nooo how will I goon to teenagers now"
Why is there so much political messaging right now
Fuck off with all the democracy doomsday posting, I just want to see funny memes
Just the usual Americans thinking the world revolves around them and we should all accommodate their derangement.
God forbid a foreigner talk about anything though.
Go into the bathroom look above the sink funniest joke you'll see all day.
As if any of the other social media networks aren't doing the same shit. I'd rather have China spy on me than an American company. They can't use my data to fuck me over.
