- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
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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”.
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
That’s what they’re telling you, and since when are they telling the truth?
I think aliens did it.
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.
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.
I haven’t seen a proof of intelligence on .ml yet.
Except they’ve banned 1 source for appeasement rather than enact a strong law or policy for long-term safety.
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)
As someone who dropped TikTok around 3 years ago, the next month or two are going to be very amusing.
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.
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
when exactly did that happen
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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
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
They should force TikTok to be sold to the Taiwan government.
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
But the US isn’t a democracy. It’s a republic.
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.
A republic is a kind of democracy.
Because democracy is an abstract name for a system and republic is the more concrete result of that system, democracy is frequently used when the emphasis is on the system itself. We could say that democracy is to republicas monarchy is to kingdom.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/democracy-and-republic
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.
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.
Before any of us were alive. Some would say before centralized banking in the early 20th
I think “For a minute or two” is a more apt answer.
Do hollywood next (aka the propaganda machine of the US).
Yeah, only AMIERICAN companies can spy on our citizens and flood them with propaganda!
USA! USA! USA!
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
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.
Yes, and that’s why US companies aren’t banned by the US. The foreign power having so much propaganda power was the danger.
If I wanna get my propaganda from more than one world power, that’s my right under the first amendment. Or it was.
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.
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:
Right? Now do Facebook.
The last panel also hurts us - fellow non-americans :(
“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)
OK, but find me an exact quote that actually says that. Not something that sorta sounds like that, but that exactly.
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 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
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.
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.
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
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?
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