Reminder: TikTok is not actually important. Everyone can live their lives without TikTok, YouTube, etc. There’s an infinite amount of ways to entertain ourselves and there’s a lot of competing apps.
This isn’t the government abusing its power to shut down some small business/upstart. It’s shutting down a serious national security threat and a monopoly. TikTok has abused their position many times in many ways, refused to cooperate, and has reached the, “find out” phase.
I don’t entirely agree. TikTok isn’t just silly dances, thirst traps, and trends—it has played a significant role in community organizing and coalition-building across social movements. Consider the university Pro-Palestine encampments or mainstream news reporting on social media reaction to the United Healthcare CEO’s killing. Neither is solely attributable to TikTok, but the scale and nature of discussion on the platform have demonstrably influenced real-world conversation and activism. Another example is Keith Lee’s viral restaurant reviews transforming the viability of small mom and pop businesses overnight.
What sets TikTok apart isn’t just its massive reach (150 million monthly active users, nearly half the US population) but also its algorithm and features that enable collaborative, asynchronous discussion. Unlike YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels, where content is mostly one-off entertainment with fleeting comment sections, TikTok fosters actual conversations. Features like stitching allow users to directly respond to others, creating an evolving discourse where users can trace context. At times, entire feeds become dominated by discussion of a single topic—sometimes celebrity gossip, but often major events like October 7 or the United Healthcare CEO killing. This level of organic, large-scale discourse doesn’t happen the same way on other platforms. A great example of this dynamic was when TikTok users collectively decided to migrate to the actually Chinese app XiaoHongShu specifically to spite the US government. That didn’t just happen—it was discussed and coordinated.
In my view, TikTok is a national security threat not because of unproven claims about data leaks or state-authored propaganda, but because it provides an already restless and dissatisfied population with a real platform to discuss issues and organize. If a decentralized, open-source alternative existed at scale, TikTok itself wouldn’t be necessary. I acknowledge that TikTok—like any centralized platform—has real issues, particularly around privacy and censorship. But until such a decentralized alternative gains traction, TikTok remains important. And even then, I doubt the US government would be any more comfortable with a decentralized version, since it still wouldn’t give them control over what discussions take place.
Yeah, they should shut down both. Honestly, X should be on the chopping block even faster that Meta, but Zuck seems committed to racing Musk to the bottom.
I’ve never even looked at it. Vine was pretty cool but then it died, Periscope was neat, but I dunno, something about Tiktok feels predatory, how addictive it is (from what I’ve seen of others using it).
Plus while they’re all as bad as each other, I still trust China less than Microsoft with my stuff, so yeah. I’m just not interested in it and don’t really see the appeal for myself. But I see why it’s popular and it’s not like, terrible, as a concept.
Reminder: TikTok is not actually important. Everyone can live their lives without TikTok, YouTube, etc. There’s an infinite amount of ways to entertain ourselves and there’s a lot of competing apps.
This isn’t the government abusing its power to shut down some small business/upstart. It’s shutting down a serious national security threat and a monopoly. TikTok has abused their position many times in many ways, refused to cooperate, and has reached the, “find out” phase.
I don’t entirely agree. TikTok isn’t just silly dances, thirst traps, and trends—it has played a significant role in community organizing and coalition-building across social movements. Consider the university Pro-Palestine encampments or mainstream news reporting on social media reaction to the United Healthcare CEO’s killing. Neither is solely attributable to TikTok, but the scale and nature of discussion on the platform have demonstrably influenced real-world conversation and activism. Another example is Keith Lee’s viral restaurant reviews transforming the viability of small mom and pop businesses overnight.
What sets TikTok apart isn’t just its massive reach (150 million monthly active users, nearly half the US population) but also its algorithm and features that enable collaborative, asynchronous discussion. Unlike YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels, where content is mostly one-off entertainment with fleeting comment sections, TikTok fosters actual conversations. Features like stitching allow users to directly respond to others, creating an evolving discourse where users can trace context. At times, entire feeds become dominated by discussion of a single topic—sometimes celebrity gossip, but often major events like October 7 or the United Healthcare CEO killing. This level of organic, large-scale discourse doesn’t happen the same way on other platforms. A great example of this dynamic was when TikTok users collectively decided to migrate to the actually Chinese app XiaoHongShu specifically to spite the US government. That didn’t just happen—it was discussed and coordinated.
In my view, TikTok is a national security threat not because of unproven claims about data leaks or state-authored propaganda, but because it provides an already restless and dissatisfied population with a real platform to discuss issues and organize. If a decentralized, open-source alternative existed at scale, TikTok itself wouldn’t be necessary. I acknowledge that TikTok—like any centralized platform—has real issues, particularly around privacy and censorship. But until such a decentralized alternative gains traction, TikTok remains important. And even then, I doubt the US government would be any more comfortable with a decentralized version, since it still wouldn’t give them control over what discussions take place.
There is a false dichotomy on Lemmy, that the government should shut down Meta due to security threats too because of this. They can both be bad.
Yeah, they should shut down both. Honestly, X should be on the chopping block even faster that Meta, but Zuck seems committed to racing Musk to the bottom.
I finally drew the line last week and deleted my Meta accounts.
Reminder: there’s an ongoing trade war between US and China and this is likely just a part of it.
I’ve never even looked at it. Vine was pretty cool but then it died, Periscope was neat, but I dunno, something about Tiktok feels predatory, how addictive it is (from what I’ve seen of others using it).
Plus while they’re all as bad as each other, I still trust China less than Microsoft with my stuff, so yeah. I’m just not interested in it and don’t really see the appeal for myself. But I see why it’s popular and it’s not like, terrible, as a concept.
I’m bothered that the app is 2gb.
why?
Spyware takes up space, comrade.
Why can’t more of that be patched out via ReVanced or similar? Or is it so integral to the platform itself?