TikTok is now unavailable in the United States
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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The imperial core is continuing the process of self-cannibalization as the interimperial wars between Europe and the US over resource and territorial control continue. Greenland, populated with less than a hundred thousand heavily exploited people, is the newest territory to fall under Trump's gaze. The main draw is the mineral resources present there, of which it boasts nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum, and much more than remains unexplored under the ice. But the ice is melting, and profit must be made. There is an additional element of wanting Arctic territory to counter Chinese and especially Russian interests and aims; Russia is increasingly eyeing the northern Arctic route as an alternative to more vulnerable routes through the Suez Canal or around Africa, and is investing heavily in icebreakers for that purpose.
However, even if Europe possessed the desire to resist American annexations - and they absolutely do not, at the end of the day - they do not even have the ability. Denmark may, to a lesser or greater extent, make angry sounds and talk about national honour or some such, but their military would be trampled underfoot by even the New York Police Department, let alone a concerted military effort by the US. If Trump wants Greenland, he will have it. This will naturally increase the grumbling in Europe about reconsidering the Transatlantic alliance, and that grumbling may, in the medium-term future, as the American Empire continues its decline, lead to meaningful results. But in the short term, Europe shall have to bear whatever Trump throws at them, for they obviously cannot now ally with Russia, who was the natural counterweight to American interests for decades before 2022.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Lmao they actually did it
Land of the free USA baby #1
I think this is TikTok unilaterally withdrawing since the last I heard was Trump saying he'd wait at least 90 days
The message specifically says they'll be working on getting it up once trump takes office on Monday
What it meant was that Trump can delay the enforcement by 90 days, TikTok has to do it to comply with the regulations since they have refused to sell and neither Biden/Trump has indicated whether the ban will move forward yet (the hope is that Trump will give his official statement as President when he takes office on Monday).
Interestingly it doesn't work even outside the US if you have a US account or just downloaded the apk from a US account on an app store.
EDIT: If you make an non-US account using a VPN and keep the VPN on to access the app it works fine.
I think it’s because the US-based user data is stored in their Texas server and TikTok is now temporarily shutting down that site.
What am I going to do while I watch TV now
Browse xiaohongshu
Must feel good (or scary) knowing millions are browsing your posts and then relaying how it changed their entire perspective while Redditors seethe.
Me browsing all of xiaohongshu's excellent posts on hexbear while watching tv 
Nice self promotion lol. I don't think you ever thought that your username would become so relevant in the part week or two.
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Lmao.
Absolutely hilarious. Millions of Americans will be watching the inauguration closely on Monday just to see what Trump has to say about TikTok. You cannot make this shit up.
Even in his senility, Trump's instincts as a showman has not dulled one bit.
The democrat-republican demographics switch but the democrats become the republicans but the republicans become the people who put TikTok back in the hands of the working class proletariat, revered for all time.
I also can't access it even after changing my VPN to another country lol. I assume it's because they know that I downloaded it through the play store or something.
It's blocked worldwide for some reason
Nope. Zero issues with it here in SEA
When India banned it they banned it for all Indian SIM cards, so you have to remove your SIM and use a VPN, but even that won't work for the US ban. They rolled out a specific app version for people in the US, and then set that to just load the ban message, so anyone who installed it in the US can't access it even if they remove their SIM and use a VPN. They're also banning US accounts, so it's not even certain that getting a hold of an international phone with an unblocked version would let you access your account if you're American.
Edit: you'd probably be able to get on TikTok if you got a non-US phone with the app, connected without a SIM and on a VPN, and using a non-US account. (Disclaimer: I've never used TikTok so I am not sure this would work, and it's a lot of effort to go to for some videos anyway)
This isn't exactly true. If you download the TikTok apk from a third party site, make a new account using a VPN, and never turn the VPN off while using TikTok it works fine even with a US SIM/phone. Currently have this running with a US phone and US SIM.
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Not in Guatemala. I think it knows if your phone is US based or something
Weird, it is blocked for us. Our country's TT probably uses US servers.
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Some news for today from Russia’s special military operation.
Russian forces recently liberated the Shevchenko Lithium Ore Field in the western parts of the Donetsk People’s Republic, which is a major loss for Western capitalists that wanted to exploit it: https://sputnikglobe.com/20250118/ukraine-losing-lithium-wealth-major-blow-to-the-west-1121457558.html
A Russian Iskander missile strike eliminated a NATO/Danish F-16 pilot and ‘instructor’ in Krivoy Rog: https://www.rt.com/russia/611145-danish-f16-instructor-killed/
Russian missiles struck the Kiev regime military's Luch design bureau (that manufactures “Neptune” missiles) in Kiev (video): https://news-pravda.com/world/2025/01/18/987365.html
Russian forces liberated the Donetsk People’s Republic settlement of Petropavlovka, northwest of Kurakhovo: https://sputnikglobe.com/20250118/russian-forces-strike-ukrainian-defense-sites-in-response-to-atacms-attacks-free-two-villages-1121455742.html
Little solace in I told ya so but I found it.
only here dems had all the power to act, no need to plan special ops or whatever, just suspend arms transfers in legal review limbo for couple of months, see how pisrael likes it.
The USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) as part of it's carrier strike group, is the closest it's been to Yemen since the 21st of December. Highly likely we'll see an attack on Ansar Allah (known as the Houthis in mainstream western media) in Yemen before the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas goes into effect.
Update: The Carrier Strike Group has already come under attack within the last hour, according to the latest statement by the Yemeni Armed Forces, likely in self defence to try deter an upcoming attack.
Final update: latest reports from Yemeni sources (Al Masirah TV) of US strikes targeting the Al-Azraqeen area, north of the Yemeni capital Sana'a, as well as aggression targeting Sana'a itself.
From the river to the sea
Turn the Truman into debris
Unlikely to happen unfortunately, sorry to disappoint. The latest attacks against the carrier strike group haven't even made use of their full weapons arsenal, no Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) launched in the last few attacks, only cruise missiles and drones.
how about a swarm of those remotely-operated explosives-laden boats
The Toofan USVs? Not used in current attacks on military targets, the carrier group is too far away, range is an issue, and even if they did have the range, traversing hundreds of kilometres at their top speed of around 90kph would take hours, plenty of time for the US Navy to see them coming. The carrier group likely stays at a distance because of all these different weapons systems Ansar Allah has, from USVs to all types of anti ship missiles, getting in close is too risky. So these weapons do have an impact even if they're not actively being used.
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Glad Ansar Allah at least isn't waiting around to get hit.
They just got hit unfortunately. Without air defence systems that can reliably hit aircraft above 50 000ft, there's not much that can be done to stop US, British or Israeli airstrikes. Sure they can shoot down MQ-9 Reaper drones and force the USA to fly the RQ-4 Hawk drones which operate above 50 000ft, but that's the limit to their current air defence capabilities. Even with air defence systems, stand off weapons still exist, Israel used the Rampage air launched 12 inch calibre artillery rocket in recent strikes against Yemen, which has a range of 250km/155mi. But forcing the enemy to use stand off weapons and keep their aircraft at a distance is always a better situation to being directly bombed overhead. Syria before and after the HTS takeover is a good example of this. Before HTS took control, Israel still bombed, but were restricted to standoff weapons due to Syrian air defence systems operated by the SAA. After the HTS takeover, those systems were no longer operational and Israel could carry out hundreds of strikes, with thousands of munitions, within 72 hours.
Yeah, I expected them to get bombed, I was just saying I'm glad they didn't sit around waiting for it. Maybe they will launch another couple of those anti-ship ballistic missiles at the Truman.
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It's interesting Temu isn't being targeted, since it's well known that it tracks every little thing you do on your phone as soon as you download the app.
I have said before that the TikTok ban is really just a case of “if you set up shop on our street and compete for our customers, then you should also let us set up shop on your street”.
The national security reason is just an excuse. The multinational tech companies have far bigger ambitions than just competing with a Chinese app in the US - they want a slice of the fast growing Chinese market.
The TikTok ban has an equivalent of China banning Twitter and Facebook and also forcing Google to leave.
On the other hand, America has no equivalent of Temu. All the Amazon stuff are made in China lol!
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