this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Youtube and Instagram tried for years to lure in Tiktok users, and they failed so badly that even with Tiktok potentially getting banned, people would rather switch to a different potentially sketchy Chinese app.
I can see the logic. If I used these apps I'd rather have a different sketchy government spying on my than my own.
That they specifically went to another sketchy app is what gets me the most.
I could name tons of social network alternatives that are decentralized, give users control but for some reason those are sidelined as everyone suddenly wants an account on app they never heard off a few weeks ago and its main selling feature is that is at least as insecure and censored as tiktok..
They're looking for a "fuck you" to the US government more than they're looking for a new social media. Maybe it will stick as a popular platform, but I suspect it was chosen more for its name and ties to the CCP than any actual features.
It's genuinely superior to tiktok though, the algo rewards like 1% of the ragebait, uncredited reposts, and deceptive posts that tiktok does. If they reverse the ban, I'm not going back.
Supposedly they're doing it on purpose as a protest. Not just one sketchy Chinese app, but any sketchy Chinese app they can find. In the hopes that Meta and Google will miss them, and the federal government will capitulate to stop them using those apps.
Because apparently they haven't read the bill in question and think banning these apps too will somehow be "unsustainable".
Ban Instagram, Discord and iOS first, anti-libre software.
They never will. This ban was never to help us.
They do not give a fuck about me or you!
This ban was never to protect user privacy. It is to protect the federal government from what users willingly give away to foreign social media companies (and only those companies that are in the control of US adversaries). It was never about you and if you assumed that based on what the government said, you deserve to be disappointed. They give only fucks about what the average user can do to hurt them.
And ban smart TVs!
And ban hardware firmware!
And shipping and receiving software!
And proprietary ore mining operation software!
All of it! They don't give a fuck!