this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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[–] De_Narm@lemmy.world 217 points 1 month ago (13 children)

The last panel applies to every other social media, just replace the spying country.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 69 points 1 month ago (4 children)

That last part is becoming less and less relevant .... someone is spying but it isn't for the benefit or under the control of a country. More and more, the spying is meant more for the purposes of commerce and finance, for money and control. For business interests which is what major governments mainly represent.

[–] bahbah23@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago

And as soon as the government wants it, most companies hand it right over.

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

At this point, the line between business and government in the US is almost non-existent, so definitely still a government using your data for the propaganda machine.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 month ago

Reminds of my favourite description of the US ....

"The US isn't a country, it's a corporation with a military"

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[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 154 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 29 points 1 month ago (10 children)
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[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 109 points 1 month ago (30 children)
[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago (14 children)

We were trailblazers for a time. Other than that, we were always kind of fucked as a democratic system.

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 76 points 1 month ago (12 children)
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[–] Shortstack@reddthat.com 76 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Those are valid criticisms, but can equally be applied to all of the rest of our main social media platforms.

I’m not seeing a big difference here between TikTok and YouTube except that one is not able to be influenced or backdoored by the US government and the other is.

In essence the optics here look an awful lot like the US simply doesn’t like other nations mining their citizens data that they want for themselves, and having foreign control of the type of news being fed by their algorithm.

Just remember that before Snowden dropped a dime on the NSA, similar suspicions sounded pretty wacky too

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[–] FrankFrankson@lemmy.world 76 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

There is sooooo much weird conspiracy shit in these comments. The government is banning TikTok becuase they collect too much data and the Chinese government could eaisly get access to all of it. The correct thing to do would be to regulate data collection but that would be problematic for Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple..etc etc... so instead they just ban TikTok. All this TikTok refusing to spread deep state US govt propaganda horse shit is a bit past nuts.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 17 points 1 month ago (11 children)

This is a pretty sane explanation.

I'm also at least partially convinced that it's motivated by our social media giants' interest to "think of the children" their competition away.

Seeing as the order was basically "Get bought by an American corpo or get banned." They either plunder the competitor's insane data collection, userbase, and profits, or kick them off their corner.

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[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 71 points 1 month ago (20 children)

Imagine cheering that your government decided witch social media are you allowed to use.

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Well yeah, but it's the US government which hasn't ever done anything problematic before. I'm sure it's for everyone's best interest. /S

Which if that were true, still wouldn't matter.

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[–] Filthmontane@lemmy.world 65 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, I forgot the other social media apps don't collect data and spew propaganda. Oh wait... They do.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 37 points 1 month ago

Yeah but only for the benevolent western ultra rich oligarchs, so it's gucci.

[–] just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 58 points 1 month ago (40 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".

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[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 58 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah, only AMIERICAN companies can spy on our citizens and flood them with propaganda!

USA! USA! USA!

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[–] beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 57 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (13 children)

FTFY

edit : ooooh the wee St Petersburg trollies are tryin’ ta tryin’ ta ain’tcha!

News flash, responder-guys: if you’re even humans & not the AI bots who took most of your colleagues’ jobs, you’re still always be undervalued by your bosses. They’ll never, ever save you: they’ll save their Teslas and stock portfolios instead. Your life kinda sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it AND YOU CHOSE THIS LIFE, DIDNT YOU. Free yourself. Quit this shit job and go back to school before it’s too late.

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[–] MetalMachine 49 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (12 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.

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[–] hark@lemmy.world 44 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Can someone explain to me how it's worse for a foreign government to have your information than your own government having that same information? Your own government is far more likely to actually be able to do something about you.

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[–] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 40 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (23 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.

@EDIT: So it turns out the RESTRICT Act, that I was thinking of, and which banned VPNs, was shot down. And the current and approved Tiktok ban law doesn't do that. So. My b. This one is on me. I stand by "Americans are so fucking stupid oh my god", though, because you're still cheering for loss of net liberty.

[–] FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 1 month ago (2 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.

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[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 1 month ago (5 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.

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[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago (35 children)

"It's okay that the CCP pushes propaganda because billionaires do it too" - Tiktok defenders

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[–] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 28 points 1 month ago (14 children)

In this house, we only like propaganda that's covering up genocide. /s

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[–] konalt@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

i like my all-american freedom and liberty data collection and propaganda

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[–] jaschen@lemm.ee 25 points 1 month ago

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

[–] heavy@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Since this is the place for the most serious discussion:

If US lawmakers focused on protecting American's privacy with some sensible privacy laws coughGDPR equivalent cough, we could avoid pulling out the ban hammer to play whack-a-mole on these companies.

Companies would simply be punished by the law for being malicious or irresponsible with your data, forcing industries to take privacy seriously and make investments in protecting and not leaking it.

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[–] fox2263@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ho hum. TikTok ain’t going anywhere.

It will be banned for a short while, long enough for Trump to enforce sale to Meta in exchange for their absolute hard turn top to bottom in everything they do to help spread misinformation and keep the plebs angry.

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[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 23 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Maybe bring back Vine or something.

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

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[–] Cruxifux 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Americans complaining about other countries meddling in their affairs is such a hilarious hypocrisy. You guys have been the worst for ruining other countries around the world.

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[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago
[–] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

I found it interesting that this Tiktok regulation talk hit peak fervor around the time that youths were using tiktok to fully grasp the severity of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Meanwhile mainstream corporate media was painting a very different and dishonest story of the genocide.

We need broad regulation for social media in the US, not cherry picked fervor for political reasons.

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[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

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

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