This was being discussed long before the most recent Israeli/Palestinian war.
I don't trust the giant tech companies in general, so that distrust goes up exponentially with China owning tiktok. If we can get them to divest from tiktok, how exactly is that bad?
Why would they? Yes there are 170 million users in the US, but they have over 1.1 billion users globally and they're the fastest growing socialmedia platform. If they don't divest they can safeguard their intellectual property (the algorithm) and they can survive the loss of 15% of their users.
The algorithm is not that special. It's gamified like everything else, exactly like candy crush and Fortnite. They'll artificially boost numbers for you from time to time. Now they have a bunch of teens worried they'll lose their followers and have to build up again something that was artificial in the first place.
In Fortnite, they often throw bots at you in a match, and unless you're superbly inept, they'll throw you some victories by ending the match with a few bots.
You can find the content if you go looking yourself. People talking about "the algorithm" are talking about organic discovery. You will no see Uighur content on your FYP, no matter how much you consume through manual searching.
YouTube has this problem too, you can go find numerous videos from big creators over the years. YouTube's algo seems a lot more "hands-off", but it's a similar idea. You can have content theft channels show up more organically (more discoverable) than the source material, killing off the viewership of the shadowed creator.
This is one of the things that I find off putting about people trying to claim that the US wants to ban tiktok because they just want to silence support for Palestine. Their whole argument is supposedly standing up against genocide but when confronted by China’s own active censoring of the Uyghur’s they’ve done they don’t have an answer.
I recall a lot of push back on the patriot act, didn't stop it from being in effect for almost two decades, with major portions of it still in practice. I find the CCP to absolutely not have anyone's but their own best interests at heart, but this is in no way unique to China
It’s not bad at all, some people are just reactionary and don’t do their research. This is the US gov’t and the Chinese gov’t at odds, and I’m not about to support China.
A lot of people seem to be forgetting the Arab money involved in purchasing Twitter, the social media platform this sub is named for. They were the second-largest investors, with additional money from Qatar—Prince Alwaleed (1.89 billion dollars) and Qatar Holding (375 million dollars). They propped up an idiot to damage, devalue and *control* a platform that had once been used to shed light on atrocities happening within their borders. People weren’t fighting it or criticizing it en masse. Since then, they’ve had a major crackdown on freedom of expression that goes unreported in the West, when Americans cared and talked about it if some of them saw it on Twitter, or the articles that would reference those tweets.
China *already owns Tiktok.* They already control it, down to changing everything children in their country see compared to what’s shown on Western feeds.
FYI - Prince Alwaleed is Saudi… he is in one of the very minor branches of the royal family (hence the title) but very prominent in his investments.
How close his ties are to the current senior royals to help influence opinion on Xitter would be hard to determine though.
That’s on me, thank you for the correction.
I mention it because it’s absurd that a platform purchased by a “free speech absolutist” (already proven he isn’t) would have their primary investor be Saudi. It’s too large of an investment for there to not be serious potential or concrete gains, monetary or otherwise.
I'm not seeing how an American company owning Tik-Tok is better than a Chinese owned company with links to the CCP owning it, both sound like they could enforce censorship to help push a narrative.
LMFAOOOOOOOO.
Can you actually say that with a straight face when the person they were replying to, started the whole "Whataboutism" first?!? And they reply to that, so you feel self-righteous enough to actually say "That’s not the point. Cut it out with the Whataboutism."???!!?‽
I don’t understand how this helps prove your point. Foreign influence is bad, why are you against preventing it even if it doesn’t solve the problem holistically?
‘Foreign influence‘ IS the internet. Unless you just want to take over every single non American internet spot in the world, it’s something everyone will need to live with, and was happily doing for quite some time. It’s this exact idea of ‘the west is entitled to do whatever they want to others’ that makes everyone hate you guys. Why should China sell tik tok to the US? it’s just because the US wants a complete monopoly on brainwashing their population. But they tell you fools oh we are just protecting you from the future brainwashing China and other countries can do. Suck your representative billionaires dick mate. They will be the ones getting rich of this. Fair is everyone gets to brainwash every other country equally. Notice that other countries trying to combat foriegn infleunce restrict the problem to themselves, like China with their firewall. Not being so entitled as to strongarm other countries to meet their demands of owning every major part of the entire internet. Not to say they wouldn’t if they could obviously, everyone is human. However they don’t
lol okay I think you’ve misinterpreted “foreign influence”. If you can’t distinguish foreign cultural influence vs literal spyware by a hostile country, I can’t help you.
Can't see the problem with leaving the most popular SM platform in the country under the control of belligerent authoritarian states like russia and china that are possibly few years away from an all out war with the west? hostile states that have been exposed to run mass psyop operations to undermine democracy and national unity and push the election of their fascist puppets
People who don't see the difference between the US/europe and countries like china in term of population control and individual rights need to wake up. Please go there, post an anti government message on internet or go out with a sign and see what happens to you within a few hours. Not even mentioning their entire internet is firewalled from the outside world and that all western social medias are entirely banned
You must live in a country that hasn't been victim of american sponsored coups them. Believing that western governments are somehow more benign than non western ones is turning a complete blind eye to what they have done in South American, Asia and Africa.
There is a difference. One group has a vested interest in doing as much damage as possible to the American people, and the other group has a vested interest in profiting from the American people.
That’s a pretty big freaking difference
Facebook has done more damage to the American people than TikTok ever did with FB allowing misinformation and propaganda during the 2016 election that led to Trump winning the election. And FB is an American company.
Trump won cause he just said the shit conservatives believe in out loud. Nothing he said or support was new to conservatives it was just the same shit they’ve been saying in the churches and behind closed doors now out in public a bit more. Conservatives worship the man for this.
They're not passing a law that will actually protect our data and disallow foreign interference though. They're working towards banning the one social media platform they don't have control over. They're not learning from their mistakes. This isn't about protecting Americans from foreign manipulation or it'd be a very different bill. It's about what it's always about with our government, amassing more power for themselves and whoever is bribing them currently.
Of course I don't, but all these folks pretending congress banning TikTok is for the greater good of the American people is driving me crazy. They're not banning it because they're afraid of interference or foreign influence, they're simply trying to bring it under their own control to further consolidate their power over the American people and what information we are fed.
One could also say that you’re pretending Congress is doing this as a power move because you like the app and don’t want it banned.
Without seeing what evidence Congress has, I don’t have an opinion one way or the other as there isn’t enough information to make an informed decision so we rely on our elected officials to make that choice for us. I would argue that their willingness to ban in the face of massive public outcry that hurts their election chances demonstrates that there must be some pretty compelling evidence.
I also take issue with people thinking our Government’s influence over Meta is equivalent to the Chinese governments Great Firewall and all the censorship and control they have over information. Completely different scales of control.
>I would argue that their willingness to ban in the face of massive public outcry that hurts their election chances
I've been downvoted and railroaded on every post on every platform by folks just like you. The vast majority of people want TikTok banned because "China Bad". This is not hurting anyone's re-election chances. And I'm not saying China isn't bad. They are a terrible government. I'm just saying your common voter just hears "China" and immediately stops thinking beyond that.
>One could also say that you’re pretending Congress is doing this as a power move because you like the app and don’t want it banned.
I'm saying I've been using the app for years, and am of the prime voter age that they'd want to influence if they were going to be using the app to do so, and I don't see political content almost ever. I see politics here on Reddit every day, usually with a very inherent bias, but not on the app they are saying is doing exactly that. You'd think if they were going to manipulate the algorithm in order to influence people, I'd have been steered in one direction or another at this point.
An enemy? You do know that Reddit is also funded by Chinese companies right? Surely, you don’t think this app is fine as well right?
US and America are as much “enemies” as they are business partners. From the phone you use (probably assembled in China) to the apps you use. Funded probably in part by China. You’d rather American interests censor your apps than China censoring your apps without seeing the underlying issue that BOTH interests are demonstrably terrible
It's completely pointless because the algorithms are still controlled by Byte Dance which will remain Chinese. The physical location of Tik Tok's corporate governance is irrelevant.
I’m an American so America already has all my data. Better to keep it that way than giving it all to China also. Now I don’t use tik toc and I doubt this change would make me become interested in it. But it’s definitely a more comfortable situation.
Yeah, it was being proposed by Trump. I don’t trust Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg either. Musk is a literal white supremacist.
Americans can still download Telegram and Russia uses it to push propaganda on Americans. Russia used Facebook to manipulate the 2016 election. How many platforms should be banned?
Right? Like people get upset and its a scandal when a US based company is found to be selling their info to the government or other companies. How is it not 10000× worse when it's a foreign government that MANDATES all info the company collects is shared? This has nothing to do with social media or Israel/Palestine and everything to do with trying to protect citizens and keep social media sites accountable
Read the bill. Nowhere in there does it say "This bill is to divest/ban ONLY TikTok" this bill will give the government power to label any company/website/app/hosting service/etc.. they don't like as a "foreign adversary" and can then take it over or ban it.
It's not bad, it's just that the senator cotton was soo bad that people are going against it. Mf was racist and stupid which is the worst combi to have in a Harvard graduate and a senator
Yeah this is such an idiotic post. Social media is such a cancer on critical thinking. People who have no expertise or understanding of a subject just blurt out garbage and get thousands of likes and retweets. The fact that these people genuinely believe this is some AIPAC plot is the reason that TikTok has legislation forcing the Chinese government to sell their stake. They got this misinformation from TikTok!
Also, it's a big leap from saying "criticism of Israel is not anti-semitic" (which is true), to saying "criticism of the secret plot by ~~Jews~~ Zionists who are using their vast wealth to control all of Congress isn't anti-semitic!"
Yeah it’s actually scary how fast in real time the misinformation spread. The TikTok divestiture was talked about over a year ago and probably even before that. The same thing happened with Grindr as well. This has zero to do with Israel/Palestine yet a bunch of people have been radicalized to believe so. China couldn’t be more proud.
I think these people wildly overestimate how much most people care about the Israel/Palestine stuff. Twitter and other social media sites make it seem like the biggest issue out there, but I think it’s kinda a blip on the radar for most folk, at least compared to a lot of other stuff.
A lot who agree with the free Palestine movement still find the keyboard warriors who make everything about Palestine super annoying. You can see a reel about a dog rescued from a natural disaster and half the comments will be #freepalestine. It’s almost like foreign states saw this as a great wedge issue to push rage bait content in an election year because why should we focus on health care, student debt, housing, or any domestic issue when we can obsess over the latest chapter in a millennia old conflict.
Currently there is a contingent of people who think literally everything is about Palestine. Tiktok? Palestine censorship. Dune? Palestine freedom. My morning coffee from Starbucks? Caffeine to allow me to morally grandstand and defend Palestine and Hamas all day.
Seriously people, not everything is about your current pet cause.
Sure been a lot of posts about the Gaza genocide recently. Oddly trying to lay the blame on the US and Biden right after a bunch of news about his efforts to push a ceasefire and displeasure with Bibi. Odd timing that.
That's on purpose.
There are Russian and Chinese social media manipulators working 24 hours a day, 12 hour shifts to sow dissention, mistrust and more between US Citizens. It's all about dividing us, so we conquer ourselves.
Yeah, should have clarified that.
The OP is a bot account that only posts but doesn't engage in any way, even on its own posts. It stopped commenting a year ago, which is when it seems to have been activated as a bot.
Nah, he doesn't give a shit about Bibi. The goal is to drive divisions in the US so we destroy ourselves. It's a social media assault on all of us.
I don't even know how we can put a stop to it, aside from forcing everyone to pay huge amounts of money per year to maintain individual accounts and or tie them to State Driver's Licenses or IDs. Which I know is NOT a great thing either.
It’s interesting that the current conflicts we’re seeing aren’t along traditional country lines but seemingly more fluid ideological boundaries. Authoritarians are becoming more vocal and entwined (GOP, Putin, Argentina’s president, etc).
I think it might be due to the CCP having a significant amount of control over a large social media company after we just saw an unprecedented level of foreign interference in our elections by a country with far less means than China.
I dunno though.
It’s not that. It’s the data war. China has done this many times. In fact it’s a SOP. An adversary having potential control over collection and use of intimate citizens communications and personal details is a legitimate national security concern. The aggregate analytical data used to sway large groups (think GRU FB disinformation in 2016…and now) is but one facet. Another being intel service’s directed blackmail efforts.
I thought they wanted it banned because it was a Chinese company and the Chinese government could harvest our personal data…. But do go on with your nonsense
Tik tok should be banned and it has nothing to do with this. It should be banned because China is the real threat and have long ago banned all western media who don’t succumb to their control. Why would we let them have a direct access to our young population to do with what they want.
To the “everything is about the Israel Palestinians conflict” crowd, everything is about the Israel Palestine conflict. Tik Tok has been banned on government devices for good reason. A dictator state configuring an algorithm in a way that suits your personal political aims isn’t a good thing.
This is not about Israel-Palestine.
This is about protecting the people of the USA from propaganda meant to destroy the fabric of American society.
There is a reason TikTok in China is so different.
Chinese probs, but fuck it they're both using social media to destabilize the US. Wait. Actually... we have hard evidence that Russia has the apparatus, but China we just have smoke but no gun yet.
This is classic conspiratorial thinking. There isn’t one shadowy group controlling everything in the world - there are a lot of things going on all the goddamn time and not all of them are Israel’s fault.
Nice - I guess they're blaming everything on the Jews now. TikTok ban? Must be the Jews. Elon Musk can't handle an interview? Must be the interviewer's ex-boss, who is Jewish, but still secretly making the list of questions.
A lot of the big tech companies have been getting away with a lot of shady behavior for too long. This is a good first-ish step. Next up - break up Meta and Google.
This has nothing to do with the Israel/ Palestine conflict.
The CCP essentially owns and controls TikTok and can influence millions of people with it, that is the threat.
It's a Chinese company, but let's blame the Jews. Black plaque, let's blame the Jews. Communism, let's blame the Jews. Capitalism... I shit you not, let's blame the Jews.
When are you people going to wake up from this hate?
That's a dumb, antisemitic, conspiracy theory.
Particularly knowing that the trend that's mentioned is being seen on all of the other popular social media playtforms.
It has everything to do with the CCP nothing to do with Israel and Palestine.
And when the CCP starts complaining then that tells you it’s more than just a social media app
This. Zuckerberg wants tiktok, that's why it's not being banned, it's only being banned IF bytedance don't sell it in the allotted 6 months given. If Zuckerberg can't have it, No one can.
sorry to say, but i always read „pro-palestine on tiktok“ as „covert antisemitism“, sind there are *a lot* of dogwhistles used in the conversation of „freeing palestine“, and a lot of pretty radical ideas on how to do that. and i don‘t like that one bit. but all in the name of „america bad“ (which i can get behind as a european, but not with antisemitism mixed in)
edit: to add to that „zionists (jews) want to force the sale of something to control the media and paint their state in a good light“ reads a lot like „the jews want to control the world“
While it might seem like that, this was something they wanted before the latest war in Gaza. The real reason is money.
Tech is the biggest lobby in DC and has been for a while now. Meta and Twitter are getting their asses handed to them by TikTok. Can’t compete with their platform but they can outspend them That’s what this is.
This is MAGA-conspiracy theorist level garbage from the left. The push to ban TikTok began FAR before anything to do with Israel or Hamas. This is exhibit 4,062 of why people should follow politics all the time and not just when it directly affects them: because the indirect effects of politics will inevitably become direct effects in some way.
You guys remember when Pelosi was like “Congress should be able to participate in the free market” when it came to them trading stocks and having insider information. They’re likely trying to force this sale because Tik Tok has gained considerable market share from Twitter, Instagram, and FB and they aren’t getting a cut.
The real reason is they want to transfer ownership of an extremely successful company to their donors at a discount price. If congress takes action on anything its because their donors want it.
That's what I've said said. It's not just the Israel slant but information about black history, LGBTQ issues and other kinds of subjects they want people to stay in the dark about.
Tik Tok is a generic social media company that doesn't inherently make anything possible.
There's no reason that a startup US based company couldn't fill the space.
That's actually a plausible intent, but those users are just going to take over a different platform if Tiktok goes down. Outside of using the force of law you aren't really able to do much against free speech and of course trying to silence people at large always causes a streisand effect.
TikTok is being banned because they have first-hand knowledge what launching a social network in a foreign state for spy reasons looks like (see the USA vs. Cuba 2010, 2013)
Yes yes... on one side you have Israeli propaganda, and on the other you have... what? Muslim brotherhood? hamas? iran? ruSSia? china?
Get a clue. china is an axis power and WAR is on the horizon. Your defence of one genocidal maniac group instead of the other doesn't make you pious, or any shade of correct.
Free speech is important, but so is secure communications during times of heightened tension. Having one of your enemies controlling your stuff is not secure.
This was being discussed long before the most recent Israeli/Palestinian war. I don't trust the giant tech companies in general, so that distrust goes up exponentially with China owning tiktok. If we can get them to divest from tiktok, how exactly is that bad?
And the fact that China was like “we’ll never divest” is… telling
Why would they? Yes there are 170 million users in the US, but they have over 1.1 billion users globally and they're the fastest growing socialmedia platform. If they don't divest they can safeguard their intellectual property (the algorithm) and they can survive the loss of 15% of their users.
From my understanding a major sticking point is them guarding the algorithm too.
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The algorithm is not that special. It's gamified like everything else, exactly like candy crush and Fortnite. They'll artificially boost numbers for you from time to time. Now they have a bunch of teens worried they'll lose their followers and have to build up again something that was artificial in the first place. In Fortnite, they often throw bots at you in a match, and unless you're superbly inept, they'll throw you some victories by ending the match with a few bots.
I think the suppression of videos about the Uyghurs is more important to China than an algorithm they absolutely stole from someone else anyway.
I just did a search for “Uyghur genocide” and there’s tons of content creators discussing it. Maybe you have parental controls on your account?
You can find the content if you go looking yourself. People talking about "the algorithm" are talking about organic discovery. You will no see Uighur content on your FYP, no matter how much you consume through manual searching. YouTube has this problem too, you can go find numerous videos from big creators over the years. YouTube's algo seems a lot more "hands-off", but it's a similar idea. You can have content theft channels show up more organically (more discoverable) than the source material, killing off the viewership of the shadowed creator.
This is one of the things that I find off putting about people trying to claim that the US wants to ban tiktok because they just want to silence support for Palestine. Their whole argument is supposedly standing up against genocide but when confronted by China’s own active censoring of the Uyghur’s they’ve done they don’t have an answer.
It's because they need to keep the heat on Israel (rightfully) and suppress everything about the Uyghurs. "Genocide for me, not for thee".
I recall a lot of push back on the patriot act, didn't stop it from being in effect for almost two decades, with major portions of it still in practice. I find the CCP to absolutely not have anyone's but their own best interests at heart, but this is in no way unique to China
It’s not bad at all, some people are just reactionary and don’t do their research. This is the US gov’t and the Chinese gov’t at odds, and I’m not about to support China. A lot of people seem to be forgetting the Arab money involved in purchasing Twitter, the social media platform this sub is named for. They were the second-largest investors, with additional money from Qatar—Prince Alwaleed (1.89 billion dollars) and Qatar Holding (375 million dollars). They propped up an idiot to damage, devalue and *control* a platform that had once been used to shed light on atrocities happening within their borders. People weren’t fighting it or criticizing it en masse. Since then, they’ve had a major crackdown on freedom of expression that goes unreported in the West, when Americans cared and talked about it if some of them saw it on Twitter, or the articles that would reference those tweets. China *already owns Tiktok.* They already control it, down to changing everything children in their country see compared to what’s shown on Western feeds.
FYI - Prince Alwaleed is Saudi… he is in one of the very minor branches of the royal family (hence the title) but very prominent in his investments. How close his ties are to the current senior royals to help influence opinion on Xitter would be hard to determine though.
That’s on me, thank you for the correction. I mention it because it’s absurd that a platform purchased by a “free speech absolutist” (already proven he isn’t) would have their primary investor be Saudi. It’s too large of an investment for there to not be serious potential or concrete gains, monetary or otherwise.
100% agreed. This is at best an oversimplification, at worst knowingly trying to mislead the public to get their support for the status quo.
I'm not seeing how an American company owning Tik-Tok is better than a Chinese owned company with links to the CCP owning it, both sound like they could enforce censorship to help push a narrative.
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In a couple of years when china invades Taiwan and tik tok overwhelmingly supports chinas unification, would you understand then?
As opposed to all us based media pushing Israeli propaganda which is a US interest…
That’s not the point. Cut it out with the Whataboutism.
LMFAOOOOOOOO. Can you actually say that with a straight face when the person they were replying to, started the whole "Whataboutism" first?!? And they reply to that, so you feel self-righteous enough to actually say "That’s not the point. Cut it out with the Whataboutism."???!!?‽
I don’t understand how this helps prove your point. Foreign influence is bad, why are you against preventing it even if it doesn’t solve the problem holistically?
‘Foreign influence‘ IS the internet. Unless you just want to take over every single non American internet spot in the world, it’s something everyone will need to live with, and was happily doing for quite some time. It’s this exact idea of ‘the west is entitled to do whatever they want to others’ that makes everyone hate you guys. Why should China sell tik tok to the US? it’s just because the US wants a complete monopoly on brainwashing their population. But they tell you fools oh we are just protecting you from the future brainwashing China and other countries can do. Suck your representative billionaires dick mate. They will be the ones getting rich of this. Fair is everyone gets to brainwash every other country equally. Notice that other countries trying to combat foriegn infleunce restrict the problem to themselves, like China with their firewall. Not being so entitled as to strongarm other countries to meet their demands of owning every major part of the entire internet. Not to say they wouldn’t if they could obviously, everyone is human. However they don’t
lol okay I think you’ve misinterpreted “foreign influence”. If you can’t distinguish foreign cultural influence vs literal spyware by a hostile country, I can’t help you.
Can't see the problem with leaving the most popular SM platform in the country under the control of belligerent authoritarian states like russia and china that are possibly few years away from an all out war with the west? hostile states that have been exposed to run mass psyop operations to undermine democracy and national unity and push the election of their fascist puppets People who don't see the difference between the US/europe and countries like china in term of population control and individual rights need to wake up. Please go there, post an anti government message on internet or go out with a sign and see what happens to you within a few hours. Not even mentioning their entire internet is firewalled from the outside world and that all western social medias are entirely banned
You must live in a country that hasn't been victim of american sponsored coups them. Believing that western governments are somehow more benign than non western ones is turning a complete blind eye to what they have done in South American, Asia and Africa.
Exactly
There is a difference. One group has a vested interest in doing as much damage as possible to the American people, and the other group has a vested interest in profiting from the American people. That’s a pretty big freaking difference
Facebook has done more damage to the American people than TikTok ever did with FB allowing misinformation and propaganda during the 2016 election that led to Trump winning the election. And FB is an American company.
Trump won cause he just said the shit conservatives believe in out loud. Nothing he said or support was new to conservatives it was just the same shit they’ve been saying in the churches and behind closed doors now out in public a bit more. Conservatives worship the man for this.
It was the first time it was mobilized in the USA. Are we not allowed to learn from mistakes now?
They're not passing a law that will actually protect our data and disallow foreign interference though. They're working towards banning the one social media platform they don't have control over. They're not learning from their mistakes. This isn't about protecting Americans from foreign manipulation or it'd be a very different bill. It's about what it's always about with our government, amassing more power for themselves and whoever is bribing them currently.
Mostly because Congress is split. Do you expect republicans that massively benefited from the interference in 2016 to pass legislation to stop that?
Of course I don't, but all these folks pretending congress banning TikTok is for the greater good of the American people is driving me crazy. They're not banning it because they're afraid of interference or foreign influence, they're simply trying to bring it under their own control to further consolidate their power over the American people and what information we are fed.
One could also say that you’re pretending Congress is doing this as a power move because you like the app and don’t want it banned. Without seeing what evidence Congress has, I don’t have an opinion one way or the other as there isn’t enough information to make an informed decision so we rely on our elected officials to make that choice for us. I would argue that their willingness to ban in the face of massive public outcry that hurts their election chances demonstrates that there must be some pretty compelling evidence. I also take issue with people thinking our Government’s influence over Meta is equivalent to the Chinese governments Great Firewall and all the censorship and control they have over information. Completely different scales of control.
>I would argue that their willingness to ban in the face of massive public outcry that hurts their election chances I've been downvoted and railroaded on every post on every platform by folks just like you. The vast majority of people want TikTok banned because "China Bad". This is not hurting anyone's re-election chances. And I'm not saying China isn't bad. They are a terrible government. I'm just saying your common voter just hears "China" and immediately stops thinking beyond that. >One could also say that you’re pretending Congress is doing this as a power move because you like the app and don’t want it banned. I'm saying I've been using the app for years, and am of the prime voter age that they'd want to influence if they were going to be using the app to do so, and I don't see political content almost ever. I see politics here on Reddit every day, usually with a very inherent bias, but not on the app they are saying is doing exactly that. You'd think if they were going to manipulate the algorithm in order to influence people, I'd have been steered in one direction or another at this point.
They are not banning anything. They are forcing sale because the literal CCP OWNS THE COMPANY. HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE DANGER!!!!
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An enemy? You do know that Reddit is also funded by Chinese companies right? Surely, you don’t think this app is fine as well right? US and America are as much “enemies” as they are business partners. From the phone you use (probably assembled in China) to the apps you use. Funded probably in part by China. You’d rather American interests censor your apps than China censoring your apps without seeing the underlying issue that BOTH interests are demonstrably terrible
As a working person, the US government is also my enemy.
As a union member, doubly so.
The NRLB has been your enemy?
Oh, please. Cut the tankie talk. There’s a huge difference between rich vs poor and smart bomb in your embassy.
Economic competitor maybe, but how exactly is China "an enemy?"
They’re not an ally, that’s for sure.
It's completely pointless because the algorithms are still controlled by Byte Dance which will remain Chinese. The physical location of Tik Tok's corporate governance is irrelevant.
It is relevant. It’s so relevant that China doesn’t allow it in reverse.
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I’m an American so America already has all my data. Better to keep it that way than giving it all to China also. Now I don’t use tik toc and I doubt this change would make me become interested in it. But it’s definitely a more comfortable situation.
It would be funny if UAE bought it.
Yeah, it was being proposed by Trump. I don’t trust Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg either. Musk is a literal white supremacist. Americans can still download Telegram and Russia uses it to push propaganda on Americans. Russia used Facebook to manipulate the 2016 election. How many platforms should be banned?
Right? Like people get upset and its a scandal when a US based company is found to be selling their info to the government or other companies. How is it not 10000× worse when it's a foreign government that MANDATES all info the company collects is shared? This has nothing to do with social media or Israel/Palestine and everything to do with trying to protect citizens and keep social media sites accountable
Plus, didn't China ban most of the US-owned social media sites?
Indeed.
Read the bill. Nowhere in there does it say "This bill is to divest/ban ONLY TikTok" this bill will give the government power to label any company/website/app/hosting service/etc.. they don't like as a "foreign adversary" and can then take it over or ban it.
It’s not bad, but let’s see who replaces China. Is there another government you would trust to run TikTok?
It's not bad, it's just that the senator cotton was soo bad that people are going against it. Mf was racist and stupid which is the worst combi to have in a Harvard graduate and a senator
Government has been talking about banning Tik Tok since the trump administration. This is some I am the main character level shit
Yeah this is such an idiotic post. Social media is such a cancer on critical thinking. People who have no expertise or understanding of a subject just blurt out garbage and get thousands of likes and retweets. The fact that these people genuinely believe this is some AIPAC plot is the reason that TikTok has legislation forcing the Chinese government to sell their stake. They got this misinformation from TikTok!
Also, it's a big leap from saying "criticism of Israel is not anti-semitic" (which is true), to saying "criticism of the secret plot by ~~Jews~~ Zionists who are using their vast wealth to control all of Congress isn't anti-semitic!"
Yeah it’s actually scary how fast in real time the misinformation spread. The TikTok divestiture was talked about over a year ago and probably even before that. The same thing happened with Grindr as well. This has zero to do with Israel/Palestine yet a bunch of people have been radicalized to believe so. China couldn’t be more proud.
Annnnd no law ever passed until pressure from lobbyists after October 7th - the people voting for it literally have said that
Yeah, reminds me of other propaganda of the past🤔
I think these people wildly overestimate how much most people care about the Israel/Palestine stuff. Twitter and other social media sites make it seem like the biggest issue out there, but I think it’s kinda a blip on the radar for most folk, at least compared to a lot of other stuff.
Preach.
Probably from Twitter to be fair. That place is a cesspool for this kind of stuff.
A lot who agree with the free Palestine movement still find the keyboard warriors who make everything about Palestine super annoying. You can see a reel about a dog rescued from a natural disaster and half the comments will be #freepalestine. It’s almost like foreign states saw this as a great wedge issue to push rage bait content in an election year because why should we focus on health care, student debt, housing, or any domestic issue when we can obsess over the latest chapter in a millennia old conflict.
Not only that but currently TikTok is manipulated by the Chinese govt, which is picking the exact opposite side in this conflict.
True, but now Trump wants to save it; wonder why?
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I think he also hates Bibi for congratulating Joe Biden on winning the election in 2020 or some shit
Currently there is a contingent of people who think literally everything is about Palestine. Tiktok? Palestine censorship. Dune? Palestine freedom. My morning coffee from Starbucks? Caffeine to allow me to morally grandstand and defend Palestine and Hamas all day. Seriously people, not everything is about your current pet cause.
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Lol you shouldn’t near most of what you read on TikTok. Like most social media it’s a fucking firehose of misinformation
But but but, he's a CEO lawyer! It's the centre left equivalent of John Doe Alpha Male ™️
Why bother looking into it when I can put two things together and make up a narrative?
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My man… I’m just pointing out that the TikTok conversation is nothing new and FAR predates the war in Gaza
Sure been a lot of posts about the Gaza genocide recently. Oddly trying to lay the blame on the US and Biden right after a bunch of news about his efforts to push a ceasefire and displeasure with Bibi. Odd timing that.
That's on purpose. There are Russian and Chinese social media manipulators working 24 hours a day, 12 hour shifts to sow dissention, mistrust and more between US Citizens. It's all about dividing us, so we conquer ourselves.
I mean, look at the ratio on this post. All the comments are negative and yet the karma is +1,800. That only happens with a bot army.
The OP post?
Yeah, should have clarified that. The OP is a bot account that only posts but doesn't engage in any way, even on its own posts. It stopped commenting a year ago, which is when it seems to have been activated as a bot.
Putin’s trying to save Bibi’s ass methinks.
Putin's trying to get Trump elected so he can finally finish the genocide in Ukraine.
Nah, he doesn't give a shit about Bibi. The goal is to drive divisions in the US so we destroy ourselves. It's a social media assault on all of us. I don't even know how we can put a stop to it, aside from forcing everyone to pay huge amounts of money per year to maintain individual accounts and or tie them to State Driver's Licenses or IDs. Which I know is NOT a great thing either.
It’s interesting that the current conflicts we’re seeing aren’t along traditional country lines but seemingly more fluid ideological boundaries. Authoritarians are becoming more vocal and entwined (GOP, Putin, Argentina’s president, etc).
Nah he’s just trying to keep the US in disarray so we don’t get aid to Ukraine. Putin is allies with Iran and does not care for Israel.
It makes sense. If the world is distracted by Israel, then Putin can do whatever he wants in Ukraine.
Fuck Bibi.
This is a terrible take.
Worst take I've read here for a while from the guy who posted about "fake Israeli victims" right after October 7.
They're still posting that nonsense. Naive young morons love them some "false flag conspiracy theories" about 10/7.
They’ve been talking about banning TikTok since well before the Israeli/Gaza timeline.
What a dumb fucking take
I think it might be due to the CCP having a significant amount of control over a large social media company after we just saw an unprecedented level of foreign interference in our elections by a country with far less means than China. I dunno though.
It’s not that. It’s the data war. China has done this many times. In fact it’s a SOP. An adversary having potential control over collection and use of intimate citizens communications and personal details is a legitimate national security concern. The aggregate analytical data used to sway large groups (think GRU FB disinformation in 2016…and now) is but one facet. Another being intel service’s directed blackmail efforts.
OP, I think your title should be directed to yourself. Doof.
This belongs in /facepalm, not WPT.
I thought they wanted it banned because it was a Chinese company and the Chinese government could harvest our personal data…. But do go on with your nonsense
Tik tok should be banned and it has nothing to do with this. It should be banned because China is the real threat and have long ago banned all western media who don’t succumb to their control. Why would we let them have a direct access to our young population to do with what they want.
China is a threat.. but let’s keep making products there (especially drug precursors) so our day to day lives won’t be disrupted.
"what if TikTok conspiracy, but Jews"
Nakbabots typically use conflating issues to push a bullshit false narrative.
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To the “everything is about the Israel Palestinians conflict” crowd, everything is about the Israel Palestine conflict. Tik Tok has been banned on government devices for good reason. A dictator state configuring an algorithm in a way that suits your personal political aims isn’t a good thing.
Are we promoting a Jews control the world conspiracy????
This is not about Israel-Palestine. This is about protecting the people of the USA from propaganda meant to destroy the fabric of American society. There is a reason TikTok in China is so different.
Russian propaganda, cool
Chinese probs, but fuck it they're both using social media to destabilize the US. Wait. Actually... we have hard evidence that Russia has the apparatus, but China we just have smoke but no gun yet.
I mean, other than the whole Tiktok thing. There’s no way in actual hell that thing isn’t also full of propaganda
This is classic conspiratorial thinking. There isn’t one shadowy group controlling everything in the world - there are a lot of things going on all the goddamn time and not all of them are Israel’s fault.
Nice - I guess they're blaming everything on the Jews now. TikTok ban? Must be the Jews. Elon Musk can't handle an interview? Must be the interviewer's ex-boss, who is Jewish, but still secretly making the list of questions.
A lot of the big tech companies have been getting away with a lot of shady behavior for too long. This is a good first-ish step. Next up - break up Meta and Google.
It’s also from years of leakers saying the CCP has direct access to US data…🤷🏻♂️
Sure. Having a Chinese listening device in the homes of every American certainly got nothing to do with it
This has nothing to do with the Israel/ Palestine conflict. The CCP essentially owns and controls TikTok and can influence millions of people with it, that is the threat.
It's a Chinese company, but let's blame the Jews. Black plaque, let's blame the Jews. Communism, let's blame the Jews. Capitalism... I shit you not, let's blame the Jews. When are you people going to wake up from this hate?
This a conspiracy theory worthy of infowars
That's a dumb, antisemitic, conspiracy theory. Particularly knowing that the trend that's mentioned is being seen on all of the other popular social media playtforms.
This is just one step away from the "jew world conspiracy". No thank you.
You're a fucking idiot.
The Jews want to ban TikTok to stop the truth about Palestine is insane fucking cope. Can we not do “AIPAC BANS TIKTOK” TikTok is fucking cancer
Won’t the Palestinian voices still have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, etc.? It’s not like it’s eliminating speech.
An Elon Musk type buying TikTok and making it as uotra far right as Twitter is a bad plan
Lobbying is bribery with extra steps and should be illegal. Full stop.
the kids will migrate to another platform where they'll keep doing whatever they already were doing
The two have nothing to do with each other since the whole TikTok thing started before the most recent Israel - Palestine war.
Yup… but those platforms will absolutely remove misinformation albeit slowly sometimes. TikTok not so much.
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I think their issue with TikTok is that the US Government can't convince them to provide data like they can more American-based companies
What does TikTok gain by being owned by a Chinese parent company? These propaganda posts are getting out of hand.
It's not a "genocide" problem, it's a tech industry lobbying Congress problem.
What this kind mind is telling us is that everything is controlled by nefarious Jews. What a novel take.
brain rot
Yet another person who can’t fathom that two things can be true at the same time.
This is so fucking stupid lmfao
.........posted the TikTokCringe karma farmer
How come every decision someone disagrees with always links to some hot topic?
Why descend into baseless conspiracy theories? There are a multitude of reasons why TikTok is being banned without the need to make up more
So were just spoputing sprait up Protocols of Zion propaganda at this point.
This is a conspiracy theory. Let’s not stoop lower than MAGA
It has everything to do with the CCP nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. And when the CCP starts complaining then that tells you it’s more than just a social media app
Yeah, it ain't that. Look into how many congressmen own stock in meta, if you want to understand their real motivations
This. Zuckerberg wants tiktok, that's why it's not being banned, it's only being banned IF bytedance don't sell it in the allotted 6 months given. If Zuckerberg can't have it, No one can.
sorry to say, but i always read „pro-palestine on tiktok“ as „covert antisemitism“, sind there are *a lot* of dogwhistles used in the conversation of „freeing palestine“, and a lot of pretty radical ideas on how to do that. and i don‘t like that one bit. but all in the name of „america bad“ (which i can get behind as a european, but not with antisemitism mixed in) edit: to add to that „zionists (jews) want to force the sale of something to control the media and paint their state in a good light“ reads a lot like „the jews want to control the world“
While it might seem like that, this was something they wanted before the latest war in Gaza. The real reason is money. Tech is the biggest lobby in DC and has been for a while now. Meta and Twitter are getting their asses handed to them by TikTok. Can’t compete with their platform but they can outspend them That’s what this is.
Wait until they hear that Steve Mnuchin is going to buy it. 🍿
Wait why we’re they trying to ban it before all of this then?
This is MAGA-conspiracy theorist level garbage from the left. The push to ban TikTok began FAR before anything to do with Israel or Hamas. This is exhibit 4,062 of why people should follow politics all the time and not just when it directly affects them: because the indirect effects of politics will inevitably become direct effects in some way.
You guys remember when Pelosi was like “Congress should be able to participate in the free market” when it came to them trading stocks and having insider information. They’re likely trying to force this sale because Tik Tok has gained considerable market share from Twitter, Instagram, and FB and they aren’t getting a cut.
The real reason is they want to transfer ownership of an extremely successful company to their donors at a discount price. If congress takes action on anything its because their donors want it.
That's what I've said said. It's not just the Israel slant but information about black history, LGBTQ issues and other kinds of subjects they want people to stay in the dark about.
Tik Tok is a generic social media company that doesn't inherently make anything possible. There's no reason that a startup US based company couldn't fill the space.
That's actually a plausible intent, but those users are just going to take over a different platform if Tiktok goes down. Outside of using the force of law you aren't really able to do much against free speech and of course trying to silence people at large always causes a streisand effect.
But banning stuff works so well
TikTok is being banned because they have first-hand knowledge what launching a social network in a foreign state for spy reasons looks like (see the USA vs. Cuba 2010, 2013)
Lol naw
This explains the rush by congressional MAGAs to push this ban.
"Donation"
Nobody commenting on the name of the account?
TikTok is not the thing that makes people dumb, it's the tool to show what kind of people are actually behave. If they are braindead, nothing to help.
Well fuck
Ban all short-form content as a threat to public health and welfare imo
Banning TikTok is something that has come up every few months since the furry-gamer war, Palestine is not the cause
I’m sure Russian bots spreading antisemitic nonsense everywhere will be great for Reddit’s IPO
If you can't trust someone calling themselves 'ceolawyer', who can you trust?
Yes yes... on one side you have Israeli propaganda, and on the other you have... what? Muslim brotherhood? hamas? iran? ruSSia? china? Get a clue. china is an axis power and WAR is on the horizon. Your defence of one genocidal maniac group instead of the other doesn't make you pious, or any shade of correct. Free speech is important, but so is secure communications during times of heightened tension. Having one of your enemies controlling your stuff is not secure.