TikTok is offline in the U.S. after Supreme Court upholds ban
TikTok is offline in the U.S. after Supreme Court upholds ban
And they're already kissing Trump's ass
Of course they're kissing Trump's ass. How else is anyone gonna get anything done in the next 4 years? American democracy is broken, and under unitary executive theory endorsed by all branches of government the President is basically a king with term limits and no shiny hat. It's no way to run a country, but it's where we're at so why would we expect TikTok to do anything else?
Late to the post, but a friend got this on their phone when they tried opening it again
Pitiful.
Shame.
What the fuck is this game they’re playing
I'm starting to think of Trump as one of those old school firefighters that would set fires and then swoop in to put the fire out lol.
Yeah, but the ban passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, randomly jammed inside of the global military spending package including funding the Ukrainian war effort and the genocide in Gaza (which is a must-support bill for Democrats and Republicans alike I guess).
Otherwise known by the modern term: Grifter
He was one of the first people saying to ban it in 2020. To me it’s more like he is easily swayed with lobbying so it ends up looking like he is a pioneer on pushing new policy when in actuality he is the first person people go to when they need to bribe a politician.
This is not unique to Trump. Politicians say "they changed their views" if there is enough oil to grease wheels.
Except it doesn't have the capability to put out fires, so it just starts them, then declares having put them out and leaves them burning
He absolutely is. All presidents are.
Those type of firefighters exists in droves still because that is not an old-school thing.
Yeah, fuck the CCP for spying on Americans. The US Government would never do such a thing!
I always wanted to ask but haven't been able to until now...
When you're building the strawman, do you do it while the straw is still wet and then wait for it to dry or do you wait for the straw to cure first and then build it?
I'd imagine fungus would be a key reason in the choice but I'm still unsure about the process and figured I'd ask an expert..
Thanks in advance!
So I am assuming most Lemmy people don't use Tiktok or Meta stuff. Here is some things you may or may not already know.
- Shou (CEO) made a parting video praising Trump on the last day
- Shou will be on the stage with all the other tech billionaires during inauguration
- People have noticed the last couple days that FB and Instagram have had a "link your Tiktok account" so you don't lose anything on the platform
I think it's pretty obvious now that Tiktok is going to become a part of Meta one way or another.
People have noticed the last couple days that FB and Instagram have had a "link your Tiktok account"
WTF, how is this not news everywhere?
Tik Tok removed platform access from their US userbase voluntarily.
This was their choice.
The law is literally not even being enforced.
Bytedance's long-term hope is naturally to be able to continuing operating everywhere without violating any laws. Right? Therefore, their strategy is to stay as compliant as possible with various national laws (within reason), right? Therefore they have to take a conservative reading of the bill (PAFACA). So let's look at the text of the bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text
(1) PROHIBITION OF FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS.—It shall be unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary controlled application by carrying out, within the land or maritime borders of the United States, any of the following: [...]
Now, the actual distribution of TikTok is done by a U.S. corp, incorporated in California and Delaware. That corp has to stay compliant with these laws. Therefore, to maintain or update or enable the distribution of an app as defined in this bill, is legally punishable. Make sense? Particularly because the law mentions them by name, there is basically zero legal defense against it besides contesting its constitutionality. Which the horrifically corrupt Supreme Court upheld.
So, probably the only way they felt comfortable resuming operations in the U.S. was with some kind of written agreement with the Trump admin - as of yet undisclosed.
I hear that businesses existing in the face of unenforced laws are really stable and enduring. \s
Large businesses literally operate in conflict with the law until the law directly forces consequences, usually in monetary form. So, until they get caught and are forced not to do the thing. Explain to me why this is any different.
Noteworthy thing I haven't seen mentioned here: They apparently only removed app access. The website still works just fine.
The website didn’t work from US IPs last night, but it’s back already.
Hey, look over here at the TikTok performative theatrics while we set up an oligarchy and rob you of your labor, your health, and your livelihood.
Tiktoks removel is not a distraction from oligarchy, it is oligarchy in action. This is meta collecting on what they paid congress for.
So wait, you’re complaining cause they did something? But if they had done nothing you’d also be complaining
You see me complaining? I've never used TikTok, but the entire controversy around it is just wag-the-dog type distraction.
Spreading for awareness, I've been posting this in relevant threads for a week - This is all theater.
trump is going to "save" tik tok after starting the initial push to ban it (for the wrong reasons) to pretend he did something for you. Worst part is that all of the no/low info voters and non voters will eat it up.
It's the equivalent of a person pushing you into the middle of the street and at the very last second, that same person tells the drivers to all stop. "Wow, I owe you my life!"
And now, this adds two layers:
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You think trump and the Supreme Court are colluding? now they get to say, nah uh!!!! Even though again, this is all convoluted.
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trump gets to look "stronger" than the "highest court in the land" to help delude the next generation of low info tiktok folks.
P.s. The Chinese "protest" apps are going to mine the FUCK out of these millions of phones in the brief window they have them. Also, when the kids inevitably move back to tiktok, majority of them will leave these other apps installed on their phones, dormant and collecting in the background.
I think there's an even simpler explanation: political debt to Jeff Yass (15% tiktok owner) and his cash for the 2024 campaign.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/donald-trump-jeff-yass
Why does Trump need to pretend to do something for you?
Trump has your support no matter what. He will rape children but you’ll line up to vote for him.
With that said he’s already in office. Your opinion is meaningless to him. He already got what he needed from you.
Stop trying to find reason in a situation devoid of reason. You're clinging to that for personal comfort, if you feel like you can wrap it with a bow, you feel in control of it. You're not.
He's a broken narcissist and a psychopath. His dad didn't love him and told him so. He'll spend every worthless day of his life trying to get his dead dad to say "I was wrong about you", and of course, his dad is dead so that won't happen (wouldn't have anyway, as that guy was likely an even bigger piece of shit, just not born with money like trump was so didn't reach the same heights).
So ask yourself why you don't realize the above. If there's an end to this presidency, or if say he gets diagnosed with a terminal disease, there's a non-zero chance he launches all of the nukes with the hope of a worldwide nuclear holocaust - because at the end of the day, if his life was ending, and you told trump he could press a button and be sure that nobody was laughing at him after death, posthumously convicting him of crimes or just pissing on his grave, he'd kill every single person on the chance.
A stranger's opinion is meaningless to him? Brother, it's fucking everything to him.
Nice doom posting bro 👍
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I wish people knew that TikTok being banned was more about it not suppressing posts about Palestine than national security or whatever else they say. Antony Blinken and Mitt Romney outright said last year it was about stopping people from seeing the truth about Israel committing genocide. If the government actually cared about foreign influence operations they'd regulate data privacy and social media algorithms in some way (idk how, but I'm sure you could) but they obviously won't because US companies manipulating people and stealing their data is totally fine.
If that were true then they wouldn't have given ByteDance the option to sell 80% to citizens and continue operating.
The law also bans every company from doing the same thing, sending personal data to any of the listed adversarial nations or being more than 20% owned by them. Why ban every company if they only cared about the Palestine message?
Making ByteDance sell 80% to US companies is a win for the powers that be because then that too can be manipulated by right-wing oligarchs.
I don't trust Chinese companies all that much either, but Mitt Romney outright said this was about Palestine, you can see another reply of mine below with a link.
How did you go from "foreign influence operations" to "US companies manipulating people"
Facebook and YouTube have for years boosted conservative people and posts/videos: this is fine according to the powers that be.
Russia and no doubt countless others run influence operations through all US social media companies: this is also fine according to the powers that be.
China probably runs influence operations through a Chinese social media company: this is a national security problem that needs to be dealt with!!
The reasons TikTok is maybe being banned are because it's the only major social media that isn't suppressing pro-Palestine speech and because it's not owned by a right-wing US oligarch. Musk is the shadow president, Zuckerberg is blatantly sucking up to Trump, etc etc.
Blinken and Romney. name a more trustworthy duo!
ironic you talk about manipulating people in a comment that's goal is to...manipulate people.
I don't trust either of them, but why would they lie about wanting to suppress support for Palestine? And if you don't believe me, the State Department has them on record saying as much: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-mccain-institutes-2024-sedona-forum-keynote-conversation-with-senator-mitt-romney/
SENATOR ROMNEY: A small parenthetical point, which is some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. So I’d note that’s of real interest, and the President will get the chance to make action in that regard.
im baffled by the blase response by lemmy users to government overreach
Same! It is definitively unconstitutional and the us gov just pushed it through anyway (with even supreme court backing it up?!) Shit is crazy, and yet I see a lot of 'no big loss' type comments on it.
The SCOTUS decision was wild too, because it was a fucking 9-0 vote. The decision was unanimous. That’s a word that’s virtually never used to describe the SCOTUS or any kind of government vote. That unanimous decision made it perfectly clear that the government knows something we don’t, and that TikTok had them fucking terrified. My bet is on the genocide being much worse than even TikTok was showing, but TikTok was the only place you could see anything about it that didn’t have a massive “Israel is just helping them root out terrorists” spin.
Right? 170 million people just get censored by the government.
170 million people
Where's that number coming from. Maybe you mean the 165 billion installs , but that's not active users and double counts people installing on multiple devices. Tik tok has 50 million dau Of those maybe 10% is actually "speaking" and creating content that the other 90% consume so around 5 million people.
And those 5 million people aren't silenced, they can still go on to one of multiple apps that provide the same service and allows them to get there message out. He'll they could come on to the fediverse and post blatant ccp propaganda and no one will do anything.
Boomer lib shit.
You think silencing half the entire population of the country is boomer lib shit?
Ok, boomer.
And now Trump gets to be the one who saved TikTok, despite starting the process.
It's an own-goal for Biden - an unpopular law that starts being enforced the day before Trump gets to stop enforcing it.
Not sure why you think it's an own goal. Biden didn't set the day for it to take effect, that was written into the law by Congress. You could say it was an own goal because Biden announced he wasn't going to enforce it, but that seems to be the opposite of what you're trting to claim And even with that decision to not enforce the law for 1 day before the Trump admin takes over, none of the companies TikTok works with like Apple or Google to list it in the app stores gave a shit about that lack of enforcement because of the uncertainty.
Not to mention Trump being the start of the ban in the first place. He was President when all of this started to work it's way through the process, even if Biden was the President when it actually made it through Congress, with bipartisan support. Trump only changed positions because he wants TokTok to pay him to continue to allow it to continue.
As designed by the republicans. There are legitimate reasons to regulate tiktok, if Biden opposed though, they'd say he was a weak Chinese sympathizer, if he complied, they'd do this.
It was a trap where you were fucked either way, as the republican think tank ghouls drew it out.
Didn't Biden specifically say that enforcement was up to Trump?
Democrats getting played by Republicans, a classic.
https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/tiktok-and-white-supremacist-content/
No wonder why Trump wants to "save" TikTok. It has the stuff Republicans crave.
There's still loads of bullshit surrounding the name. Hope your personal filters are up to the task the next 4 years.
And nothing of value was lost.
TikTok turned the youth pro Palestine whereas Facebook and Xitter censored it.
If TikTok has the power to "turn" youth into pro Palestine, they can also turn the youth pro China when China invades Taiwan.
TikTok is in its expansion phase so it need to show its good will, but as soon as it is large enough, it will seek to do whatever make them the most money, like everyone else.
Time and time again, big-tech controlled social media have intervened and will continue to intervene with public opinion, Meta, Xitter, TikTok, all in their own ways.
If government decide to ban meta tomorrow, will you object as hard as banning tiktok?
Tell that to the millions of American small businesses that thrived on the app. Billions of tax revenue just vanished.
TikTok was a Chinese intelligence operation in the end.
I did some research and now I know why Trump wants to "save" TikTok.
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/how-tiktok-courted-conservatives-before-trumps-win
https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/tiktok-and-white-supremacist-content/
This one is especially damning:
TikTok is spending $50,000 on an inauguration party honoring influencers who helped Donald Trump spread his campaign message, according to the party organizer — and it’s scheduled for Sunday, the deadline for the company to spin off from its China-based owner or be banned in the U.S.
CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to attend.
$50,000
lol peanuts aren't that damning... Capital in USA is spending millions and millions on Trump's inauguration.
50k gets you an "I'll see what I can do" .
Well yeah, it’s no secret that TikTok had a white supremacy problem. There was a researcher who discovered that they could make a brand new account and (by only interacting with certain types of content) get white supremacists on their For You page within 20 minutes. Algorithmic feeds are funny like that, because they just gauge engagement. The algorithm isn’t making any moral decisions on whether the engaging content is socially acceptable. For better or worse, it just goes “this person likes this content, so I’ll show them more.”
That second paragraph is just vile. Donny brought this ban into motion and now they say he will save them?
The current Ban was not brought into motion by Trump, the current Ban started being discussed in congress in 2024, trumps efforts fell apart, shockingly enough. https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-timeline-ban-biden-india-d3219a32de913f8083612e71ecf1f428
Surreal watching the rest of the internet freaking out. Meanwhile we are just sitting here on our own platforms doing our own things.
Personally, I never saw the appeal of TikTok anyway.
Then again I also was never interested in Twitter.
I guess my attention span isn't short enough for that type of sites.
I’m right there with you, but I don’t see a compelling reason why either should be banned.
I would scroll a bit after someone linked me a video. Content was fun, but after like 3 minutes, I could feel something wrong in my brain. Like just the nonstop influx of content with no breaks. You might think one video was faked, but you didn't have enough time to contemplate it before another shows up in its place.
I have some friends who spend hours on it. I can't imagine deciding to participate in that for so long.
TikTok has tons of issues but this bugs me so much. There are many examples of people sharing their creativity, their skill, their knowledge, their passion to the world on tiktok and it's so good at exposing you to it if you are interested in seeing all kinds of people expressing themselves.
Since when does the value of content correlate directly with the amount of time it consumes?
is brevity no longer the soul of wit??
Tiktok ban is a good opportunity to educate the common folk on the benefits of federation
Although I am not sure if short video format addicts' needs can be fixed with this elegant solution but it definitely works well enough as reddit and twitter replacement.
I don't see how this has anything to do with federated platforms. I'd argue that watching Loops is just as bad for one's mental health than TikTok is.
I was spamming ActivityPub info through last day on every comment.
It's likely just staged bullshit so he can be the savior.
The entirety of global capitalism is lining up to bend the knee and gargle fascist balls.
This is what leftists have been warning forever. Capitalism wants the monopolies, bailouts — the political, financial and military backing, etc — that state-capitalist dictatorships provide. Democratically elected governments, acting in the interests of the people, are really the only threat to the corporate oligarchies wealth and power.
All of the wests "enemies" are equally supportive of fascism, because state-capitalist dictators are easier to influence (bribe).
I know bad for democracy and everything but
This app has done nothing positive for my life, arguably began my social media addiction, filled my brain with negative content at the height of COVID and severely impacted my mental health
I don't think governments should ban platforns. But do I think TikTok should have ever existed? No
And yet most of it's users are either to stupid or addicted to see the issue and just switch to RedNote, no questions asked. Which in turn nullifies the ban altogether.
I dunno. Thanks to Black creators there, I learned about Tulsa, Rosewood, a lot about America indigenous culture, learned about the cops city protests and actions....
Sounds like TikTok was very good for democracy.
I find Tiktok haters funny. Vast majority aren't users, and when you do find a user and they disparage the content, it's pretty obvious that it's a them problem and not a tiktok problem.
If you want tiktok to be cooking videos, just like nothing but cooking videos. If you want it to be about palestine, then like that content. If you want to be in MAGAtok, well that exists too. If you see nothing but thirst traps, that's because those are the videos you actually fully watch. Your fyp page is just a mirror into yourself.
The only haters I can agree with are the ones who say "too many ads"
It helped my spouse deal with medical trauma by finding content creators expressing similar experiences. It worked better than any of the support groups which often felt more hopeless and isolating.
At this point though my spouse just hates instagram reels and how chaotic and pointless this is shaking out to be.
Trump isn't going to save them. He's setting it up so one of us cronies will get it.
People are reporting that Meta platforms just started allowing users to link their tiktok accounts a few days ago... take that for what you will.
It is a nice asset why shouldnt an American oligarch own it though
Democracy, free market, and capitalism 🤡
It's mine. My own. My precious...
What I find mad is that people are seriously depressed about this on /r/Tiktok. Yeah sure, I understand small creators now having a tough time having their business disappearing, but people are literally saying that TikTok was their only source of information and that they don't know what to do now??
You empathize and educate.
So the ban is reaching exactly the people it was set out to reach. Good.
TikTok had a lot of great independent journalists on the app. I personally got a lot of good information from people on the ground about issues that I didn't see talked about anywhere else on the Internet.
Tik tok had some amazing news sources. I'd say the Washington Post on there was pretty good, they actually reported on the bullshit going on at the paper as well. There was a lot of great sources on the app. I'll say that tiktok is the only place you'll see news on Palestine not from the pov of Israel.
Those people are too dumb for their own good. They were destined for failure no matter what.
no it isn't
Thank god for Trump to save communism /s
He won't tho.
With enough money, sorry, I mean "campaign fund", let's see how things go.
Do you want to help a company that kisses Trump's asshole or do you want to find the next free app that does the same thing as TikTok?
Option C, just no thanks for the same thing as TikTok in general.
I was spamming info about ActivityPub... found out there is a delay timer if you post too many comments lol.
It’s more of an IG replacement than a TikTok replacement, but I’ve been kinda enjoying Pixelfed for the past week or so. It’s slow right now but that should change I imagine. The huge influx of users needs to be managed prior to optimization.
Taps “learn more”
Whole newgen of trump worshippers born is what they're expecting
Even Marvel Snap is down because it's a subsidiary lmao
Whose subsidiary Bytedance?
so which was the kicker that brought the swearing-in indoors:
a) afraid of riots because of tiktok ban.
b) afraid of his malformed 'shroom freezing to his diaper in the cold.
c) afraid of getting another piercing.
d) afraid of dreadfully pathetic crowds at the mall and in photographs he can't lie about after last time.
e) all of the above.
f) all of the above, and also.....
He never got a piercing, only attempted. That cut was likely from broken teleprompter glass.
I feel like the only guy in the room that wasn't* addicted to meth after someone took all the meth away.
Couldn't care less about TikTok
Ok. So you think it's good that the US government just censored half of the entire country?
Uh... no.
To carry the analogy, I'm not rooting for the guy taking away the meth, or the guy giving it back. I'm just saying I think it's weird to be the only one not going through withdrawal.
Also, maybe stop doing meth.
Ok, but this ban isn't just for tiktok, you realize that right? If Trump wants to consider UK and adversary he could ban the BBC app as well? This wasn't just a tiktok ban it's a ban on ALL "foreign adversary" apps. Nobody gives a shit you never used it.
Disclaimer: I think Trump is a criminal asshole.
Technically, Trump didn't ban anything (this time). Biden did. Trump's just getting credit for bringing it back.
Also, I don't give a shit what you think everyone else gives a shit about.
edit: actually, to clarify; Neither of them banned TikTok. Congress passsed a law, and the Supreme Court upheld it. Biden just didn't block it. And Trump can't magically unblock it, he can just delay it by 90 days.
Damn it of course TikTok getting banned was too good to be true
You're gonna complain about social media while on social media? Can't wait for the fediverse apps to be banned because someone in Syria is running an instance.
Oh no! Anyway…
I can't WAIT for Trump to SAVE this CHYNESE APP!
Good, it's poison for the mind.
And other social media, like the one you're using right now, aren't?
They are. But that’s not why it’s banned. US politicians don’t give a flying fuck about the well being of their citizens. How people don’t realize this yet is ASTONISHING.
They are banning it because they can’t control it. They are happy to feed their citizens propaganda as long as it’s THEIR propaganda.
The only thing the US cares about is whether or not they can control and influence their people. That’s hard to do with TikTok around. But if it’s only Facebook and Twitter? Easy.
Be better if it was just banned worldwide period and the “TikTok influencer” crowd can go get real jobs and perhaps users can improve their attention spans again.
yawn
Everybody, get off this guy's lawn!
I’ve never used it. I was only exposed to second hand smoke.
It’s strange for me to avoid a platform like this. Back in the early days I would sign up for anything.
Real talk, does Trump have the actual authority to save the app?
Not yet but the law gives the president authority to determine whether the company is a national security threat once it meets all the qualifications in the law. So his "90 day extension" is legally him saying "actually they're not a threat" for 90 days and then "actually they are a threat" after that.
Tiktok went dark voluntarily, I don't think the US even has the infrastructure to enforce the ban. So yes, all he has to do is tell the CEO to turn it back on and tell the app stores not to delist it. As Cheif of the executive branch, enforcement of the laws is your purview.
Sigh. H. R. 7521 stipulates that the POTUS must make the determination using data supplied from several federal agencies etc that an app or service violates the terms laid out in the law. Then a formal investigation will be launched by the AG's office and if that investigation finds that the app or service is in violation of the law that app or service will be added to a list of apps or services not allowed to be disseminated to the public via American based app stores. That app or service does have the right to appeal the decision within a specific time frame and appeals will be handled by the appropriate district court. At that point if they win the appeal they continue to operate. If they lose the appeal they can do what is called a qualified divestiture so that they would no longer be operating in conflict with the law. Or they can do what Tik Tok did and remove access without the law even being enforced.
So, yes, Trump can just not name Tik Tok as in violation of the law, the AG won't investigate it, and nothing will come of it.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/7521/text
Good, can't be happier for this!
You love it when the government censors people because it can? What are you even on?
This whole thing just comes across as craven and politically motivated by the US government. If they were really concerned with apps (whether or not they're owned by the Chinese government) collecting and selling user data, they would pass adequate and enforceable privacy laws. Banning one specific app is addressing a symptom rather than a root cause, and any solution to an issue like this ought to apply to the entire field more broadly. I don't necessarily think that banning TikTok is a bad thing, but to do so in such an obviously politically motivated way belies a lack of concern about the underlying issue (i.e. the mass harvesting of user data) in my opinion.
Not to doubt that it's politically motivated, but the ban law as written could be applied to any app with a country of origin on the US "Foreign Adversary" list AND declared to be a national security issue
