Nepal’s government has decided to ban the popular social media app TikTok, saying it was disrupting “social harmony” in the country.
  • janAkali@lemmy.oneEnglish
    19·
    1 year ago

    I mean, they’re not wrong. But it’s not tiktok, it’s almost all social media and consequently, 99% of the internet.

  • library_napper@monyet.cc
    11·
    1 year ago

    Nepal has banned all pornographic sites in 2018.

    Hahahahaha, no. I was in Nepal and definitely watched porn. The censor must have been terrible because I didn’t even know it existed.

    So, yeah, tiktok won’t be banned then.

  • Overzeetop@beehaw.org
    7·
    1 year ago

    The problem is not TikTok, it’s people who are easily influenced and distracted by sensationalist content. I will tell you that TikTok is nothing but vocal and instrumental entertainment with some stand-up comedy and British sit-com style clips, but that’s because I don’t follow or wander off into political discourse or “news” areas.

    • Butterbee (She/Her)@beehaw.orgEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      I disagree. Platforms like Tiktok take advantage of very specific psychological tricks to lure people’s attention in and keep it where they want it. It’s not the audience’s fault when they don’t notice a magician perform a sleight of hand during a trick. It’s not a victims fault when a thief does the same for ill. I do believe regulation might need to get involved if these platforms are doing harm. The same happened in the gaming space with lootboxes when regulators realized they were essentially marketing gambling to minors. It’s not the minors fault in that case either.

      • Overzeetop@beehaw.org
        3·
        1 year ago

        Every for-profit platform does this. Every product package on the shelf does this. It works because someone always finds a way around the prohibition, and we are shirking it responsibility of teaching others-everyone- how to identify it. Magic tricks don’t become uninteresting by making them illegal, they become uninteresting by telling everyone how they work.

    • sub_o@beehaw.orgEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      It varies from region to region. The problem with TikTok is that, the western version seems to have very different content / moderation than other parts of the world.

      I’m in south east asia, the amount of homophobic content that’s tied up with anti-semitism (accusing jewish people of pushing LBGTQ+ propaganda) is nauseating. I’ve reported so many of those posts, plus the typical ‘here are media companies, and Israeli flags on them’ or ‘the Austrian painter was right / didn’t finish their job’ posts, but they always come back as ‘No Violations’.

      It’s frustrating, because the US / European versions are very progressive, but for the other parts of the world, it’s being pushed towards far right extremism.

      • Overzeetop@beehaw.org
        1·
        1 year ago

        You do realize you’re getting fed that content because you interact with it, right? I get the odd run of uninteresting content, too; I don’t interact with it because it’s not what I want to watch.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

    Click here to see the summary

    KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal’s government decided to ban the popular social media app TikTok on Monday, saying it was disrupting “social harmony” in the country.

    Foreign Minister Narayan Prakash Saud said the app would be banned immediately.

    He said that to make social media platforms accountable, the government has asked the companies to register and open a liaison office in Nepal, pay taxes and abide by the country’s laws and regulations.

    It wasn’t clear what triggered the ban or if TikTok had refused to comply with Nepal’s requests.

    TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, has faced scrutiny in a number of countries because of concerns that Beijing could use the app to harvest user data or advance its interests.

    Countries including the United States, Britain and New Zealand have banned the app on government phones despite TikTok repeatedly denying that it has ever shared data with the Chinese government and would not do so if asked.

    Saved 28% of original text.

  • harc@szmer.infoPolski
    2·
    1 year ago

    China seems to be waging a influence war against Nepal, so I wouldent be that surprised if Tiktok was used as a weapon there.