this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 31 minutes ago (1 children)

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".

[–] [email protected] 0 points 24 minutes ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 minutes ago

That’s what they’re telling you, and since when are they telling the truth?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah but not Facebook and Twitter and other American ones. Right?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

.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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 37 minutes ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

Ah, but they also delete every post that isn't critical of Western countries.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 59 minutes ago

I haven't seen a proof of intelligence on .ml yet.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Except they've banned 1 source for appeasement rather than enact a strong law or policy for long-term safety.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Well yeah. Why would corporations write laws against their own self-interest?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

What the hell is WeChat? Did that WeWork guy start a social media service?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 44 minutes ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat

TLDR: Chinese "Facebook" (actually its more like Facebook+Instagram+Twitter+ every social media combined into one + Googlepay/Applepay + A lot of government censorship)

Its app only, no webpage or computers, requires a smartphone, requires a phone number. How much censorship and survelliance depends on what phone number you use. Accounts with Mainland Chinese number will have a much stricter censorship and more data collected. Accounts with a western number will have less strict censorshop and less data collected (probably about the same amount of data collected by western corporate social medias).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 minutes ago* (last edited 14 minutes ago)

app only, no website

Oh fuck this future! Anyways, thanks for the information.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

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)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Lol @ america being the only non-chinese country in the world

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

As someone who dropped TikTok around 3 years ago, the next month or two are going to be very amusing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

My wife quit it and was back on it a week later. Apparently it's very addictive. As someone who is on Lemmy a thousand times per day, I guess I can understand. I don't consider it quite the same though since we actually talk here, and discuss things beyond pressing like buttons on glorified commercials.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe bring back Vine or something.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

I always thought Vine was so stupid and pointless, but I thought the same thing about Twitter and it sold for $44 billion dollars, so what do I know? I miss the old Internet when content was more than a blurb, and conversations were deep and meaningful.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 hours ago

They should force TikTok to be sold to the Taiwan government.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 hours ago (9 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 58 minutes ago

and even banned the use of vpns to get to foreign sites

Who is "we" in this context? VPNs are certainly not banned in the United States.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago

Also 100% clear that facebook, google, twitter... are all doing the same but for US intelligence

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 hours ago

banned the use of vpns to get to foreign sites which even China doesn't do

What are you talking about? The GFC tries its absolute best to block VPNs and other circumvention methods.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

"Freedom is when you let foreign governments spy on your citizens"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

when exactly did that happen

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 10 hours ago (22 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago

Hybrid Regime with democratic features

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago

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

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