- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
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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.
And as soon as the government wants it, most companies hand it right over.
At this point, the line between business and government in the US is almost non-existent, so definitely still a government using your data for the propaganda machine.
Reminds of my favourite description of the US …
“The US isn’t a country, it’s a corporation with a military”
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.
surveillance capitalism…
Right? Now do Facebook.
Yes, and that’s why US companies aren’t banned by the US. The foreign power having so much propaganda power was the danger.
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?
That capitalism baby! I suppose Congress can at least control who Facebook et al. are selling to through sanctions and such.
They could but they haven’t, so this ban is just racist economic protectionism.
I’m not sure what race has to do with economic protectionism, but it’s really a combination of all of the above.
If I wanna get my propaganda from more than one world power, that’s my right under the first amendment. Or it was.
Lemmy begs to differ
There are multiple instances pushing propaganda and most data can just be scraped by bots. It may be harder, but capitalism finds a way.
The multiple instances:
The last panel also hurts us - fellow non-americans :(
Jokes on you, I use lemmy
On Arch tho?
They out here. Both of them. This post smells just like one tbh.
? Who’s out here?
The people that countries pay to pretend to be normal everyday users in order to spread state propaganda?
Edit: in this case ‘both’ refers to the image particularly portraying two countries
That’s not what the meme is about. It’s about the company collecting data and giving it to their government
Edit: and adjusting the algorithm to their favor
And the very next day:
We were trailblazers for a time. Other than that, we were always kind of fucked as a democratic system.
What time was that? (genuinely curious)
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.
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).
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.
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?
Late 18th century, yes. And if I hear pop history myths about the Iroquois, I will be irritated.
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.
Before any of us were alive. Some would say before centralized banking in the early 20th
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
Do hollywood next (aka the propaganda machine of the US).
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I think “For a minute or two” is a more apt answer.
Now do one with Xinnie the Pooh
Neither he nor his country seem to be on their way out currently. Same old authoritarianism as usual.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
A republic you say?
Republic just means a country without monarchy.
China is a Republic
North Korea is a Republic
The US is a Democratic Republic
Where do you think the name of the political party “Democratic-Republicans” come from?
Oh my god, can you people shut up with this already.
But I like fish.
He wrote “it’s not a democracy, it’s a republic” originally.
No I didn’t.
I was explaining my fish preferences.
I tried to hold on to the red snapper but I took what was in the box.
No need to keep commenting
Do you not love fish?
Why not? It’s fun. Plus I hate it when the herring bones get stuck in my teeth.
A republic is a kind of democracy.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
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.
Imagine cheering that your government decided witch social media are you allowed to use.
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Imagine trusting an app owned by billionaires that just paid off the government to remove their competition.
You’re an idiot if you trust any social media platform at this point.
You do know that it’s illegal to be a socialist and hold any kind of government job in the United States? Brother we are in that country right now. But let’s keep hearing you bitch about China.
Haters will say it’s fake: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954
we are in that country right now
Links wiki article to anti-communist measures taken in 1954
Yes, but also note that it hasn’t been recinded, and our current Supreme Court has a soft spot for digging up forgotten legislation.
Fair point that it hasn’t been rescinded, but I’m struggling to find any convictions based on this law or citations of this law ever being used in court, so it really does not seem relevant nowadays. If anyone can dig up any and reference them here, I’ll gladly edit this comment to reflect that information.
There are laws from 1700s that haven’t been rescinded but also bear no relevance to the modern day. California just changed old legal language stating that marriage was defined as being between a man and woman, but gay marriage has been legal for a long time now.
Brother, that is still the laws on the books. Age does not matter. Do you really not understand that? Do you think laws expire? Did you choose to not understand? What’s your deal? You live inside your own nightmare.
Got no more retort? Did you change your mind or just decide to stop thinking about it to save your precious idea of your country.
Still responding 3 days later, my comments must have cut deep lol. I replied to PyroNeurosis cause I actually cared for their reply, and then moved on to other discussions on this platform more meaningful than your retorts.
People do sure like to avoid information that proves them wrong. I like making sure that they don’t forget.
Yeah. American apps are trash like that
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Touch a nerve did I?
As an adult, that’s my choice to make, not the government.
so use a VPN?
Technical possibilities to circumvent a law are not part of my argument here.
Thankfully, that doesn’t apply to us using the app because the Chinese government doesn’t govern us.
Meanwhile, the US government absolutely influences the flow of information on US hosted social media sites, so uh, let’s be upset at all of them regardless of location!
Well yeah, but it’s the US government which hasn’t ever done anything problematic before. I’m sure it’s for everyone’s best interest. /S
Which if that were true, still wouldn’t matter.
Im assuming your point is that if the us government does 1 bad thing, every move it makes is bad? If not, what is your point?
Uhh. The user is saying that the US government has a long history of both corruption and abuse of power. Source: I am American.
This meme brought to you by some poor CIA agent
TikTok will not be banned. People are delusional.
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.
They’re not hiding it. It’s not a “conspiracy” when it’s out the in the open.
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.
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.
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.
The correct thing to do would be to
Yes the banning of TikTok is absolutely the wrong thing.
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.
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”.
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.
The user you are answering to isn’t making “the other party” any kind of moral hero, it’s literally just criticizing TikTok.
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.
Not to defend tiktok (to this day I have not ever used it), but if the issue is the tracking and data collection, you could ban/regulate that specifically instead of singling out the app.
Ding ding ding
It is obvious that they want the other (US-based) companies to be able to continue collecting that data so they can gain access to it if they want/need it. It’s bullshit, but it’s clearly what they want.
But that being bullshit does not mean that they are wrong in not wanting the one that is under the control of a foreign adversary having access to that data. Two separate things.
And the US social media companies are filled with spooks.
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?
Of all the social media popular in the US, only one of them is doing that tracking and is under the thumb of a foreign adversary. That is specifically the line drawn in the law. I’m actually curious if WeChat shouldn’t fall under it too?
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.
We aren’t talking about TikTok simply gathering the information though, are we?
But yes, absolutely. Let’s do it. And we know that: just because the other companies aren’t being investigated/regulated in the same way, does not mean that it shouldn’t happen at all. That’s not how it works.
Also, you are making a fallacious argument yourself… If we were talking about banning US social media sites in China, then the comparison holds (and even then, it’s not 1:1 given the political structure of the CCP vs. that of the US). Otherwise, TikTok is clearly unique among them in that the Chinese Government ostensibly has access to any and all information that is being collected.
There is a reason China made their own version Facebook. Because they don’t want us to have all that information on their citizens.
They’re owned by a Chinese company so the Chinese govt has this information. I’m not saying it’s a good reason to ban it, or that there isn’t another secret reason, or that American companies don’t gather the same information. This was the problem all along - China receiving vast amounts of information about Americans. Actually the US was probably worried about China spreading their viewpoints, now that I think more about it. IDK
As does all the American owned networks. That’s not the reason. Not pushing American propaganda is the reason.
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.
That’s what they’re telling you, and since when are they telling the truth?
I think aliens did it.
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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.
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.
I wasn’t sure this was an actual a tankie rant or sarcasm until the
TikTok and China in general are known for their calm, collected attitudes toward Muslims
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Its just another troll. You give them labels like tankie but they are just trolls.
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Who? People with a lot to say?
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Oh yeah, nothing like hallucinating that everyone you talk to is an enemy, and when they complain, well that just proves it.
No, that’s neurodivergence.
Funny how the Chinese are using Palestinians to try to further their own geopolitical position. It’s almost like the October 7th attack as engineered by Israel AND Iran. You know who Irans allies are… Right?
And “Israel” fell right into their trap by…committing genocide.
Bibi did. The guy who would be in prison for corruption charges without Hamas being retards. HURRDURR
That is quite the logic. That it is the fault of the militarized resistance against a colonial state (just a political party really, but putting that aside) that the colonial state’s prime minister is using genocide against their people to hold onto power.
At some point you have to actually ask yourself, am I apply equal standards for assigning blame across the spectrum?
Hamas is being used as a pawn. Should read some Sun Tzu
I’ve read Art of War. Do you have an actual point?
No I don’t. I apologize. Lost a close family member a few days ago and I’m lashing out inappropriately
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whataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhataboutwhatabout tho?
(For anyone reading this in the future: they made that edit addressing “responder-guys” when the comment had only one reply lol 🤡)
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Oh is that what you were doing? Predicting?
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Go away CCP shill
Cambridge analytica you fuck
Well, that’s the law. If it helps you, I think China should ban Facebook… Oh, wait.
I’m wrong or the whole thing of the USA is the “freedooom”?
Actually it’s “Freedom (terms and conditions apply)”.
Both are bad, one is worse.
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.
Not to mention meta. They’ll do all of the above and when they’re done sell the data to the highest bidder.
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.
Google doesn’t push right wing propaganda to my phone. Do they only do that to US citizens?
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.
Now when you say “pushed to”, where and how did that actually manifest “on” your phone.
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.
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.
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Polly wants a cracker
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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
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?
You know what they say about assuming…
To be clear, you imagine the Chinese government, which has a large group dedicated to censoring all internet communication/social media behind the Great Firewall, has decided that it would be rude to tweak algorithms to push similar narratives to what the Party would push?
Or what, China’s very public efforts to shape global narratives only goes as far as public and global policy but they respect the sanctity of your social media feed?
Well I guess you’re both asses then
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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?
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.
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
I think the idea of the government banning entire websites (or really any information in general) is horrifying. The fact that so many people in America seem to be enthusiastic or at least indifferent to new forms of government censorship shows how far along we are to complete fascism. Information is meant to be free, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. The fact that’s we’re having these conversations is disgusting.
What do you suggest? Allow a foreign nation to destroy you from within?
Actually fight against that rather than pretending too, Israel and Russia have destroyed the US from within far more than China… Maybe tackle the active objective threats rather than potential ones
Russia is a menace to US’s peasantry, as they might drag the US to a(nother) proxy war.
Whereas China is a menace to the US’s aristocracy, in the sense that China is currently richer than the US of A, and despite thousands of articles about how “CHINA’S ECONOMY WILL COLLAPSE TOMORROW!” for the past 15 years, it has yet to happen.
Ergo, the US government won’t do shit about Russia, but will bend over backwards for anything related to China.
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.
They’re suspiciously selective about what foreign interference they’re ok with.
Yes please
Non Americans do that all the time, exceept we have at least one more choice than americans.
when exactly did that happen
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“It’s okay that the CCP pushes propaganda because billionaires do it too” - Tiktok defenders
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.
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.
The researchers found that while TikTok might not deliver more pro-CCP content, it did deliver less anti-CCP content than the rival platforms.
Umm, that’s not really propaganda, homie. That’s simple censorship. There’s a difference.
The very next thing said in the article:
The team next looked at engagement to see if this explained why anti-CCP content was performing less well. But it found that TikTok users “liked or commented on anti-CCP content nearly four times as much as they liked or commented on pro-CCP content, yet the search algorithm produced nearly three times as much pro-CCP content”. This didn’t happen on Instagram or YouTube.
Yes. I already said it was censorship. Again: how is this pro-CCP propaganda? Do you understand the difference between censorship and propaganda?
Yes. I already said it was censorship. Again: how is this pro-CCP propaganda? Do you understand the difference between censorship and propaganda?
If you don’t think that suppressing content that goes against a point of view whilst simultaneously boosting content that agrees with a point of view is propaganda, I suppose you must think Twitter’s recent developments over the past two years (or so? Time is getting fuzzy) are not a propaganda effort either.
Dude is just arguing semantics, that “propaganda” necessarily has to be a misleading message in favor of its sender.
Of course, tailoring of information by omission is also propaganda.
My point is: if we all would use a more broad definition of the term propaganda, instead of calling nothing but political messaging we didn’t like propaganda, we’d all live in a more politically literate society.
I think this meme actively reduces media literacy.
The first one is NCRI and the second one is paywalled.
NCRI is known for hit songs like -
Colleges that deplatform conservatives are anti-semitic;
DEI causes violence, and my favorite;
Luigi Mangione’s support means the left are digital insurgents
The paper referenced gives an overview of its methodology and its data.
The three ‘hit songs’ you cite appear to actually be:
and
- Glorification of Luigi Mangione could result in a feedback loop of violence like 4chan did with the alt-right (I agree, but I don’t see it as necessarily a bad thing)
Use https://12ft.io/ to bypass the paywall if you’re interested in past discourse on the matter.
Lol, fair play, I editorialized the titles too. But really once you click into them it’s super obvious these guys have an axe to grind. For example, (from the relevant paper) they state that serving up less Anti CCP content is a bias. But they compare it to YouTube and Instagram. Two services pretty famous for taking people down far right tracks if you let their algorithm auto play. So in this case even a neutral position is going to have less Anti-CCP propaganda.
And the entire paper is flawed in this way. The baseline they establish is itself flawed. They also claim causation but can only show correlation with their skewed baseline.
Yea, they were comparing tiktok to other american-owned social media sites, which are guilty of exactly the same thing themselves.
Any site that doesn’t explicitly push anti chinese content is going to look like a pro-chinese bias
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)
OK, but find me an exact quote that actually says that. Not something that sorta sounds like that, but that exactly.
Yeah, only AMIERICAN companies can spy on our citizens and flood them with propaganda!
USA! USA! USA!
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.
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.
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.
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.
.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.
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.
Someone ban this man NOW
I haven’t seen a proof of intelligence on .ml yet.
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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.
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.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.
Not a foreign gov. China.
This is analogous to the diff between Ireland having nukes and Russia having nukes.
Okay, what is China going to do about me calling their president winnie the pooh or bringing up tiananmen square or whatever?
Nothing right now
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…and completely avoid any and all Chinese products. Good thing their global influence isn’t increasing constantly.
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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?
Foreign governments are supposed to buy information from American social media companies. Tik Tok cut out the middleman so they’re getting banned.
Yup, much better to let a foreign evil government have your data than the local evil government that actually has control where you live.
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)
