BREAKING - Tiktok has now SHUT DOWN SERVICES in the United States, noting “A law banning Tiktok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate Tiktok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
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I just don’t see how this move and the timing was not orchestrated to manipulate uninformed TikTok users into supporting Trump. The explicit callout to Trump in the message… I have been fearing the next presidency and this was a blow.
On one hand, yeah, on the other hand Biden literally signed the law banning it. If Democrats didn’t want Tik Tok being banned to be associated with them and to give Republicans an easy, obvious win by unbanning a wildly popular app, then they could have just… not done that. This was just completely an unforced error on the part of the Democrats.
Or instead of targeting tiktok specifically, they could have chosen to pass a data privacy law and actually did something worthwhile instead of pointless, unpopular grandstanding. Haha just kidding, they would never do anything to reduce even slightly shareholder value.
Apparently the law is written so that it would also be applicable to other apps like RedNote, if a president were interested in applying it.
As long as it’s completely legal for American companies to sell the data that’s allegedly so sensitive to anyone they please, the law does nothing except allow the president to target apps selectively. If it’s the propagandizing via the algorithm that’s such a huge concern, that’s still completely legal too.
Democrats shutting down TikTok over a do nothing bill is probably the stupidest shit they could have done with Biden’s last year in office.
As is traditional, the Republicans drafted a law, got bipartisan support to push it through congress, and then after it passed publicly flip flopped their support for the law they just wrote when they realized they could score political points by complaining about it while the Democrats would hold to their agreed support.
This way the Republicans get the law they want, get to claim any benefits of said law by pointing to their voting record, and get to blame anything people don’t like about it on Democrats, all at the same time.
Meanwhile there are no consequences to their bad faith actions because the Democrats will just bend over and take it in the name of bipartisanship and working across the aisle because half of them are Republicans, they just don’t want to call themselves Republicans and leadership is willing to fight tooth and nail to protect said members.
I’ll get a bit conspiratorial here, but if what Bernie has said is to be trusted in his video about oligarchy, up on his youtube channel, then Democrats are largely owned/influenced by billionaires who would benefit from the increased Trump support. It would make sense to do this, but yeah it could also just be a blunder, given how Trump was the first one to propose the ban and Democrats could take it as “hey if we do this, we’ll win the moderate right support again!!”, though who knows.
It’s important to remember that politicians are still people, too. Some of them might just not have realized what would happen, some of them might just be corrupt, some of them might have known this was a bad idea but played along anyway to try and get support for things they thought were more important. There isn’t actually a single motivator for all of the Democratic Party. That’s just not how people work.
I don’t know if it’s that ByteDance wants to push people into supporting Trump, but it could be that Trump agreed to “save” it if they appeared to kiss his ass.
I would imagine this is them putting political pressure on Trump to uphold his campaign promise. The uniformed will open the app, see that message, and know where to direct their attention.
Glazing Donald’s ego is a last ditch effort to save their platform. This is entirely on the Democrats—they didn’t have to agree to the ban, they could have insisted on higher standards for transparency and data security for social media instead. But banning the platform that featured pro-palestinian sentiment was more important to them. Now all that’s left is billionaire owned pro-Trump social media which Tik Tok may or may not join in the future. Good job guys!
As an European, I sincerely envy you. Death to these crappy social networks.
It’s not that they do that because they dislike social networks though
The reason behind is not important. The effect is a net positive.
Banning isn’t the solution. Thankfully this means less yanks on tiktok now.
Unfortunately they will most likely migrate to Instagram as a result, which isn’t good at all especially considering their recently hate speech policy changes targeted towards LGBTQ people and immigrants.
I’ve seen a large amount go to Xianhongshou or whatever it’s called, which also doesn’t seem very friendly towards queer groups but not to the extent of insta.
It isn’t right but it’s a solution. I will have to do for now
Please don’t say breaking.
As predicted, here comes the Trumper Youth.
Watch him insist on it being run by Truth Social, and be filled with noisy cunt videos of immigrants being hilariously deported at gunpoint.
Anddddd the Dems just lost more of the youth vote.
GJ guys.
People forget shit so fast, it doesn’t even matter. All that matters is the present + six months for most Americans.
Shit, I think many 14-16 yo Americans don’t even know who Obama’s VP was, or would have to think for a second a least, haha.
14 yo’s were 6 when Trump’s first term started
There is a recent study on Tiktok and how it compares to Instagram and Youtube – (pdf)
An article about the study says:
The three-level study, which has now been peer-reviewed, looked at TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Typing in four politically-loaded key words – “Tiananmen,” “Tibet,” “Uyghur,” and “Xinjiang” – the team first looked at what content the respective algorithms delivered.
The researchers found that while TikTok might not deliver more pro-CCP content, it did deliver less anti-CCP content than the rival platforms. It also, interestingly, delivered more content that researchers say was irrelevant to the keywords.
The team next looked at engagement to see if this explained why anti-CCP content was performing less well. But it found that TikTok users “liked or commented on anti-CCP content nearly four times as much as they liked or commented on pro-CCP content, yet the search algorithm produced nearly three times as much pro-CCP content”. This didn’t happen on Instagram or YouTube.
The last element of the study looked at the impact the content was potentially having on users. The researchers surveyed 1,214 Americans to find information on their social media usage, and their opinion on China’s human rights record. What they found was that the more time users spent on TikTok, the more positive their attitude towards the CCP was.
The researchers came to the damning conclusion that “taken together, the findings from these three studies raise the distinct possibility that TikTok is a vehicle for CCP propaganda.”
Another widely ignored issue regarding Tiktok and other Chinese apps is that European digital rights organization Noyb has filed GDPR complaints against TikTok, AliExpress, SHEIN, Temu, WeChat and Xiaomi for unlawful data transfers to China.
LMFAO. Every single thing about this is hilarious.
Clowns will find some other teet
People are so happy for other’s first amendment right to get stepped on.
there seems to be a pretty strong sentiment that TikTok users are all idiots (especially compared to us incredibly smart, sophisticated, and attractive Fediverse users) and therefore they deserve whatever happens to them.
it reminds me of the predictable response every time Florida gets hit by a hurricane, or Texas by a snowstorm, or whatever, and a bunch of liberals come out of the woodwork with the same tired old “they live in a red state, fuck em, I don’t care what happens to them”.
Hello, RedNote.
Or Loops. You know, being open source, privacy respecting and all that.
Nah, just kidding. Who wants any of that when you have the little red book instead.
Edit: Turns out, the fine print of Loops is worth reading.
Or maybe people don’t want to join an app with no app (other than a TestFlight version, as far as I can see) and no user base? Maybe?
Mastodon use to be tiny at some point, but some people joined anyway.
Loops privacy policy is shit btw.
Better that than TT or RedNote though.
Or just touch grass
Why not both? The grass isn’t that wonderful everywhere.
Because brain rot is brain rot for a reason
It’s only brain rot if it’s all you do all day long. Everything in moderation. It’s also often times the only window into other cultures for people that don’t have the money to travel. I’d rather scroll through stuff that teaches me something, than I would the endless US oligarchy brain rot feeds.
So… Go outdoors, but bring your phone with you? Lie on the grass, while swiping short videos?
lol no. Go outdoors and put that shit on DND. Scroll later. Can’t stand when I see someone craned over a phone when they’re somewhere surrounded by nature.
Sometimes we just like a change of venue while we interact with friends who live inside the tiny screen.
It’s always a bit ironic when people post this on the internet.
It’s not wrong, per se, but much more specific instructions on how not to waste your life would be nice. There’s old people that have spent their whole life on the metaphorical grass and are still dumb as shit.
Rights are soooo gen X.
@TranquilTurbulence @orca
I think it still needs some time to get ready.At least until the app is available without side loading or testflight.
But I think it will be great
I like Loops too! I’ve ditched everything except Loops and RedNote for social media.
I downloaded that and it wanted my mobile number, so I uninstalled it.
People are weird.
I think it only uses it for initial verification. I already get a ton of spam on my number so it doesn’t really bother me. Highly recommend checking some of the content out though if you want an unfettered view into everyday life in China. It’s been a fun adventure.
This just seems like weird censorship/control to me. Unless they can come forward with hard evidence that TikTok is working for the Chinese government.
I just think of all of the actual hateful and concerning websites out there that stay up and nobody blinks an eye.
I’ve never used TikTok and I don’t really like what I’ve seen from it, but a ban seems unnecessary
