I think it's ironic this is posted here on Lemmy, which is what it is today mainly thanks to users of another service freaking out over how they will manage without their API access to bullshit aggregated content mixed with astroturfing.

I mean, you can use that approach to denigrate pretty much any activity people spend time on.

You either never used Tiktok, or you spent too much time staring at the shit videos and that ended up as your feed.

Personally, I get gardening tips, legal analysis of the trump trials, and stand up comedy. It's great.

I loathe tiktok but if someone had banned Reddit while I was still using it I would have been hella mad. On the other hand it would have been "How will I manage without unhinged shitposts mixed with ads" from the outside

Either TikTok will win in court and overturn the law (possible), be sold (unlikely) or shut down (likely). I can't see TikTok being sold being allowed by China, and even selling part of the business just creates a new global competitor to extend out of the US.

Multiple competitors will appear in the meantime hoping to get the displaced activity. TikTok is hugely profitable and a dominant replacement in the US would make a lot of money. This will be seen as an opportunity to make a lot of money for the winner.

I can see Meta trying to make a TikTok like clone, Google trying to leverage YouTube shorts, and Elon Musk trying to revive Vine at Twitter, plus lots of startups (mostly. American but possibly from other nations) vying to win the audience.

Ironically the more interesting battle may be outside the US - TikTok versus whatever US app comes along.

The deadline is after the US election - this could also all be political grandstanding and the politicians expectation might be that the law won't stand up in court anyway.

If they banned lemmy and reddit you would be freaking out too. The difference is many people run their businesses on tik tok. Your making fun of people who are losing their livelihood.

And the fact that "their own voice" is banned in China itself. What a bunch of bullshit.

It wont work either, there's so many legal tricks that can change the owner of a company without actually changing who controls the company.

"TikTok was evil and controlled by China, so we banned it. Oh look, here's a totally new website called TokTik owned by a US Citizen named Mr. ILoveChina who built a TikTok replacement in 15 minutes by hiring foreign consultants for 2 cents an hour."

They aren't attempting to solve a problem. The political right wants to buy TikTok to control a space used by millions of young voters.

My tiktok feed was filled with videos from the protests, and has been filled w info on Palestine for the past half a year. I don't think this ban is a coincidence. Tiktok always has the fastest transmission of information from people on the scenes, kinda like Twitter back in the day.

They don't need anyone to trust the system, they just need to retain control.

The problem, from the government's perspective, is that there's no way to only see some of the fnords. If we teach people to recognize Chinese propaganda, they'll start to recognize American propaganda too. Better to keep us stupid and then control who's allowed to talk to us in the first place.

Ah fuck it, its just the next step the US is just mad China got this privacy invader and not them. Meanwhile Meta is the internet to most of Africa.

All major social medias have been toxic and invasive and only now does it matter to the US.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. Many lack the complexity of thought to understand they are being played like fiddles.

People dont care so long as their friends are also using it.