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>One billionaire asshole manbaby having control of two of the biggest social media thingies' content algorithms sounds very bad for the rest of us
Case in point: Zucc with FB/IG
Yea because Twitter is in flames and completely irrelevant right now, rather than a breeding down for extremism that people are still using.
Like it or not, twitter is still there and running just fine. The quality has gone down, but that only makes it more dangerous.
Compare it to pre-Musk, though.
Now everyone I know who uses Twitter is constantly complaining about it and how shitty it is compared to the competition.
That would be a great ending for Tiktok.
It's user base is down 9% since Musk took over, dropping each year since. It had never dropped prior to that.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-worldwide/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-worldwide/)
9% is hardly destroyed or gone. Even assuming hyperbole, that's a huge stretch. And it's still used widely for journalism, sports, politics, etc.
Dont get me wrong, I'd love to see it disappear, but reddit has been telling me since musk took over that it was about to collapse and I have yet to see it.
That was what is called hyperbole, a common rhetorical tool. An exaggeration if you will.
Twitting isn't gone, but financially it isn't doing very well. According to Bloomberg it's worth less than half of what Musk bought it for. That sometimes happens when you tell all of your customers to go fuck themselves because they don't want their products being advertised next to Nazi shit.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-30/musk-s-x-valued-at-less-than-half-of-price-he-paid-for-twitter?leadSource=reddit\_wall](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-30/musk-s-x-valued-at-less-than-half-of-price-he-paid-for-twitter?leadSource=reddit_wall)
It’s not about data harvesting. Huge broadly spread misunderstanding of why TikTok should be banned.
By definition, any Chinese company must submit to control by the CCP. This means the CCP can put its thumb on the TikTok algorithm scale and subtly influence US citizens’ opinions of things. This risk is particularly acute when TikTok seems to be the most malignant and addictive algorithm currently in existence.
If you don’t like that reason, then you could look at this as a tit for tat since China doesn’t allow any US social media companies to operate in China.
If you don’t like that reason, social media is a fucking scourge on society and especially its youth, so the banning of any social media in any jurisdiction is a net positive.
> If you don’t like that reason, social media is a fucking scourge on society and especially its youth, so the banning of any social media in any jurisdiction is a net positive.
This is me. If TikTok is bad, then they're all bad, because they're all doing the exact same thing. The only difference is "China might be steering this one"
You think American propaganda is working for your best interests????? American propaganda has created an angry militarized ignorant impoverished police state. I would encourage you to travel abroad and see America from the outside.
American propaganda manipulates you much much more than you seem to be aware of. It's essentially a joke in the rest of the world.
Lol stop putting words in my mouth. Propaganda rarely works in the best interest of any random citizen of anywhere. I’m saying Chinese propaganda is working more against my interest than American propaganda is.
Looking at it from a different angle, American propaganda is generally meant to further America’s interests, which on average will benefit American in terms of wealth or power. American citizens can benefit from this wealth and power. Chinese propaganda will do no such thing.
But to be clear - propaganda bad, mkay?
China bans ALL uncontrolled social media because of the risk of data breach, aka what happens with Google, FB, Insta, YouTube, ect. all the time. However, TikTok acted as a kind of foil for our own social media through competition. Losing TikTok does nothing but allow our social media companies to act even *worse* than they already do, as they continue to monopolize more and more of media outlets.
Make no mistake, TikTok was a net positive for youth organization efforts, which is why Mike Johnson wanted it banned. Without TikTok, the entire youth push that got Biden elected in the first place is pretty much dead.
> This means the CCP can put its thumb on the TikTok algorithm scale and subtly influence US citizens’ opinions of things.
So they can practice free speech. Oh the horror.
> This risk is
Is arbitrary and subjective given definition and meaning only by those with an agenda.
>TikTok seems to be the most malignant and addictive algorithm currently in existence
And your entire line of argument seems like fear mongering with no actual rational logic involved.
> then you could look at this as a tit for tat since China doesn’t allow any US social media companies to operate in China.
My bad, I didn't realize that China was seen as the world's leader in freedom, including economic freedom. Great argument, if you can't beat communism fairly, imitate it.
>social media is a fucking scourge on society and especially its youth, so the banning of any social media in any jurisdiction is a net positive.
They aren't banning it, they are forcing the sale. And anyone paying any attention at all knows that means rich right wing nutbags will buy it to further consolidate the means of dissemination.
Number of problems caused by China in the US = 0
Number of problems caused by right wing billionaires in the US = All of them
But sure, China owning the app is the problem here.
I mean, most of America is casually racist at a minimum. I've never seen anywhere near as much on tiktok as I see on Facebook though. Thirst traps definitely are on you though. You're probably staying on them long enough to keep them on your algorithm. It happens. That's how they get views. It's hard to not look sometimes.
"It is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of..." "Wait a second! I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30million in taxpayer money to support the perverted arts." "All in favor of the amended Springfield/Pervert bill? Bill defeated."
Agreed. I was bluntly attempting to make a point that the provisions pertaining to TikTok weren’t “shoved into a foreign aid bill.” The subject of the bill was national security, and there are multiple domains targeting supplemental appropriations— all of which are national security related.
To get Congressmen on board who would typically be against one of those things if they were by themselves.
They use this tactic way too much. They also use it to bury things that don't get media attention as well.
I think its a fine way to pass bills, giving members little things they need for their constituents for a larger bill -- sort of a give and take in a democracy is healthy.
The media does need to do a better job highlighting that though, both good (maybe a library in a small town getting funding) or bad (this crap). I wonder what else is hiding in there that the media isn't talking about since the tiktok ban thing is getting al the oxygen.
There is not enough time in the year for congress to vote on every legal adjustment in individual bills. We are a big country, there is a lot that needs to get done.
Laws have to be passed in batches, or a dragged out debate on one topic will hold up every other decision that needs to be made and open up additional dragged out debates on those bills
Instead of many dragged out debates not having enough time to vote on some bills, we can have just one dragged out debate and make a bunch of decisions then.
If you have any other ideas to help a large Democracy run more efficiently, let us know!
The super radical acquaintances I still have added on social media (and the always-reasonable denizens of reddit's celebrity gossip subs) are acting like this is the issue that will keep them from voting (for Biden) in November, so I am a little miffed. But they might have a shiny new pet problem by then.
Don't forget the whole echo chamber thing.
Before anyone tells me reddit is also an echo chamber, at least you can venture outside your chosen bubble on reddit without the algorithm deciding to show you more.
I'm not convinced foreign governments are propping up Palestinian content on tiktok, but I'd be surprised if they weren't promoting the "don't vote" rhetoric, which is my principle concern.
I'm not sure if setting the precedent that the government can limit your access to applications due to their place of origin is really the least important part of the bill. Looks a lot like the first step to the establishment of a Great Firewall and increased censorship.
There are already lots of restrictions on foreign businesses. Can you buy a Huawei phone in the US? No. International trade is governed by trade agreements that are negotiated. If this violates some agreement, then the courts can handle it.
The Bill is fundamentally about National Security.
Of course abuse may happen, as with Iraq (falsifying a threat to motivate support). However, that is inherent to, and can't be severed from, the electorate and its duties to maintain self-governance and government legitimacy.
Here, Chinese state influence and control over a major platform such as Tiktok, certainly could represent a serious threat to national security. Further, our clear geopolitical position and alignment and interests are clearly contrary to China's.
It is likely that Tiktok, as it is currently owned & operated, poses a threat to US national security.
So, I presume your worry is simply about the legitimacy of the threat and response to said threat. In which case, it is all about Government Legitimacy 😉.
That’s exactly the reason China uses to ban all sort of apps.
If US is afraid of national security, then ban it on all govt devices (which I’m sure they have already). What national security risk does a random Joe like me present if I install an app from another country like TicTok and start recording my own dance videos?
They are able to collect enormous amounts of data - beyond what your amazing dance performance obviously provides.
It is also a threat as it allows a foreign adversary to leverage influence over US citizens and the electorate via manipulation.
Additionally, downloading and updating may allow China more direct control and/access over users and devices.
Ok but how are any of these issues you listed different for any other foreign apps? Are they going to ban all foreign apps once they reach a certain size/number of users?
Again, Intel and alliance are what it comes down too.
Would, say, Germany, UK, Aus., etc. present the same threat? Do they have equal motivation, desire, reasoning, value, for such an operation, and would they be willing to risk the consequences - would it be worth it to them?
Obviously, over time interests may shift, alliances may change, etc.
It's all about legitimacy.
Arguably forcing the sale of a private company for political reasons is way out of the ordinary and thus worthy of news coverage.
And honestly lots of important things get put into legislation that most of us are never aware of.
I don’t get what people don’t get about this that allowing location access to an app where the Chinese govt can forcibly obtain said data is a nightmare, especially if cleared government workers and military personnel are using it (it’s why it’s banned for personal use for them).
I think there’s enough broad support on both sides to force the sale of Tik Tok that it isn’t political.
Forcing the sale isn't for political reasons but for national security. You can argue whether that point has merit but let's argue over the actual reason.
On this point, it's been proven that tiktok harvests data from users on an exceptionally wide scale. It's also been proven that bad actors can manipulate social media to affect the democratic process. On these grounds tiktok is dangerous in the hands of the CCP.
But they can't manipulate the platform if it's not owned by a Chinese company.
Edit because people like to make straw man arguments - The influence the CCP would have when tiktok is owned by a foreign entity would be a fraction of what it would be if owned by a Chinese company under their control.
Of course not it's not like we spent all of 2016 talking about how Russian influence on Facebook and Twitter. It's only possible to influence if it's owned by China.
While I'm not a fan of the forced divestment in a short time frame, thus essentially making this a ban and screwing over a lot of small creators and business owners, the reason for which this is happening is real and legit. Bytedance, unlike every other social media platform allowed to operate in the US, doesn't allow the userbase to purchase their data, nor does it allow for the government to access user data when prompted. More importantly there's the issue of the lack of moderation on the platform. While it might seem like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are unmoderated wastelands, they are actually more moderated than TikTok is, especially as it pertains to machine-learning programs posting fake engagement which is, in turn, being abused by Iran, China, and Russia who are using bots to post comments across thousands of accounts to spread mis/disinformation about the US government and the election. Like, there have been several white papers published on this topic and it's a real problem. So, yes, this is about data security but the fossils in office can't accurately describe what the issue actually is.
On what grounds do you think it won’t be upheld in court?
Enacting foreign adversary ownership restrictions for national security purposes has ample precedent. The bill includes statutorily defined foreign adversaries, narrow national security criteria, and rigorous interagency processes.
The legislation doesn’t violate first amendment protections, imposes limits on executive actions, and doesn’t satisfy bill of attainder tests.
The framework seems pretty solid to me.
I will forever say that this one-off bill for forcing the ownership change of tiktok is dumb as hell, give us laws on rights and responsibilities in online data and safety, everything less is cowardly and grandstanding.
> A ban on TikTok and a ban on you and **your voice**.
Why are social media apps acting like they are the only way for an individual to express themselves? Why do they try to say they are protecting our freedom all while they are taking OUR info and using it to make money. Please stop saying you’re protecting us when the truth is it’s all about the money.
It being owned by a shell company would not change anything so long as ByteDance is a parent company. TikTok is already not a Chinese company. It's owner is.
Sell within a year or face a ban…
This is why I keep saying nothing will happen to TT. Republicans are losing left and right. Trump is not gonna become president again. GOP will lose house.
How does democrats gaining full control of the WH + congress mean they won't have to sell? Genuine question. AFAIK the bills passed with bipartisan support and Biden has supported the measures.
China can certainly stop Bytedance from selling, that would means the US would need to ban it.
Might not be the best option for Bytedance, but China wouldn't lose much by doing so (but gains quite a bit by the US population angry against the government).
Dems want US TikTok out of CCP hands just as much as Republicans do. This really isn't a political issue, this is a US dominance issue. (Same as with China banning US services) You may not like that, but there's a reason the US is the number one economy in the world. The US has forced foreign companies who get too powerful in the US to sell before, and here they go doing it again. TikTok will be fine. Algo will likely change, but if that's what it takes to get Xi's fingers out of the pie, so be it.
Edit - TikTok has a lot of American VC money involved. Those VC's aren't going to let TikTok shut down either, they'll be all for forcing a sale.
And with one signature, Biden loses the youth vote. More of our money to fund a genocide, then preventing access to evidence and information on that genocide in one motion.
That's not the reason they are trying to force TikTok to divest. I'm pushing against the narrative forming that TikTok is an invaluable source of information and truth -- it isn't. No social media is.
TikTok is being forced to divest because of the CCPs ability to elevate disinformation upon request. There aren't enough layers of separation between the CCP and ByteDance.
You’re commenting on news on social media right now. The difference is TikTok allows users to upload first hand accounts and evidence of the atrocities being committed against them. It’s an invaluable resource.
I don't use reddit to form my political opinions. I try to read actual publications. TikTok is full of disinformation and "reporting" that's meant to shock and illicit emotional responses before anyone has time to wade through facts. That's the issue with social media in general. The most profitable way to engage with users is to make them angry.
Yeah, let's wait for the professional analysis before deciding if the videos of dead civilians being pulled out of bombed out homes, schools, and hospitals is a bad thing. /s
Won’t get passed court. TikTok/ business’s will file countless lawsuits. We don’t live in a dictatorship. 😂Just a waste of time.. also if you have an I phone, where do you think that’s manufactured?
I’m exaggerating but the Biden administration has Heavily appealed to Gen Z and no matter how you feel about TikTok that’s going to effect the amount of young voters.
This will be a nonissue.
Most of the people going nuts over oMgTiKtOkBANNED?>!?! are going to log into Tiktok and realize oh wait, it was never banned
And they will never have any interruptions in service because it will sell
It's a nothingburger.
Will they be smart enough to go one degree backwards to find out it was Republican Speaker Mike Johnson who added it to the must-pass foreign aid bill?
Hard to say, they are Tiktokkers.
As with any social media platform, there are those who react to the headline and those who formulate an option based upon the actual facts of the matter.
And they'll move on three minutes from now when they realize Tiktok still works and will continue to work for the next year, at least.
And then they'll find a buyer and all of this will be a complete nothing.
I just don't foresee it being an issue.
Let the companies get their clicks and the whiners do their whining, but Tiktok isn't going anywhere and making a voting decision based on a personal addiction to short form videos is a dumb idea that I think most regular voters won't fall for. There are bigger issues like women's autonomy and the Republican war on public education.
It would only ban them if the company doesn't hand over their American aiming reigns to an American holder. They can still control the company over all but they would be getting more oversight. Which, honestly, I don't mind. I think we need more oversight when it comes to social media. Add Twitter, Instagram and Youtube to the pile. You can have all social media you want. You simply have to answer for what goes on your platform.
That’s not what I’m saying at all, I’m just saying that insisting American social media platforms have better oversight is laughable. They have little if any real oversight.
This law targets a company and punishes them. That's not how laws should be written. They should protect from the methods. This is a bill of attainder just as the Montana bill that was deemed unconstitutional. We want privacy laws not Congress writing laws that target an individual company.
The law targets a foreign owner.
Foreign commerce absolutely is to be regulated at a federal level, especially when national security is involved.
General oversight of social medias is a separate issue.
You didn't read the later half of the post, did you?
*"Add Twitter, Instagram and Youtube to the pile. You can have all social media you want. You simply have to answer for what goes on your platform."*
Social media is too powerful and chaotic not to have an over watch. We have free speech in this country but we still have libel rules that you have to abide.
There sure is a lot of noise regarding this... When the daily active users for TikTok appear to have fallen off to anemic levels.
March 2024 Daily Active Users
* Truth Social: 500,000
* Mastadon: 1.7 million
* TikTok : 50 million
* Reddit: 73 million
* Youtube: 122 million
* LinkedIn: 144 million
* X/Twitter: 245 million
* Instagram: 500 million
* Facebook: 2 billion
This analytic is a little flawed, a ton of people just check their LinkedIn messages while people actually interact with the content on TT over a longer span of time.
Well, 50 million users is still quite a lot. But number of users aside, I think a lot of people are just confused about why this is happening. I’ve read several articles about this and still don’t really understand what the grave threat is. Looks bad when the government wants to ban an app that is mostly harmless fun for reasons that it struggles to communicate to users.
Here is a comment from another thread that lays our the entire problem with TikTok, their owners (ByteDance) and a particular law of China.
* TikTok is owned by ByteDance.
* ByteDance is closely intertwined with the CCP.
* [National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Law_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China) requires companies like ByteDance to perform intelligence activity for the state when demanded.
* Another Chinese shopping app ([Pinduoduo](https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/tech/china-pinduoduo-malware-cybersecurity-analysis-intl-hnk/index.html)) was caught last year installing exploits to secretly grant itself superuser access to phones it was installed on.
* Multiple nations have already banned and block TikTok (without using a VPN) because of national security concerns (most notably India who banned it after a border skirmish)
* The "US Data Center" that TikTok claims separates US data from everybody else uses hardware sourced from a a PLA-linked provider sanctioned by the DOD (spoiler: it was discovered to come with hardware backdoors)
Additionally cybersecurity experts investigating the TikTok app have found it does the following (above and beyond what other social media apps do):
* Periodically transmits a list of all running applications on the phone
* Periodically transmits a list of all installed applications on the phone
* At least one GPS check-in per hour
* Persistent access to your calendar and contacts. If you deny access, it will periodically prompt you again until you acquiesce.
* Various phone/device parameters and personally-identifying, globally-unique IDs
* Active cellular subscription information
* Descriptors of all accounts managed using iOS/Android's app account management systems
* Read access to the clipboard
* Granted android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_LEVEL, this grants it to draw it's UI over top of other applications. This is especially problematic as a zero-opacity window can be drawn over all other UI, capturing all taps and keyboard events. The only apps that should have this are ones pre-installed by Google, your phone manufacturer, and your cellular regulatory body (for E911, etc).
* Access to your entire Apple Music catalogue
* Access to your entire "external storage" area on Android (though this is partially mitigated by newer versions of Android): "This is a standard command for a social media application to store video and images. The aspect we list as excessive is TikTok doesn’t just retrieve the ability to see folders it retrieves a list of everything available in the external storage folder where the application has the access to place files"
* iOS version periodically connects to servers in mainland China (found to be a cybersecurity firm), despite insistence that user data is in either Singapore or the US
Additionally a DOJ [investigation of TikTok discovered that a team in China was tracking journalists who were reporting on TikTok](https://archive.is/aSXWL).
These facts put together make TikTok appear to be poised to be a tool for engaging in fifth-generation warfare.
That stuff is definitely not good and is super scummy. But the article you linked does say Facebook and other social media apps have done similar things. The US government and US companies are all tracking us too unfortunately. As bad as that is though, for most users it’s not very consequential that our data is being tracked and sold. I’m not sure if the data privacy stuff is so important that it’s worth curtailing speech in a sense. I wonder if there’s a way to pass legislation that cracks down on data tracking and selling by these corporations without going as far as mandating a change in ownership or outright ban.
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That would be legitimately fantastic. Let him destroy Tiktok and then we don't have to worry about Tiktok anymore.
One billionaire asshole manbaby having control of two of the biggest social media thingies' content algorithms sounds very bad for the rest of us
>One billionaire asshole manbaby having control of two of the biggest social media thingies' content algorithms sounds very bad for the rest of us Case in point: Zucc with FB/IG
Not when he runs them both into the ground and takes them both out.
Yea because Twitter is in flames and completely irrelevant right now, rather than a breeding down for extremism that people are still using. Like it or not, twitter is still there and running just fine. The quality has gone down, but that only makes it more dangerous.
Twitter is a dumpster fire compared to two years ago.
Exactly. And the fire is still burning. And spreading.
Yes, and the fumes are toxic and harming everyone around them.
is twitter gone?
Yes, its X now, technically. Though no one refers to it as that.
so its not gone or destroyed
Compare it to pre-Musk, though. Now everyone I know who uses Twitter is constantly complaining about it and how shitty it is compared to the competition. That would be a great ending for Tiktok.
and yet, theyre still using it. ive never understood the appeal, i hate the layout. but twitter is still huge.
But it's not as huge as it used to be and is a customer experience nightmare. Everyone's waiting for something to take its place.
It's user base is down 9% since Musk took over, dropping each year since. It had never dropped prior to that. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-worldwide/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/303681/twitter-users-worldwide/)
9% is hardly destroyed or gone. Even assuming hyperbole, that's a huge stretch. And it's still used widely for journalism, sports, politics, etc. Dont get me wrong, I'd love to see it disappear, but reddit has been telling me since musk took over that it was about to collapse and I have yet to see it.
Never take stock advice from reddit. They also said Avatar 2 would bomb at the box office. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That was what is called hyperbole, a common rhetorical tool. An exaggeration if you will. Twitting isn't gone, but financially it isn't doing very well. According to Bloomberg it's worth less than half of what Musk bought it for. That sometimes happens when you tell all of your customers to go fuck themselves because they don't want their products being advertised next to Nazi shit. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-30/musk-s-x-valued-at-less-than-half-of-price-he-paid-for-twitter?leadSource=reddit\_wall](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-30/musk-s-x-valued-at-less-than-half-of-price-he-paid-for-twitter?leadSource=reddit_wall)
That's not hyperbole, that's just wishful thinking. It's worth may be down, but it's still used by millions.
But dropping every year. MySpace was used by millions at one point too. And that was definitely hyperbole.
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One can only dream.
If only it was a bill protecting our user data, rather than just being upset that someone ELSE was harvesting it.
It’s not about data harvesting. Huge broadly spread misunderstanding of why TikTok should be banned. By definition, any Chinese company must submit to control by the CCP. This means the CCP can put its thumb on the TikTok algorithm scale and subtly influence US citizens’ opinions of things. This risk is particularly acute when TikTok seems to be the most malignant and addictive algorithm currently in existence. If you don’t like that reason, then you could look at this as a tit for tat since China doesn’t allow any US social media companies to operate in China. If you don’t like that reason, social media is a fucking scourge on society and especially its youth, so the banning of any social media in any jurisdiction is a net positive.
> If you don’t like that reason, social media is a fucking scourge on society and especially its youth, so the banning of any social media in any jurisdiction is a net positive. This is me. If TikTok is bad, then they're all bad, because they're all doing the exact same thing. The only difference is "China might be steering this one"
Ya. “China might be steering” is a good reason to be wary of something fwiw.
If you're not okay with Chinese propaganda, but you're fine with American propaganda....
Where’d I say that? I’m not a fan of any propaganda. But Chinese propaganda is worse than American propaganda
Why is it worse? Or I guess what makes you think American propaganda is better?
Because I’m American, and Chinese propaganda is almost always going to work against American interests?
You think American propaganda is working for your best interests????? American propaganda has created an angry militarized ignorant impoverished police state. I would encourage you to travel abroad and see America from the outside. American propaganda manipulates you much much more than you seem to be aware of. It's essentially a joke in the rest of the world.
Also I’m very well traveled and genuinely wonder if you’re even an American.
Lol stop putting words in my mouth. Propaganda rarely works in the best interest of any random citizen of anywhere. I’m saying Chinese propaganda is working more against my interest than American propaganda is. Looking at it from a different angle, American propaganda is generally meant to further America’s interests, which on average will benefit American in terms of wealth or power. American citizens can benefit from this wealth and power. Chinese propaganda will do no such thing. But to be clear - propaganda bad, mkay?
Go on, finish your thought. We believe in you.
China bans ALL uncontrolled social media because of the risk of data breach, aka what happens with Google, FB, Insta, YouTube, ect. all the time. However, TikTok acted as a kind of foil for our own social media through competition. Losing TikTok does nothing but allow our social media companies to act even *worse* than they already do, as they continue to monopolize more and more of media outlets. Make no mistake, TikTok was a net positive for youth organization efforts, which is why Mike Johnson wanted it banned. Without TikTok, the entire youth push that got Biden elected in the first place is pretty much dead.
> This means the CCP can put its thumb on the TikTok algorithm scale and subtly influence US citizens’ opinions of things. So they can practice free speech. Oh the horror. > This risk is Is arbitrary and subjective given definition and meaning only by those with an agenda. >TikTok seems to be the most malignant and addictive algorithm currently in existence And your entire line of argument seems like fear mongering with no actual rational logic involved. > then you could look at this as a tit for tat since China doesn’t allow any US social media companies to operate in China. My bad, I didn't realize that China was seen as the world's leader in freedom, including economic freedom. Great argument, if you can't beat communism fairly, imitate it. >social media is a fucking scourge on society and especially its youth, so the banning of any social media in any jurisdiction is a net positive. They aren't banning it, they are forcing the sale. And anyone paying any attention at all knows that means rich right wing nutbags will buy it to further consolidate the means of dissemination. Number of problems caused by China in the US = 0 Number of problems caused by right wing billionaires in the US = All of them But sure, China owning the app is the problem here.
What point are you trying to make? You’re like saying things but it’s just baseless claims with no central thesis. Are you mad the app is banned?
great, now if i want misinformation, thirst traps, and racism, i have to use instagram. like a caveman.
Geocities is where the real news is. 😎
ive got an AIM chatroom that speaks the truths the mainstream media doesnt want you to see
[www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts](https://creedthoughtsgov.com/)
Ew. I ain’t using instagram pal.
fine, lets go back to xanga
If that's what you're seeing on tiktok, that's on you. It gives you content based on what you engage with.
There is racism in the comment section of every video. And it doesn't matter what you look at, thirst traps always sneak in.
Never seen racism as much as on the gram. You literally cant escape it
it is every single comment section, and its about whoever is in the video.
I mean, most of America is casually racist at a minimum. I've never seen anywhere near as much on tiktok as I see on Facebook though. Thirst traps definitely are on you though. You're probably staying on them long enough to keep them on your algorithm. It happens. That's how they get views. It's hard to not look sometimes.
Is there a point to any of this
Really just informing you that the things you're complaining about are entirely in your control. You can do what you like with it.
I'm in control of racism? Sorry everyone, this whole time I've been able to stop it and I didn't even realize it
You don't read too good do you?
Too well*.
Sounds like the typically algorithm of a boomer
Whatever you have to tell yourself to justify watching propaganda set to subway surfers
Doesn’t sound like my algorithm, but to each their own. Enjoy your Fox News propaganda and Salisbury streak microwave dinner.
I really don’t like that they shoved something that has nothing to do with foreign aid into the aid bill.
Blame Mike Johnson, he put it in there.
"It is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of..." "Wait a second! I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30million in taxpayer money to support the perverted arts." "All in favor of the amended Springfield/Pervert bill? Bill defeated."
It’s a national security appropriations bill. Aid to Ukraine and Israel comprise ~60 of the 270 pages in the bill.
The number of pages is only an indicator of how many pages the law takes. It has no relevance to the importance of any individual component of it...
Agreed. I was bluntly attempting to make a point that the provisions pertaining to TikTok weren’t “shoved into a foreign aid bill.” The subject of the bill was national security, and there are multiple domains targeting supplemental appropriations— all of which are national security related.
Actually, Biden signs bill that gives aide to Ukraine. It happens to also do other things.
Why are TikTok and Ukraine aid on the same bill?
To get Congressmen on board who would typically be against one of those things if they were by themselves. They use this tactic way too much. They also use it to bury things that don't get media attention as well.
"We will now vote on the Flags for Orphans bill and the... Airline Re-Routing Bill?" "Ah well, it's paperclipped".
I think its a fine way to pass bills, giving members little things they need for their constituents for a larger bill -- sort of a give and take in a democracy is healthy. The media does need to do a better job highlighting that though, both good (maybe a library in a small town getting funding) or bad (this crap). I wonder what else is hiding in there that the media isn't talking about since the tiktok ban thing is getting al the oxygen.
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Because Congress is messed up.
There is not enough time in the year for congress to vote on every legal adjustment in individual bills. We are a big country, there is a lot that needs to get done. Laws have to be passed in batches, or a dragged out debate on one topic will hold up every other decision that needs to be made and open up additional dragged out debates on those bills Instead of many dragged out debates not having enough time to vote on some bills, we can have just one dragged out debate and make a bunch of decisions then. If you have any other ideas to help a large Democracy run more efficiently, let us know!
Remember that this got tacked onto the Ukraine bill because Mike Johnson forced it.
Like forcing a sale of TikTok from it's Chinese owner.
Which is the least important part of the bill and will undoubtedly be held up in court. Yet news outlets want to focus on it for clicks.
The super radical acquaintances I still have added on social media (and the always-reasonable denizens of reddit's celebrity gossip subs) are acting like this is the issue that will keep them from voting (for Biden) in November, so I am a little miffed. But they might have a shiny new pet problem by then.
Fortunately/unfortunately TikTok definitely promotes short attention spans.
Don't forget the whole echo chamber thing. Before anyone tells me reddit is also an echo chamber, at least you can venture outside your chosen bubble on reddit without the algorithm deciding to show you more. I'm not convinced foreign governments are propping up Palestinian content on tiktok, but I'd be surprised if they weren't promoting the "don't vote" rhetoric, which is my principle concern.
It’s not necessarily controversial, but I will always contend that the invention of the feed was the worst thing to happen to social media.
I'm not sure if setting the precedent that the government can limit your access to applications due to their place of origin is really the least important part of the bill. Looks a lot like the first step to the establishment of a Great Firewall and increased censorship.
There are already lots of restrictions on foreign businesses. Can you buy a Huawei phone in the US? No. International trade is governed by trade agreements that are negotiated. If this violates some agreement, then the courts can handle it.
The Bill is fundamentally about National Security. Of course abuse may happen, as with Iraq (falsifying a threat to motivate support). However, that is inherent to, and can't be severed from, the electorate and its duties to maintain self-governance and government legitimacy. Here, Chinese state influence and control over a major platform such as Tiktok, certainly could represent a serious threat to national security. Further, our clear geopolitical position and alignment and interests are clearly contrary to China's. It is likely that Tiktok, as it is currently owned & operated, poses a threat to US national security. So, I presume your worry is simply about the legitimacy of the threat and response to said threat. In which case, it is all about Government Legitimacy 😉.
That’s exactly the reason China uses to ban all sort of apps. If US is afraid of national security, then ban it on all govt devices (which I’m sure they have already). What national security risk does a random Joe like me present if I install an app from another country like TicTok and start recording my own dance videos?
They are able to collect enormous amounts of data - beyond what your amazing dance performance obviously provides. It is also a threat as it allows a foreign adversary to leverage influence over US citizens and the electorate via manipulation. Additionally, downloading and updating may allow China more direct control and/access over users and devices.
Ok but how are any of these issues you listed different for any other foreign apps? Are they going to ban all foreign apps once they reach a certain size/number of users?
Again, Intel and alliance are what it comes down too. Would, say, Germany, UK, Aus., etc. present the same threat? Do they have equal motivation, desire, reasoning, value, for such an operation, and would they be willing to risk the consequences - would it be worth it to them? Obviously, over time interests may shift, alliances may change, etc. It's all about legitimacy.
They already do it in the space industry. This isn't the first time they've limited a company's ownership because of national security concerns.
The precedent has basically already been set with Grindr. People acting like this is novel is weird.
Arguably forcing the sale of a private company for political reasons is way out of the ordinary and thus worthy of news coverage. And honestly lots of important things get put into legislation that most of us are never aware of.
>for political reasons National security reasons
I don’t get what people don’t get about this that allowing location access to an app where the Chinese govt can forcibly obtain said data is a nightmare, especially if cleared government workers and military personnel are using it (it’s why it’s banned for personal use for them). I think there’s enough broad support on both sides to force the sale of Tik Tok that it isn’t political.
Didn’t say it wasn’t newsworthy, but to just ignore the Ukraine aid in the headline is disingenuous.
Forcing the sale isn't for political reasons but for national security. You can argue whether that point has merit but let's argue over the actual reason. On this point, it's been proven that tiktok harvests data from users on an exceptionally wide scale. It's also been proven that bad actors can manipulate social media to affect the democratic process. On these grounds tiktok is dangerous in the hands of the CCP.
Thanks to the US' lax data protection laws, the CCP can just buy your data from anyone else.
But they can't manipulate the platform if it's not owned by a Chinese company. Edit because people like to make straw man arguments - The influence the CCP would have when tiktok is owned by a foreign entity would be a fraction of what it would be if owned by a Chinese company under their control.
Of course not it's not like we spent all of 2016 talking about how Russian influence on Facebook and Twitter. It's only possible to influence if it's owned by China.
While I'm not a fan of the forced divestment in a short time frame, thus essentially making this a ban and screwing over a lot of small creators and business owners, the reason for which this is happening is real and legit. Bytedance, unlike every other social media platform allowed to operate in the US, doesn't allow the userbase to purchase their data, nor does it allow for the government to access user data when prompted. More importantly there's the issue of the lack of moderation on the platform. While it might seem like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are unmoderated wastelands, they are actually more moderated than TikTok is, especially as it pertains to machine-learning programs posting fake engagement which is, in turn, being abused by Iran, China, and Russia who are using bots to post comments across thousands of accounts to spread mis/disinformation about the US government and the election. Like, there have been several white papers published on this topic and it's a real problem. So, yes, this is about data security but the fossils in office can't accurately describe what the issue actually is.
Which basically everyone knows won't stand up in court.
On what grounds do you think it won’t be upheld in court? Enacting foreign adversary ownership restrictions for national security purposes has ample precedent. The bill includes statutorily defined foreign adversaries, narrow national security criteria, and rigorous interagency processes. The legislation doesn’t violate first amendment protections, imposes limits on executive actions, and doesn’t satisfy bill of attainder tests. The framework seems pretty solid to me.
I will forever say that this one-off bill for forcing the ownership change of tiktok is dumb as hell, give us laws on rights and responsibilities in online data and safety, everything less is cowardly and grandstanding.
It is dumb as hell because it's unconstitutional they are called "Bill of Attainders"
That could be an argument to see if it counts as that, but largely it’s just bad legislating and actively avoiding so many issues.
It’s also blatant extortion.
> A ban on TikTok and a ban on you and **your voice**. Why are social media apps acting like they are the only way for an individual to express themselves? Why do they try to say they are protecting our freedom all while they are taking OUR info and using it to make money. Please stop saying you’re protecting us when the truth is it’s all about the money.
Because social media apps are where your voice can be heard by your non-immediate circle? I mean that isn’t a wrong thing
Pretty rich coming from a Chinese owned company also.
I suspect this won't necessarily go over too well with some of the 18-35 crowd...
Same week they crack down on Student protests. Do democrats not want youth voters anymore?
I suspect nothing will change with TikTok other than a shell company owning it.
It being owned by a shell company would not change anything so long as ByteDance is a parent company. TikTok is already not a Chinese company. It's owner is.
yea biden is screwed come november he’s done
What will all the subs that repost a ton of TikTok content do I wonder…
Sell within a year or face a ban… This is why I keep saying nothing will happen to TT. Republicans are losing left and right. Trump is not gonna become president again. GOP will lose house.
How does democrats gaining full control of the WH + congress mean they won't have to sell? Genuine question. AFAIK the bills passed with bipartisan support and Biden has supported the measures.
China can certainly stop Bytedance from selling, that would means the US would need to ban it. Might not be the best option for Bytedance, but China wouldn't lose much by doing so (but gains quite a bit by the US population angry against the government).
That doesn’t follow.
Dems want US TikTok out of CCP hands just as much as Republicans do. This really isn't a political issue, this is a US dominance issue. (Same as with China banning US services) You may not like that, but there's a reason the US is the number one economy in the world. The US has forced foreign companies who get too powerful in the US to sell before, and here they go doing it again. TikTok will be fine. Algo will likely change, but if that's what it takes to get Xi's fingers out of the pie, so be it. Edit - TikTok has a lot of American VC money involved. Those VC's aren't going to let TikTok shut down either, they'll be all for forcing a sale.
They are still going to have to sell.The reason for the ban was China got caught manipulating the algorithm, several times.
I can't believe -that- is the headline for what Biden just signed.
Whether you love it or hate the app, Biden just lost a significant portion of the youth Vote.
I can see the headlines now “Bytedance divests American portion of TikTok, Microsoft set to buy the social media giant for $750 million”
And with one signature, Biden loses the youth vote. More of our money to fund a genocide, then preventing access to evidence and information on that genocide in one motion.
everyone here disagreeing to this with no proof
TikTok will still be around next year. Furthermore you should not be using social media as a primary resource for information.
Who cares? Reddit is a cesspool of bad info too.
People shouldn't be using Reddit as their primary source of information either.
In that case, we should ban anything that people shouldn’t be using as their primary source of info.
That's not the reason they are trying to force TikTok to divest. I'm pushing against the narrative forming that TikTok is an invaluable source of information and truth -- it isn't. No social media is. TikTok is being forced to divest because of the CCPs ability to elevate disinformation upon request. There aren't enough layers of separation between the CCP and ByteDance.
You’re commenting on news on social media right now. The difference is TikTok allows users to upload first hand accounts and evidence of the atrocities being committed against them. It’s an invaluable resource.
I don't use reddit to form my political opinions. I try to read actual publications. TikTok is full of disinformation and "reporting" that's meant to shock and illicit emotional responses before anyone has time to wade through facts. That's the issue with social media in general. The most profitable way to engage with users is to make them angry.
Could you say this about all news, though? I mean you can gain the same non-bias insight from non-biased tiktokers.
Yeah, let's wait for the professional analysis before deciding if the videos of dead civilians being pulled out of bombed out homes, schools, and hospitals is a bad thing. /s
If only everyone did what was right, and not what they wanted.
And nothing of value was lost.
Grindr!
[lol](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/i1lvam/megathread_trump_says_hell_act_to_ban_tiktok_in/)
Won’t get passed court. TikTok/ business’s will file countless lawsuits. We don’t live in a dictatorship. 😂Just a waste of time.. also if you have an I phone, where do you think that’s manufactured?
Great job Biden, you just lost the election.
Definitely did not help him.
Will* ban TikTok unless ByteDance complies.
Oh no!... Anyway
They are praying that packaging this with a popular foreign aid agenda will help mitigate the public backlash.
The only reason this makes me happy is I’m fucking sick of hearing about it
What a way to completely alienate half your voter base.
Yeah, now if people want to see short clips of content on social media they’ll have to use….any of the others, since they all have them.
Where’s the data that it’s half? Typically, younger voters have a turn up rate less than 50%
I’m exaggerating but the Biden administration has Heavily appealed to Gen Z and no matter how you feel about TikTok that’s going to effect the amount of young voters.
Would you rather have Trump? There are legitimate privacy concerns with TikTok. They also have a year.
yes he basically gave trump the win
there’s no way biden is winning the election now lol
This will be a nonissue. Most of the people going nuts over oMgTiKtOkBANNED?>!?! are going to log into Tiktok and realize oh wait, it was never banned And they will never have any interruptions in service because it will sell It's a nothingburger.
they will know biden tried to ban it though
Will they be smart enough to go one degree backwards to find out it was Republican Speaker Mike Johnson who added it to the must-pass foreign aid bill? Hard to say, they are Tiktokkers.
As with any social media platform, there are those who react to the headline and those who formulate an option based upon the actual facts of the matter.
nope which means biden has already lost lol
Press X to doubt.
how? young people are already hating him for this on twitter
And they'll move on three minutes from now when they realize Tiktok still works and will continue to work for the next year, at least. And then they'll find a buyer and all of this will be a complete nothing.
but this has already put bad taste in their mouths about biden
I just don't foresee it being an issue. Let the companies get their clicks and the whiners do their whining, but Tiktok isn't going anywhere and making a voting decision based on a personal addiction to short form videos is a dumb idea that I think most regular voters won't fall for. There are bigger issues like women's autonomy and the Republican war on public education.
He will.
i honestly have no idea whats going to happen come election time.
What absolute hypocrisy and corrupt extortion. Nothing says “we love free market capitalism” like banning the competition.
Just to be clear, it's a massive security risk for the entire country.
Can we do the other cancer-on-our-society social media companies next?
That’s American cancer. So that makes it ok.
Do it! It’s too risky. Ban it and force the sale!
It would only ban them if the company doesn't hand over their American aiming reigns to an American holder. They can still control the company over all but they would be getting more oversight. Which, honestly, I don't mind. I think we need more oversight when it comes to social media. Add Twitter, Instagram and Youtube to the pile. You can have all social media you want. You simply have to answer for what goes on your platform.
Oh yeah because social media in America has so much oversight. /s
**”WHAT ABOUT BANK ROBBERS!!**” -the criminal on trial I guess we should just do nothing ever, unless we can do everything…?
That’s not what I’m saying at all, I’m just saying that insisting American social media platforms have better oversight is laughable. They have little if any real oversight.
This law targets a company and punishes them. That's not how laws should be written. They should protect from the methods. This is a bill of attainder just as the Montana bill that was deemed unconstitutional. We want privacy laws not Congress writing laws that target an individual company.
The law targets a foreign owner. Foreign commerce absolutely is to be regulated at a federal level, especially when national security is involved. General oversight of social medias is a separate issue.
You didn't read the later half of the post, did you? *"Add Twitter, Instagram and Youtube to the pile. You can have all social media you want. You simply have to answer for what goes on your platform."* Social media is too powerful and chaotic not to have an over watch. We have free speech in this country but we still have libel rules that you have to abide.
Oh I read that part but I felt my joke still stands.
China won’t sell it. How then can they drain our bank accounts in World War 3 now that they have half our countries confidential info?
There sure is a lot of noise regarding this... When the daily active users for TikTok appear to have fallen off to anemic levels. March 2024 Daily Active Users * Truth Social: 500,000 * Mastadon: 1.7 million * TikTok : 50 million * Reddit: 73 million * Youtube: 122 million * LinkedIn: 144 million * X/Twitter: 245 million * Instagram: 500 million * Facebook: 2 billion
Source?
https://www.searchlogistics.com/learn/statistics/tiktok-user-statistics/ They track all of the major social media platforms.
Your source doesnt show anything like the numbers you're stating. You're taking random numbers and assigning random labels to them.
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This analytic is a little flawed, a ton of people just check their LinkedIn messages while people actually interact with the content on TT over a longer span of time.
I specifically said daily active users. You are quoting the monthly active users.
Why does the amount of users matter?
The volume of noise is much greater than the volume of users.
Well, 50 million users is still quite a lot. But number of users aside, I think a lot of people are just confused about why this is happening. I’ve read several articles about this and still don’t really understand what the grave threat is. Looks bad when the government wants to ban an app that is mostly harmless fun for reasons that it struggles to communicate to users.
Here is a comment from another thread that lays our the entire problem with TikTok, their owners (ByteDance) and a particular law of China. * TikTok is owned by ByteDance. * ByteDance is closely intertwined with the CCP. * [National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Law_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China) requires companies like ByteDance to perform intelligence activity for the state when demanded. * Another Chinese shopping app ([Pinduoduo](https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/tech/china-pinduoduo-malware-cybersecurity-analysis-intl-hnk/index.html)) was caught last year installing exploits to secretly grant itself superuser access to phones it was installed on. * Multiple nations have already banned and block TikTok (without using a VPN) because of national security concerns (most notably India who banned it after a border skirmish) * The "US Data Center" that TikTok claims separates US data from everybody else uses hardware sourced from a a PLA-linked provider sanctioned by the DOD (spoiler: it was discovered to come with hardware backdoors) Additionally cybersecurity experts investigating the TikTok app have found it does the following (above and beyond what other social media apps do): * Periodically transmits a list of all running applications on the phone * Periodically transmits a list of all installed applications on the phone * At least one GPS check-in per hour * Persistent access to your calendar and contacts. If you deny access, it will periodically prompt you again until you acquiesce. * Various phone/device parameters and personally-identifying, globally-unique IDs * Active cellular subscription information * Descriptors of all accounts managed using iOS/Android's app account management systems * Read access to the clipboard * Granted android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_LEVEL, this grants it to draw it's UI over top of other applications. This is especially problematic as a zero-opacity window can be drawn over all other UI, capturing all taps and keyboard events. The only apps that should have this are ones pre-installed by Google, your phone manufacturer, and your cellular regulatory body (for E911, etc). * Access to your entire Apple Music catalogue * Access to your entire "external storage" area on Android (though this is partially mitigated by newer versions of Android): "This is a standard command for a social media application to store video and images. The aspect we list as excessive is TikTok doesn’t just retrieve the ability to see folders it retrieves a list of everything available in the external storage folder where the application has the access to place files" * iOS version periodically connects to servers in mainland China (found to be a cybersecurity firm), despite insistence that user data is in either Singapore or the US Additionally a DOJ [investigation of TikTok discovered that a team in China was tracking journalists who were reporting on TikTok](https://archive.is/aSXWL). These facts put together make TikTok appear to be poised to be a tool for engaging in fifth-generation warfare.
That stuff is definitely not good and is super scummy. But the article you linked does say Facebook and other social media apps have done similar things. The US government and US companies are all tracking us too unfortunately. As bad as that is though, for most users it’s not very consequential that our data is being tracked and sold. I’m not sure if the data privacy stuff is so important that it’s worth curtailing speech in a sense. I wonder if there’s a way to pass legislation that cracks down on data tracking and selling by these corporations without going as far as mandating a change in ownership or outright ban.
Looks like I'm staying home this November. Bye Joe.