"Trust us on this!" -Capitalists who would kill any of us for an extra nickel
"Trust us on this!" -Capitalists who would kill any of us for an extra nickel
Turns out, when the elite of society works against their own people to enrich themselves, the (rational) people realize they owe you neither trust or allegiance. Can't have it both ways.
Nothing wrong with a little competition, amirite?
I absolutely agree that I don't trust US social media apps and the level of overreaction here is probably a measure of how much some of the data they collect is being used for strategic purposes.
But also, don't trust Chinese social media either.
The difference in coverage is shameful, but the lesson here isn't "Chinese socials yaaaay", it's that it's all bad and messed up.
I'm on there, and one IMHO objectively good thing is the direct and hyper friendly interaction between regular Chinese peasants and regular American peasants. We're supposed to be "adversaries" according to both governments. Bridging solidarity and developing empathy between the laborers of both nations undermines both corrupt empires.
That is a hilarious blend of 19th and 21st century language.
Look, I am on board with cultural exchange. For whatever else social media has wrought there's at least that. I'm even more on board with that cultural exchange not being Americans forcing their grabage onto the rest of us. That's a rare occasion.
All I'm saying is don't mistake that for the non-US versions of stuff not doing at least the same crap the US versions are doing. And viceversa, which is why seeing US authorities freak out is kinda funny. But it cuts both ways and it's worth remembering that.
Bridging solidarity and developing empathy between the laborers of both nations undermines both corrupt empires.
That'd be great but social media has if anything been a hindrance to building solidarity. Culture war bs has always spread faster and divided more than any class consciousness and solidarity has united. Its amplified small fissures in a broad liberal western cultural consensus, so the larger cultural differences between China and the u.s. would only make it worse.
The only way it might build solidarity is through that national adversarial relationship. Just like how on reddit the liberals and socialist mostly team up against the conservatives, but on here there is way more left/liberal infighting. The only thing that unites people is a common enemy, and as long as social media is ruled by capitalism, capitalist will never be that enemy.
The question isn't whether or not it is safe. It's whether or not it is less safe than US counterparts.
Given that US counterparts are doubling down on fascist insanity, I'd argue giving the Chinese your data is the lesser of evils at the moment.
But intrinsically: stop using corpo social media.
China isn't going to do anything to me if I call Xi Whinnie the Pooh and say Tienanmen Square happened.
America could (read: would if Trump wants to) arrest me for being queer, an anarchist, atheist, autistic/mentally ill, poor, or something else.
China hurting me would make international headlines. Trump's America hurting me would make Fox News ratings sky rocket as Trump "made america great again".
What is RedNote?
A literal popular Chinese social media app similar to TikTok that has become the top App store app that TikTok users are defecting to because of the ban, bragging about handing their data to China because they no longer respect the US government, and also bragging they'd literally trust the CCP before they'd trust Zuck, Musk, or Trump.
Reveling in pettiness, yes. But reveling nonetheless. It's actually a lot of fun and refreshing to see Americans and Chinese intermingling and sharing culture, so I'm sure it'll be banned too. But it's going to be fun watching our captured government play whackamole to do what they really banned TikTok for: to control the narrative and domestic spying through Meta and X.
It’s a social media platform people are signing up in anticipation for the TicTok ban that is notably also a chinese company.
The same folks who were found to be serving malware via ads.
hehehe they thought