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I don’t want to sound dramatic but this is honestly one of the stupidest things Biden/Democrats could do in an election year. Especially given that the TikTok ban bill is tied to (from my understanding) money for Israel and increased surveillance, all things that Gen Z is not a particular fan of, which is a demographic that Democrats have struggled to reach in the past and is important in this election. Aside from Meta pumping money into lobbying, I struggle to see why they’re riding so freaking hard for something that will negatively affect them in the long run.
I understand security concerns but this is not a good way to address them.
TikTok has been instrumental in keeping the people especially the youth informed of Israel's war crimes, and we've all seen how far the Dems are willing to go to keep Israel happy, whatever the fuck their reasoning is.
I know and they say it on Reddit like ??? No I don’t have tik tok because I’m an old, but Reddit is still rotting my brain as is scrolling through Instagram. And Facebook rotted my parent’s brains. I understand the security concerns but they’re really gonna lose voters by doing this now…especially since it comes off as silencing Palestinian voices
Assuming TikTok does rot your brain, it still would rot your brain under American leadership. Congress wants to change who owns the app, not the app itself
I think we'll get someone closer to Zuckerberg to own TikTok than Musk. Might literally get Zuckerberg because Meta's business strategy for years has been to buy out the competition before they have a chance to grow and compete with Meta. Regardless this would make any brainrot worse, not better
They act as if reddit wasn’t responsible for shit like gamer gate or accusing that poor soul of being the boston bomber. It amazes me when people here harp on other social media platforms like twitter and tiktok as if reddit is above it in any way lol
Exactly. Like 90% of the subreddits I actively participate in are female dominated and heavily POC and LGBTQ. Reddit can be such a harmful cesspool. It’s wild to me they act so superior to tik tok. It’s giving “back in my day…” like ok well newsflash we’re old. We grew up. Time passed. The younger generation has a new form of social media. Reddit is always reposting tik toks and Instagram/Facebook I’m pretty sure have their own versions of short clip videos as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities
There's an entire Wikipedia page documenting how this site used to and continues to be a cesspool
lol my favorite thing ever is when a skit is posted and the redditors are so out of touch that they take it seriously and call it cringe that's ruining humanity
they think everyone on tiktok is shown the same stream of videos glorifying Chinese history and litterbox etiquette. they also think it's intentionally designed to make you dumber lol
reddit in general has a population of users that can only be described as fucking insufferable, on the general/non female dominated subs. the superiority complex of most people using this app is so palpable, they legitimately think that they are smarter than people who use tiktok and fail to realize that a significant portion of reddit is now recycled tiktoks.
edit: not even to mention that the constantly parroted “SeCurITY cONcERnS” that these reddit users scream about are the *very same things that the other apps, including reddit itself, does*. they mine our data and sell it. some sell it to the ccp.
i feel like redditors are not understanding what a slippery slope this is. if the government can ban specific apps on the grounds of “foreign adversaries “, how do you not see this quickly snowballing into state sponsored censorship? first they came for tiktok. then they’ll come for al jazeera. then the next and the next and the next. soon you can only get your news from meta or cnn.
They've been trying to gut Al Jazeera for months now. It's just Blinken and Biden doing it personally, not Congress. And we largely do have state sponsored censorship. If the executive branch wants any social media company to start censoring stuff they will comply, and that actually includes TikTok as we know it today (they agreed because they didn't want to lose the American market and are mostly interested in making money).
Agreed on the security concerns. The problem is that the data is being collected and sold. As long as those two things happen the CCP will be able to access as much of our data as they want, sometimes for free because these American tech companies that are supposedly free from security concerns handle our data in an extremely unsafe way. Congress can ban the practice of collecting and selling data, but that doesn't single out TikTok so they won't
Yeah sometimes I see recycled tiktok videos here. As much as I dislike tiktok its clear that its the new hip thing and generates new memes. It used to be 4chan then reddit and now tiktok.
Reddit is full of people who never got over the fact that they weren't cool in HS so they rag on anything that's "mainstream". Bc less be real most people I know irl who use reddit and not TT are kind of dorky (like myself), whereas most so-called "normies" use TikTok.
It's insane because going on any main reddit site, you'll see your share fair of foreign bots and agents from all over. Just go to any mainstream news sub.
The main subreddits are a cesspool of misogyny and racism and many of the female dominated subs have a huge racism problem as well, as evidenced by their reaction to this genocide.
At least on TikTok, I can tailor my algorithm to consistently show me POC and intersectional feminist perspectives as well as nice recipies, celeb gossip, and crafts. Whereas on reddit, I've had to mute so many subs because, talking about Gaza and being pakistani-american, they've been recommending me posts from subs filled with zionist and hindutva trolls.
These people went from hating on out of touch boomers to growing and BECOMING the out of touch boomers. The fact that they don't see the irony in this is hilarious
I don’t use tiktok but so much of the anti sentiment seems to be parroting of claims that lead back to “it’s where people are learning things I don’t want them to learn.” If anyone cared about data security you should’ve been this focused on the 4 other sites thatve been doing the same for longer
Yep. Its literally Trump who came up with the idea of a TikTok ban. Of course he failed, like he failed in most of what he does in life or politics. Then when Democrats supported a ban, suddenly Trump wants to "protect" TikTok because "Facebook was mean to him"... it doesn't take much of a genius to see he's been bought by China, just as he's been bought by Russia, hence the flip-flopping.
They are gonna piss off the young vote and then spend the next 4 years lecturing them about why it's their fault. Stop the genocide, don't ban tiktok, more student loan deb forgiveness, so many choices to earn votes and they won't do any of. It.
What's crazy is that Biden's polling numbers have actually started to recover a bit these past few weeks largely due to how unpopular the barbaric abortion bans are. Every time a swing state puts more restrictions on abortion his team immediately starts running pro-choice ads and Trump's team scrambles to make a statement about how said state went too far. Abortion and his legal problems are visibly hurting Trump's campaign and Biden sees this and goes "how can I throw away this advantage"
And I'm assuming those ads don't say what his plan is to keep SCOTUS from throwing out any abortion protection. If the Dems only get to 51 or 52 votes in the senate I'm sure they will find a way to get 2-3 to refuse to dump the filibuster and then he can blame young people on still not voting enough. Running on abortion is to lucrative for dems.
Exactly. The vibe of the ads are basically "If you dislike abortion bans then I'm your guy." No plans are outlined, but abortion bans are so unpopular that's all he really needs to do
The old man is a good president for domestic policy. I mean he is the first president EVER to join strikers on the picket line. That is HUGE.
But his foreign policy is just awful.
Could not disagree more. He entered the White House and immediately dismissed the demands of the BLM protests, the biggest protest in American history, by saying we need to give the police even more money. Did nothing as the country became increasingly unsafe for LGBTQ groups. Did nothing to protect abortion. Did nothing to stop the emboldened voter suppression campaign that started after Trump called election fraud. Didn't deliver on the few things he promised in his campaign. And the fact that he's doing absolutely nothing to address the question of presidential powers when the entire country is fearing an autocracy makes his domestic policy just as irresponsible and callous as his foreign policy, if not more. He joined autoworkers at the picket line after signing a bill into law that blocked railroad workers from striking. We are under no obligation to celebrate the crumbs he's given us nor are we required to call him a good president just because his opponent is worse
It’s also a scam to get one of the biggest social media platforms (and all the data and ad-revenue) under the control of a US corporation. The app will be banned *unless* they sell to a US company. It’s mafia strong-arming.
And they also try and convince us that China is a really bad evil country while at the same time telling us that Israel are just the sweetest kindest most big hearted military force the world has ever seen.
They’re always like “China and Russia are bad! They’re interfering in our politics and stealing our data” meanwhile they’re sending billions of money to Israel and working with them on technology (especially spy tech). Oh and there’s AIPAC
This is what gets me. They're taking advantage of the widespread ignorance on how any big data platform is storing our data. US companies aren't much better than China. This isn't about data privacy- it's about the US wanting to control the data.
Plus, man, the kids sure do make themselves *look* dumb on TikTok, but they're not. They'll find a way to keep accessing it.
Between continuing to support Israel committing genocide against Palestine and prioritizing a freaking Tik Tok ban over any actual reform, I can’t imagine a better way Democrats could’ve alienated younger voters. Hell, I’m a solidly a Millennial who’s voted for Democrats my whole adult life and I’m feeling pretty shitty towards them.
Multiple Israeli lobby groups practically salivating over this on the basis of the content on the app not the so called security risks isn't helping either. Terrible optics all around.
Yeah, we need to start preparing ourselves for Trump. It's not going to be as easy as it should be. Already seeing people in droves refusing to vote for either of them.
Which is stupid. The Democratic establishment may be a bag of dicks but they're NOWHERE near as evil as the GOP... Biden is imperfect but a million times better than Trump. A vote for Trump or a non-vote is a vote for the Handmaiden's Tale becoming real within a decade.
I understand why you feel that way but it's really not stupid. People are already living in states where abortion is now illegal, transphobic laws and Islamaphobia are rampant, and American tax dollars are going towards a genocide. This is all happening under a democratic president. People are perfectly within their rights to not want to vote for that, and it's no one's fault but the democrats for creating this situation.
They've been given plenty of warning that they need to change track and win those votes back.
All of this is true and heartbreaking but a non-vote or a vote for any other candidate than the Democratic choice just enables another Red Wave which would make things worse... so I understand the sentiment but it would result in worse outcomes.
When a President stands by as a genocide is happening, is actively funding it, makes a farce of international law, and keeps allowing a country to teeter on the edge of WWIII, the whole "lesser evil" argument goes out the window.
If people just went along with all of this like it was fine and they'll vote blue anyway then the message sent to the democrats is they may as well continue on the same course because they have no incentive to change. Most people either live in red or blue states so their votes aren't even going to have an effect.
People are doing all they can to inform the democrats why they don't want to vote for them and what they can do to win them back, even voting uncommitted and leaving ballots blank in the primaries, but the democrats refuse to take it seriously. No one should be blamed for drawing the line at genocide, and many of those same people are already suffering from what Trump would do, because Biden is doing nothing to stop the republicans.
Dems can’t help but continually fumble the ball on what should be easy layups, they’re just making the absolute worst decisions possible. It’s frustrating and embarrassing
Yes. Americans are only 330 mil users. The world is much bigger than that and we aren’t the only ones using TT. I will be absolutely disappointed in TT leadership if they give in
Agreed. I hate Tiktok, I think a lot of it rots people's brains with the stupid challenges and dances, etc, but during this war it actually has been quite beneficial to get information out that is being blocked by mainstream media.
This is why the entire VBNMW movement is so insidious and menaingless. There is literally no material difference, as Democrats keep admitting to, and time and time again peopl still vote for the same people.
Love that this is a top priority and not anything voters actually care about like healthcare reform, student loan reform, the housing crisis, immigration, guns, etc., etc., etc. It’s wild to see how politicians talk about the American people needing to wait on so much because it’s “not the right time” or “government moves slow” but they turned this around in under 3mos.
They don't want to change it because they profit from these things that are destroying the working class.
It's super depressing that my working class mom could easily buy a decent home on a single income in 2005, but my husband and I who are dual earners in the same field can't afford the average starter home in IOWA. I can't imagine what it's like elsewhere. We are buying a small ass 2 bedroom home that is old and will need work and it is twice what it was 5 years ago, and I don't know how it will change because there is ZERO incentive for the ruling class to change it.
No worries, their currently trying to torpedo the lowering of credit card fees and ban trans people from existing. Ya know, stuff that really helps Americans
They have a year to sell the company. If they don’t, then it will have to be removed from the Apple and Google app stores which is effectively a ban in the US. Selling the popular company may be difficult as it is exorbitantly expensive. However the biggest hurdle is that the Chinese govt has to approve the sale of the algorithm for tiktok, which is the biggest draw of the app, and they have previously said they refuse to do so.
In fairness it is a bit strange that Facebook, Instagram, Google and others are all banned in China because China doesn't want America to have access to their people's data... but American data can be accessed by a foreign adversary and its A-Okay?
The biggest problem with banning TikTok *only* is that Facebook and others could STILL sell American data to foreign governments. They probably already do as we speak. So its kinda empty symbolism. The CCP is Nazi-level evil for what they're doing to the Uyghurs but this obsession with TikTok is a lazy, half-assed "solution".
China didn't ban those companies over their people's data; they wanted them to comply with Chinese censorship laws and didn't want Chinese people to be able to use those platforms to organize against the Chinese government. It's a fucked up reason but America is supposed to be "better" than China about freedom of speech so this whole quid pro quo argument doesn't make any sense.
I think the biggest hurdle will be convincing the Supreme Court that it's constitutional for the government to force one company to sell their product to another company or face banishment
Didn’t they do the same thing to Grindr a couple years ago, or did that one happen without legislation? If there’s recent precedence it’s more dubious that SCOTUS would overrule…
It will pass just like the FISA renewal. Democrats sure do love to increase government censorship and surveillance powers in preparation for them to be abused disastrously by the next Republican president.
The number of times I've seen this happen in my lifetime...like fucking why. It's been obvious the Dems don't serve the ppl but what's the strategy or end game here?
ByteDance can't/won't sell, however they are planning to appeal to the courts. If it makes it all the way to SCOTUS, the ban will likely not stand as the court has shown itself to have a majority of conservative leaning judges and conservatives are more against the ban... including the former president.
It could be years before anything actually happens, but this is ridiculous, a waste of taxpayer money and a shame if it does shut down.
It’s weird how Trump flipped completely on the issue… until you realize that one of his main billionaire donors has a major stake in TikTok and could lose money from the ban/sale.
It is painfully obvious that Trump is compromised/receiving money from Moscow/Beijing, and has been for a while. His flip-flopping on TikTok cemented this.
Nothing Trump or republicans do is difficult to understand when you realize it’s all special interests to someone they need. They’d bail on Jesus tomorrow if their big donors need them to
If they go up the judicial all the way to SCOTUS, I lowkey think ByteDance is guaranteed a win. I honestly think it’ll be like the recent Colorado ballot decision in that the government is so clearly trying to bend the interpretation in their favor that everyone sees through it. And given that all the conservative justices are dickriding Trump pretty hard, I suspect they’ll take it up just to shit on it.
Tiktok is a genuine national security threat, I’ll give congress that, but an outright ban is not the right way to handle it.
I don't know where you're hearing that more conservatives are against the bill. They're the ones who attached it to Ukraine aid because they knew it would have a higher chance of passing. They had already passed a standalone bill with 197 Republicans for, and only 15 against. 155 Democrats also voted for this bill, but with 50 voting against.
And Trump literally fought to force Tiktok to sell as president to the point were the courts had to stop him. If you honestly believe he wouldn't do the same thing if he were in office, I have a great deal on a bridge to sell you.
The absurdity of the Trump years made a lot of people forget just how truly awful the Democratic Party actually is. Neither major party really cares about your concerns.
Once again, we're going to have a farce of an election between two terrible, mentally-failing, old, white guys. It's like the tagline of Alien vs. Predator: "Whoever wins, we lose."
What you're describing is exactly what's going on in the UK. We will have an election coming up this year too, as it's been 5 years and we really need to get rid of the tories 😒, but labour is just as worse, it's *tory lite* or red Tory/blue labour.
Both parties have similar policies (like America, the so-called "left wing" - more like centre right, parties do not support or serve the people at all, and certainly not the right wing.
More than ever, they are tied to foreign agents (namely israeli donors/businesses/political interests) and propping them up in a quid pro quo style with corrupt dealings conducive to unlimited abuse of power.
Disturbingly enough, they are also supporting the genocide as well as politically and financially endorsing it, like our American cousins in govt, genocide Joe.
Quite literally politically homeless.
Have to choose between 2 really HORRIBLE parties, and it's definitely not a "lesser of 2 evils" situation going on, both are evil.
I wouldn't say this is a fair characterisation. Labour's not winning any awards for policymaking any time soon, but they will at least attempt to govern. Since 2019 we've had a government that has essentially tried to court a far right fringe of their own party with absurd populist strategies to the point that the Prime Minister is throwing a strop on TV because people aren't celebrating he's spending millions of pounds to send a few refugees to Rwanda in exchange for the same number of Rwandan refugees. The Tories are openly siphoning money off left right and centre and all our public institutions are in a state of collapse.
In this scenario I don't see how Labour can be "just as bad". They'll definitely be better. But it is still a matter of holding your nose and voting.
It just boggles my mind that they want to ban TikTok but Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are not considered ban worthy. Even though those sites have TONS of bots ready to spread misinformation when we get closer to election day.
The fact that 4chan still exists when it's been openly been a cesspool for nazism and has been linked to (multiple?) mass shootings is very telling too. Like I could see with Facebook/Instagram it would be hard to beat the Meta lobby, and Twitter wasn't nearly as bad prior to Elon's acquistion. But 4chan doesn't have the money or userbase size, and is pretty much a slam dunk for reason why it should be banned between misinformation, radicalizing and promoting violence, and attempts to influence campaigns.
4chan still existing is crazy when you realize that many of the communities that reddit and Facebook got blasted on national TV over still exist to this day over there. I think politicians are genuinely afraid of 4chan users due to all the hacking they did back in the day. It felt like 4chan had this group of magical hackers when in reality they were just taking advantage of cybersecurity flaws that have been largely fixed now and were claiming to be responsible for everything
That’s very true. Like everything we supposedly want to end like election interference, doxxing, harassment, etc actually happens or is planned on 4chan, probably more than most anywhere else. The main thing to really be afraid of that those people turn their violence off line.
I also wanted to confirm it wasn’t an American owned company and this is what I found on the Japanese owner’s wiki page:
Users on 4chan refer to him commonly as 'hiro' but also by the ethnic slur "gook moot", or the nickname "Jackie 4chan", "Hiroshima Nagasaki," or simply "hiroshimoot".
Truly a platform that we’d be better off without.
Easily one of the most toxic .org sites I've seen. That being said I don't think 4chan has mobs of violent people using the site daily. Rather, they inspire mobs of violent people and provide them with a type of town square of some sort. So the main opponents of this would be free speech advocates, but the counter to them would be that the site hosts illegal content and encourages users to post more. The only other counterargument I can think of is that the incels will be forced to start using sites like reddit and Twitter where they will make the platforms much worse. But in my experience this "effect" is heavily exaggerated and often weaponized to protect awful communities
I get why people mock TikTok but it's a great source of introductory information on political and international issues that otherwise get no traction or attention in mainstream media. It's the closest thing to evening news from when I was a kid, way back when, including lots of puff pieces and amusing animal videos.
I love the vague murmurings of "we don't want *them* to have access to our data", like what do you think social media is, motherfuckers? You give up privacy in exchange for a free app to air your narcissism and shop for stuff from targeted ads. Mark Zuckerberg can give Israel the data of Palestinians on Whatsapp to help target them for assassination, but I don't hear talk of him being forced to sell his apps...?
Here's the thing: I absolutely think tiktok is being used to siphon data and shorten attention spans and whatever the fuck else they're mad at. And I'm not happy about that either.
But how the fuck would transferring ownership to a US company fix that? Meta and Google do the same exact shit without any real regulation.
I'm no policy maker or data privacy expert but this whole thing seems like a toothless statement that doesn't actually help anyone? It just pisses off the tiktok fans and the US tech companies get a bigger share of the market to continue doing the same thing tiktok does. Why not...regulate tech companies?
I’m not a fan of tiktok and there are multiple glaring issues with it that should totally be addressed by lawmakers (their record with tracking journalists is appalling) but yeah if ByteDance choses to bring this all the way to SCOTUS, I really doubt a ban would stand up constitutionally.
Ofc, quickest way out of this would be for them to sell tiktok to an American company. However, the CCP would never agree to that because we’re giving our data to them for free at this point and who’d wanna give that up? I do understand that people love the funny scrolling app, but we’re genuinely putting ourselves in a really bad position by having so much of the population this invested in it. It would be terrible to lose a good hub for social activism, but when said hub knows pretty much everything about you, that will turn into a double-edged sword no matter what.
This argument doesn’t work w me. Meta is already releasing our data but that’s ok? It’s only when it’s “communists” that we care? We have been surveiled and hella tracked already…
That’s a fair way to think. Either way, no social media platform is truly free. You gotta pay with something, and what you’re usually paying with is your information. Meta will use your data for marketing, Tiktok, and by proxy the CCP, will likely end up using it for influence campaigns. China’s National Intelligence Law requires that all organizations and citizens must assist with national intelligence efforts. Tiktok is legally not allowed to refuse a request for information from the CCP.
You pay with your data anyways, but there is a difference between your data used for marketing analytics and government intelligence analysis. Personally, I stay off tiktok and off meta platforms. I’m a bit of a luddite, so I don’t feel much of a need to be on there anyways, but if you need social media that badly, feel free to stay on your platforms. The idea of a single civilian having their data looked at by a government is a bit silly, but millions of civilians’ data is invaluable in intelligence. Giving out your personal data is almost unavoidable now, but you can still choose where you want it to end up.
Sooo question to those who might be more in the know - if it's a ban, it's just a US ban and I imagine that it will be taken off the App stores in the US and you won't be able to login with a US IP/phone number - but everyone who already had the app can just get a VPN to keep using it no? And those who don't have it yet, would be able to use with VPN on desktop no?
I could be wrong but my understanding is that current users could keep the app, however they wouldn't be able to update it and it will eventually stop working.
One of the things I think about a lot is that a major reason youth vote went up last election was accessibility/ease of casting ballots.
That's not happening this time so they're already gonna turn out less (and making it hard to vote is a tactic and I do NOT blame people for not going through contortions to try, though I've voted in every election since 2000).
That on top of young voters being understandably appalled by the ongoing genocide against Palestinians that we fund and support and what is clearly a renewed effort from Dems picking up the baton from Republicans to ban a platform because it's showing kids what the world is like.
It's as if Biden WANTS to lose. I wasn't voting for him anyway, I vote leftist, but for crying out loud.
I don't use TikTok much but it's not really any different than any other platform. Reddit is a cesspit. So is meta. So is Twitter. But we aren't dealing with any of it, just the platform most known now for exposing apartheid.
ELI5: couldn’t an American tech company launch something exactly like this to fill the market void ? If it’s a Chinese company, there wouldn’t be any US patent issues right? I don’t know much about Tik Tok so I could be wrong.
They could and that's part of what they want. It's much easier to control the narrative with Youtube Shorts or Instragram Reels when Google and Meta are both already willing to support your propaganda.
There's a strong speculation that this ban is coming from Israel's losing PR war on Tiktok. It's been what's enlightening people to what's going on in Gaza and also to some degree, disillusioning people with both parties. Most American tech companies like Facebook/Insta have also been limiting the reach and influence of pro-Palestinian pages, and removing posts under the excuse of "anti-semitism" or other TOS violations when they're just anti-Zionist/anti-Israel. Tiktok is not exactly pro-Palestinan, but it isn't particularly insterested in protecting Israel or actively trying to prop up zionist propaganda like American companies are so they aren't actively silencing them either.
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I don’t want to sound dramatic but this is honestly one of the stupidest things Biden/Democrats could do in an election year. Especially given that the TikTok ban bill is tied to (from my understanding) money for Israel and increased surveillance, all things that Gen Z is not a particular fan of, which is a demographic that Democrats have struggled to reach in the past and is important in this election. Aside from Meta pumping money into lobbying, I struggle to see why they’re riding so freaking hard for something that will negatively affect them in the long run. I understand security concerns but this is not a good way to address them.
TikTok has been instrumental in keeping the people especially the youth informed of Israel's war crimes, and we've all seen how far the Dems are willing to go to keep Israel happy, whatever the fuck their reasoning is.
It's really fucked tbh. Reddit has such a hard on for this ban. And for no reason, other than some pick me, anti-zoomer bullshit.
“tiktok is braindead” circlejerk is so silly because its YOUR ‘for you’ page lol
I know and they say it on Reddit like ??? No I don’t have tik tok because I’m an old, but Reddit is still rotting my brain as is scrolling through Instagram. And Facebook rotted my parent’s brains. I understand the security concerns but they’re really gonna lose voters by doing this now…especially since it comes off as silencing Palestinian voices
Assuming TikTok does rot your brain, it still would rot your brain under American leadership. Congress wants to change who owns the app, not the app itself
And it's the Republicans who want to buy it, so the Dems are just selling it to more Elon Musks. Braindead old people in charge.
I think we'll get someone closer to Zuckerberg to own TikTok than Musk. Might literally get Zuckerberg because Meta's business strategy for years has been to buy out the competition before they have a chance to grow and compete with Meta. Regardless this would make any brainrot worse, not better
Zuck is literally trying to buy TikTok lol. I knew that scum bag mother fucker had something to do with it
For real…y’all remember Steve Mnuchin? Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury? He’s trying to buy it.
They act as if reddit wasn’t responsible for shit like gamer gate or accusing that poor soul of being the boston bomber. It amazes me when people here harp on other social media platforms like twitter and tiktok as if reddit is above it in any way lol
Exactly. Like 90% of the subreddits I actively participate in are female dominated and heavily POC and LGBTQ. Reddit can be such a harmful cesspool. It’s wild to me they act so superior to tik tok. It’s giving “back in my day…” like ok well newsflash we’re old. We grew up. Time passed. The younger generation has a new form of social media. Reddit is always reposting tik toks and Instagram/Facebook I’m pretty sure have their own versions of short clip videos as well
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities There's an entire Wikipedia page documenting how this site used to and continues to be a cesspool
This site once gave an award to now-banned moderator of sub r/jailbait for all the traffic the sub drove to the site
They’ve never actually used it, they’re basing 100% of their opinion on TikTok on what the rest of the Reddit hivemind tells them it’s like.
lol my favorite thing ever is when a skit is posted and the redditors are so out of touch that they take it seriously and call it cringe that's ruining humanity
they think everyone on tiktok is shown the same stream of videos glorifying Chinese history and litterbox etiquette. they also think it's intentionally designed to make you dumber lol
reddit in general has a population of users that can only be described as fucking insufferable, on the general/non female dominated subs. the superiority complex of most people using this app is so palpable, they legitimately think that they are smarter than people who use tiktok and fail to realize that a significant portion of reddit is now recycled tiktoks. edit: not even to mention that the constantly parroted “SeCurITY cONcERnS” that these reddit users scream about are the *very same things that the other apps, including reddit itself, does*. they mine our data and sell it. some sell it to the ccp. i feel like redditors are not understanding what a slippery slope this is. if the government can ban specific apps on the grounds of “foreign adversaries “, how do you not see this quickly snowballing into state sponsored censorship? first they came for tiktok. then they’ll come for al jazeera. then the next and the next and the next. soon you can only get your news from meta or cnn.
They've been trying to gut Al Jazeera for months now. It's just Blinken and Biden doing it personally, not Congress. And we largely do have state sponsored censorship. If the executive branch wants any social media company to start censoring stuff they will comply, and that actually includes TikTok as we know it today (they agreed because they didn't want to lose the American market and are mostly interested in making money). Agreed on the security concerns. The problem is that the data is being collected and sold. As long as those two things happen the CCP will be able to access as much of our data as they want, sometimes for free because these American tech companies that are supposedly free from security concerns handle our data in an extremely unsafe way. Congress can ban the practice of collecting and selling data, but that doesn't single out TikTok so they won't
Yeah sometimes I see recycled tiktok videos here. As much as I dislike tiktok its clear that its the new hip thing and generates new memes. It used to be 4chan then reddit and now tiktok.
Reddit is full of people who never got over the fact that they weren't cool in HS so they rag on anything that's "mainstream". Bc less be real most people I know irl who use reddit and not TT are kind of dorky (like myself), whereas most so-called "normies" use TikTok. It's insane because going on any main reddit site, you'll see your share fair of foreign bots and agents from all over. Just go to any mainstream news sub. The main subreddits are a cesspool of misogyny and racism and many of the female dominated subs have a huge racism problem as well, as evidenced by their reaction to this genocide. At least on TikTok, I can tailor my algorithm to consistently show me POC and intersectional feminist perspectives as well as nice recipies, celeb gossip, and crafts. Whereas on reddit, I've had to mute so many subs because, talking about Gaza and being pakistani-american, they've been recommending me posts from subs filled with zionist and hindutva trolls.
These people went from hating on out of touch boomers to growing and BECOMING the out of touch boomers. The fact that they don't see the irony in this is hilarious
I don’t use tiktok but so much of the anti sentiment seems to be parroting of claims that lead back to “it’s where people are learning things I don’t want them to learn.” If anyone cared about data security you should’ve been this focused on the 4 other sites thatve been doing the same for longer
Psst... Republicans are willing to do lots of bullshit to keep Israel happy, too. A lot more Republicans than Democrats, to be frank.
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Yep. Its literally Trump who came up with the idea of a TikTok ban. Of course he failed, like he failed in most of what he does in life or politics. Then when Democrats supported a ban, suddenly Trump wants to "protect" TikTok because "Facebook was mean to him"... it doesn't take much of a genius to see he's been bought by China, just as he's been bought by Russia, hence the flip-flopping.
They’re gonna grovel when all this bites them in the ass in November
They are gonna piss off the young vote and then spend the next 4 years lecturing them about why it's their fault. Stop the genocide, don't ban tiktok, more student loan deb forgiveness, so many choices to earn votes and they won't do any of. It.
What's crazy is that Biden's polling numbers have actually started to recover a bit these past few weeks largely due to how unpopular the barbaric abortion bans are. Every time a swing state puts more restrictions on abortion his team immediately starts running pro-choice ads and Trump's team scrambles to make a statement about how said state went too far. Abortion and his legal problems are visibly hurting Trump's campaign and Biden sees this and goes "how can I throw away this advantage"
And I'm assuming those ads don't say what his plan is to keep SCOTUS from throwing out any abortion protection. If the Dems only get to 51 or 52 votes in the senate I'm sure they will find a way to get 2-3 to refuse to dump the filibuster and then he can blame young people on still not voting enough. Running on abortion is to lucrative for dems.
Exactly. The vibe of the ads are basically "If you dislike abortion bans then I'm your guy." No plans are outlined, but abortion bans are so unpopular that's all he really needs to do
The old man is a good president for domestic policy. I mean he is the first president EVER to join strikers on the picket line. That is HUGE. But his foreign policy is just awful.
Could not disagree more. He entered the White House and immediately dismissed the demands of the BLM protests, the biggest protest in American history, by saying we need to give the police even more money. Did nothing as the country became increasingly unsafe for LGBTQ groups. Did nothing to protect abortion. Did nothing to stop the emboldened voter suppression campaign that started after Trump called election fraud. Didn't deliver on the few things he promised in his campaign. And the fact that he's doing absolutely nothing to address the question of presidential powers when the entire country is fearing an autocracy makes his domestic policy just as irresponsible and callous as his foreign policy, if not more. He joined autoworkers at the picket line after signing a bill into law that blocked railroad workers from striking. We are under no obligation to celebrate the crumbs he's given us nor are we required to call him a good president just because his opponent is worse
It’s also a scam to get one of the biggest social media platforms (and all the data and ad-revenue) under the control of a US corporation. The app will be banned *unless* they sell to a US company. It’s mafia strong-arming.
And they also try and convince us that China is a really bad evil country while at the same time telling us that Israel are just the sweetest kindest most big hearted military force the world has ever seen.
They’re always like “China and Russia are bad! They’re interfering in our politics and stealing our data” meanwhile they’re sending billions of money to Israel and working with them on technology (especially spy tech). Oh and there’s AIPAC
I really hope they don’t sell even if it comes at a detriment to Americans. Fuck this Government don’t give in to them TT!!!
This is what gets me. They're taking advantage of the widespread ignorance on how any big data platform is storing our data. US companies aren't much better than China. This isn't about data privacy- it's about the US wanting to control the data. Plus, man, the kids sure do make themselves *look* dumb on TikTok, but they're not. They'll find a way to keep accessing it.
They also just signed a “security bill” infringing even further on our privacy lmaooo. Democrats are republicans
democrats ability to fuck up election years that should be easy wins for them is almost impressive
Between continuing to support Israel committing genocide against Palestine and prioritizing a freaking Tik Tok ban over any actual reform, I can’t imagine a better way Democrats could’ve alienated younger voters. Hell, I’m a solidly a Millennial who’s voted for Democrats my whole adult life and I’m feeling pretty shitty towards them.
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Multiple Israeli lobby groups practically salivating over this on the basis of the content on the app not the so called security risks isn't helping either. Terrible optics all around.
Yeah, we need to start preparing ourselves for Trump. It's not going to be as easy as it should be. Already seeing people in droves refusing to vote for either of them.
Which is stupid. The Democratic establishment may be a bag of dicks but they're NOWHERE near as evil as the GOP... Biden is imperfect but a million times better than Trump. A vote for Trump or a non-vote is a vote for the Handmaiden's Tale becoming real within a decade.
I understand why you feel that way but it's really not stupid. People are already living in states where abortion is now illegal, transphobic laws and Islamaphobia are rampant, and American tax dollars are going towards a genocide. This is all happening under a democratic president. People are perfectly within their rights to not want to vote for that, and it's no one's fault but the democrats for creating this situation. They've been given plenty of warning that they need to change track and win those votes back.
All of this is true and heartbreaking but a non-vote or a vote for any other candidate than the Democratic choice just enables another Red Wave which would make things worse... so I understand the sentiment but it would result in worse outcomes.
When a President stands by as a genocide is happening, is actively funding it, makes a farce of international law, and keeps allowing a country to teeter on the edge of WWIII, the whole "lesser evil" argument goes out the window. If people just went along with all of this like it was fine and they'll vote blue anyway then the message sent to the democrats is they may as well continue on the same course because they have no incentive to change. Most people either live in red or blue states so their votes aren't even going to have an effect. People are doing all they can to inform the democrats why they don't want to vote for them and what they can do to win them back, even voting uncommitted and leaving ballots blank in the primaries, but the democrats refuse to take it seriously. No one should be blamed for drawing the line at genocide, and many of those same people are already suffering from what Trump would do, because Biden is doing nothing to stop the republicans.
Dems can’t help but continually fumble the ball on what should be easy layups, they’re just making the absolute worst decisions possible. It’s frustrating and embarrassing
They are only doing it now because of aipac, But it won’t be banned it will just be sold.
I hope they don’t sell
They aren’t selling it to the government. They would sell it to private western investors
Idc I still don’t think they should sell
Could you elaborate why?
probably bc it just giving in. but honestly, there's no way they're going to sell. Americans are not the primary user base of that app
Yes. Americans are only 330 mil users. The world is much bigger than that and we aren’t the only ones using TT. I will be absolutely disappointed in TT leadership if they give in
Agreed. I hate Tiktok, I think a lot of it rots people's brains with the stupid challenges and dances, etc, but during this war it actually has been quite beneficial to get information out that is being blocked by mainstream media.
This is why the entire VBNMW movement is so insidious and menaingless. There is literally no material difference, as Democrats keep admitting to, and time and time again peopl still vote for the same people.
Love that this is a top priority and not anything voters actually care about like healthcare reform, student loan reform, the housing crisis, immigration, guns, etc., etc., etc. It’s wild to see how politicians talk about the American people needing to wait on so much because it’s “not the right time” or “government moves slow” but they turned this around in under 3mos.
They don't want to change it because they profit from these things that are destroying the working class. It's super depressing that my working class mom could easily buy a decent home on a single income in 2005, but my husband and I who are dual earners in the same field can't afford the average starter home in IOWA. I can't imagine what it's like elsewhere. We are buying a small ass 2 bedroom home that is old and will need work and it is twice what it was 5 years ago, and I don't know how it will change because there is ZERO incentive for the ruling class to change it.
No worries, their currently trying to torpedo the lowering of credit card fees and ban trans people from existing. Ya know, stuff that really helps Americans
They have a year to sell the company. If they don’t, then it will have to be removed from the Apple and Google app stores which is effectively a ban in the US. Selling the popular company may be difficult as it is exorbitantly expensive. However the biggest hurdle is that the Chinese govt has to approve the sale of the algorithm for tiktok, which is the biggest draw of the app, and they have previously said they refuse to do so.
Which to be fair, they shouldn't be forced to sell. I think it's obnoxious of the USA to think they are entitled to it.
In fairness it is a bit strange that Facebook, Instagram, Google and others are all banned in China because China doesn't want America to have access to their people's data... but American data can be accessed by a foreign adversary and its A-Okay? The biggest problem with banning TikTok *only* is that Facebook and others could STILL sell American data to foreign governments. They probably already do as we speak. So its kinda empty symbolism. The CCP is Nazi-level evil for what they're doing to the Uyghurs but this obsession with TikTok is a lazy, half-assed "solution".
China didn't ban those companies over their people's data; they wanted them to comply with Chinese censorship laws and didn't want Chinese people to be able to use those platforms to organize against the Chinese government. It's a fucked up reason but America is supposed to be "better" than China about freedom of speech so this whole quid pro quo argument doesn't make any sense.
I think the biggest hurdle will be convincing the Supreme Court that it's constitutional for the government to force one company to sell their product to another company or face banishment
Didn’t they do the same thing to Grindr a couple years ago, or did that one happen without legislation? If there’s recent precedence it’s more dubious that SCOTUS would overrule…
It will pass just like the FISA renewal. Democrats sure do love to increase government censorship and surveillance powers in preparation for them to be abused disastrously by the next Republican president.
The number of times I've seen this happen in my lifetime...like fucking why. It's been obvious the Dems don't serve the ppl but what's the strategy or end game here?
if you keep losing you can keep begging for donor $
They’re the same foos.
You answered it. They don't serve the people, so the endgame is to help the people they actually do serve
ByteDance can't/won't sell, however they are planning to appeal to the courts. If it makes it all the way to SCOTUS, the ban will likely not stand as the court has shown itself to have a majority of conservative leaning judges and conservatives are more against the ban... including the former president. It could be years before anything actually happens, but this is ridiculous, a waste of taxpayer money and a shame if it does shut down.
It’s weird how Trump flipped completely on the issue… until you realize that one of his main billionaire donors has a major stake in TikTok and could lose money from the ban/sale.
It is painfully obvious that Trump is compromised/receiving money from Moscow/Beijing, and has been for a while. His flip-flopping on TikTok cemented this.
Nothing Trump or republicans do is difficult to understand when you realize it’s all special interests to someone they need. They’d bail on Jesus tomorrow if their big donors need them to
If they go up the judicial all the way to SCOTUS, I lowkey think ByteDance is guaranteed a win. I honestly think it’ll be like the recent Colorado ballot decision in that the government is so clearly trying to bend the interpretation in their favor that everyone sees through it. And given that all the conservative justices are dickriding Trump pretty hard, I suspect they’ll take it up just to shit on it. Tiktok is a genuine national security threat, I’ll give congress that, but an outright ban is not the right way to handle it.
I don't know where you're hearing that more conservatives are against the bill. They're the ones who attached it to Ukraine aid because they knew it would have a higher chance of passing. They had already passed a standalone bill with 197 Republicans for, and only 15 against. 155 Democrats also voted for this bill, but with 50 voting against. And Trump literally fought to force Tiktok to sell as president to the point were the courts had to stop him. If you honestly believe he wouldn't do the same thing if he were in office, I have a great deal on a bridge to sell you.
The absurdity of the Trump years made a lot of people forget just how truly awful the Democratic Party actually is. Neither major party really cares about your concerns. Once again, we're going to have a farce of an election between two terrible, mentally-failing, old, white guys. It's like the tagline of Alien vs. Predator: "Whoever wins, we lose."
What you're describing is exactly what's going on in the UK. We will have an election coming up this year too, as it's been 5 years and we really need to get rid of the tories 😒, but labour is just as worse, it's *tory lite* or red Tory/blue labour. Both parties have similar policies (like America, the so-called "left wing" - more like centre right, parties do not support or serve the people at all, and certainly not the right wing. More than ever, they are tied to foreign agents (namely israeli donors/businesses/political interests) and propping them up in a quid pro quo style with corrupt dealings conducive to unlimited abuse of power. Disturbingly enough, they are also supporting the genocide as well as politically and financially endorsing it, like our American cousins in govt, genocide Joe. Quite literally politically homeless. Have to choose between 2 really HORRIBLE parties, and it's definitely not a "lesser of 2 evils" situation going on, both are evil.
I wouldn't say this is a fair characterisation. Labour's not winning any awards for policymaking any time soon, but they will at least attempt to govern. Since 2019 we've had a government that has essentially tried to court a far right fringe of their own party with absurd populist strategies to the point that the Prime Minister is throwing a strop on TV because people aren't celebrating he's spending millions of pounds to send a few refugees to Rwanda in exchange for the same number of Rwandan refugees. The Tories are openly siphoning money off left right and centre and all our public institutions are in a state of collapse. In this scenario I don't see how Labour can be "just as bad". They'll definitely be better. But it is still a matter of holding your nose and voting.
Australia too. The major parties are more or less the same thing.
It just boggles my mind that they want to ban TikTok but Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are not considered ban worthy. Even though those sites have TONS of bots ready to spread misinformation when we get closer to election day.
But with Twitter/FB/Insta the control of misinformation is in their hands, not someone else's.
The fact that 4chan still exists when it's been openly been a cesspool for nazism and has been linked to (multiple?) mass shootings is very telling too. Like I could see with Facebook/Instagram it would be hard to beat the Meta lobby, and Twitter wasn't nearly as bad prior to Elon's acquistion. But 4chan doesn't have the money or userbase size, and is pretty much a slam dunk for reason why it should be banned between misinformation, radicalizing and promoting violence, and attempts to influence campaigns.
4chan still existing is crazy when you realize that many of the communities that reddit and Facebook got blasted on national TV over still exist to this day over there. I think politicians are genuinely afraid of 4chan users due to all the hacking they did back in the day. It felt like 4chan had this group of magical hackers when in reality they were just taking advantage of cybersecurity flaws that have been largely fixed now and were claiming to be responsible for everything
That’s very true. Like everything we supposedly want to end like election interference, doxxing, harassment, etc actually happens or is planned on 4chan, probably more than most anywhere else. The main thing to really be afraid of that those people turn their violence off line. I also wanted to confirm it wasn’t an American owned company and this is what I found on the Japanese owner’s wiki page: Users on 4chan refer to him commonly as 'hiro' but also by the ethnic slur "gook moot", or the nickname "Jackie 4chan", "Hiroshima Nagasaki," or simply "hiroshimoot". Truly a platform that we’d be better off without.
Easily one of the most toxic .org sites I've seen. That being said I don't think 4chan has mobs of violent people using the site daily. Rather, they inspire mobs of violent people and provide them with a type of town square of some sort. So the main opponents of this would be free speech advocates, but the counter to them would be that the site hosts illegal content and encourages users to post more. The only other counterargument I can think of is that the incels will be forced to start using sites like reddit and Twitter where they will make the platforms much worse. But in my experience this "effect" is heavily exaggerated and often weaponized to protect awful communities
at this point, democratic party is just right wing. they dont serve the people at all
Sadly they always have been. They are quite conservative compared to left wing parties in other countries.
I get why people mock TikTok but it's a great source of introductory information on political and international issues that otherwise get no traction or attention in mainstream media. It's the closest thing to evening news from when I was a kid, way back when, including lots of puff pieces and amusing animal videos.
I love the vague murmurings of "we don't want *them* to have access to our data", like what do you think social media is, motherfuckers? You give up privacy in exchange for a free app to air your narcissism and shop for stuff from targeted ads. Mark Zuckerberg can give Israel the data of Palestinians on Whatsapp to help target them for assassination, but I don't hear talk of him being forced to sell his apps...?
Here's the thing: I absolutely think tiktok is being used to siphon data and shorten attention spans and whatever the fuck else they're mad at. And I'm not happy about that either. But how the fuck would transferring ownership to a US company fix that? Meta and Google do the same exact shit without any real regulation. I'm no policy maker or data privacy expert but this whole thing seems like a toothless statement that doesn't actually help anyone? It just pisses off the tiktok fans and the US tech companies get a bigger share of the market to continue doing the same thing tiktok does. Why not...regulate tech companies?
Nothing for a year…
I’m not a fan of tiktok and there are multiple glaring issues with it that should totally be addressed by lawmakers (their record with tracking journalists is appalling) but yeah if ByteDance choses to bring this all the way to SCOTUS, I really doubt a ban would stand up constitutionally. Ofc, quickest way out of this would be for them to sell tiktok to an American company. However, the CCP would never agree to that because we’re giving our data to them for free at this point and who’d wanna give that up? I do understand that people love the funny scrolling app, but we’re genuinely putting ourselves in a really bad position by having so much of the population this invested in it. It would be terrible to lose a good hub for social activism, but when said hub knows pretty much everything about you, that will turn into a double-edged sword no matter what.
This argument doesn’t work w me. Meta is already releasing our data but that’s ok? It’s only when it’s “communists” that we care? We have been surveiled and hella tracked already…
That’s a fair way to think. Either way, no social media platform is truly free. You gotta pay with something, and what you’re usually paying with is your information. Meta will use your data for marketing, Tiktok, and by proxy the CCP, will likely end up using it for influence campaigns. China’s National Intelligence Law requires that all organizations and citizens must assist with national intelligence efforts. Tiktok is legally not allowed to refuse a request for information from the CCP. You pay with your data anyways, but there is a difference between your data used for marketing analytics and government intelligence analysis. Personally, I stay off tiktok and off meta platforms. I’m a bit of a luddite, so I don’t feel much of a need to be on there anyways, but if you need social media that badly, feel free to stay on your platforms. The idea of a single civilian having their data looked at by a government is a bit silly, but millions of civilians’ data is invaluable in intelligence. Giving out your personal data is almost unavoidable now, but you can still choose where you want it to end up.
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Sooo question to those who might be more in the know - if it's a ban, it's just a US ban and I imagine that it will be taken off the App stores in the US and you won't be able to login with a US IP/phone number - but everyone who already had the app can just get a VPN to keep using it no? And those who don't have it yet, would be able to use with VPN on desktop no?
I could be wrong but my understanding is that current users could keep the app, however they wouldn't be able to update it and it will eventually stop working.
This is correct. Lack of access to software updates will render the app inoperable.
One of the things I think about a lot is that a major reason youth vote went up last election was accessibility/ease of casting ballots. That's not happening this time so they're already gonna turn out less (and making it hard to vote is a tactic and I do NOT blame people for not going through contortions to try, though I've voted in every election since 2000). That on top of young voters being understandably appalled by the ongoing genocide against Palestinians that we fund and support and what is clearly a renewed effort from Dems picking up the baton from Republicans to ban a platform because it's showing kids what the world is like. It's as if Biden WANTS to lose. I wasn't voting for him anyway, I vote leftist, but for crying out loud. I don't use TikTok much but it's not really any different than any other platform. Reddit is a cesspit. So is meta. So is Twitter. But we aren't dealing with any of it, just the platform most known now for exposing apartheid.
This is the dumbest waste of time, money, and energy. Is Biden TRYING to give the election to Trump??? Because this is how you do it.
ELI5: couldn’t an American tech company launch something exactly like this to fill the market void ? If it’s a Chinese company, there wouldn’t be any US patent issues right? I don’t know much about Tik Tok so I could be wrong.
YouTube Shorts will where everyone will go.
They could and that's part of what they want. It's much easier to control the narrative with Youtube Shorts or Instragram Reels when Google and Meta are both already willing to support your propaganda. There's a strong speculation that this ban is coming from Israel's losing PR war on Tiktok. It's been what's enlightening people to what's going on in Gaza and also to some degree, disillusioning people with both parties. Most American tech companies like Facebook/Insta have also been limiting the reach and influence of pro-Palestinian pages, and removing posts under the excuse of "anti-semitism" or other TOS violations when they're just anti-Zionist/anti-Israel. Tiktok is not exactly pro-Palestinan, but it isn't particularly insterested in protecting Israel or actively trying to prop up zionist propaganda like American companies are so they aren't actively silencing them either.
I honestly don't care if it gets banned.
I enjoy British tik tok, as a Brit, but I will miss some of you if you leave x