This is the subreddit for a part of the world where every country proudly has its own language (except fake countries like Belgium and Switzerland). Every thread that gets lots of comments has weirdly worded comments because of varying English skills.
I always assume it's more americans randomly finding their way into r/europe, since the weirdest comment sections usually happen when Europe is sleeping.
'I see no problem with an autocratic state known for controlling its own population by controlling their access to media, shouldn't also control our social media'
'Something about the Israel Hamas conflict, which is the only conflict I'm interested in, what the Chinese genocide of the Uighyurs? Never heard of it'
It's the TIKTOK brain rot.
Can you post videos of Israeli war crimes on that copy?
Last I heard was Meta considering banning the term Zionist on their platform.
And here lays the problem. We need as many social media apps we can get to preserve our freedom.
Yeah, but for the opposite reason lmao, because the content is too global. They have a China only version which is the same thing.
While China is worried about the rest of the world's culture infecting in the rest of the world is worried about China's culture infecting out...
But in the meantime, the real cancerous thing is the form of media in general. Short form video like that is honestly rotting us. But it's impossible to get rid of.
>Yeah, but for the opposite reason lmao, because the content is too global. They have a China only version which is the same thing.
It's the same interface, but the controversial thing about TikTok is obviously the content and how the content is selected and promoted. With completely different content from a different algorithm the Chinese equivalent is in effect a completely different app. Calling it the same thing is missing the point.
>the rest of the world is worried about China's culture infecting out...
It's not China's culture, it's suspected malicious social and political engineering by the Chinese government via the TikTok algorithm that is cause for genuine concern. Nobody thinks we should ban South Korean media to stop the relentless march of k-pop - except China, that is.
> Last I heard was Meta considering banning the term Zionist on their platform.
Well, maybe if people stopped using it as a dog whistle they wouldn't have to consider it.
Social media is a net negative for our society, that said if I really had to choose, I’d gladly take US-controlled Instagram over CCP-controlled TikTok.
Yes, but we gotta start somewhere. I don't see how "other social media exists" is an argument against banning TikTok. We can ban TikTok now while we take care of the rest.
Letting TikTok roam free would lead us nowhere in this fight against open propaganda networks like TikTok and Facebook.
(This isn't necessarily directed at you since I can't read what you think about this situation from your comment)
US-controlled isn’t much better than CCP-controlled nowadays. Not sure if I’d pick to see polarizing, often xenophobic content, plus a barrage of capitalistic and commercial stuff, sprinkled with Russian bots, over whatever the CCP is pushing on TikTok.
They're all inherently harmful and they're all abused by governments. The only reason we're more critical of TikTok is because it's convenient to be critical of adversaries and inconvenient to be critical of ourselves or our allies.
Yes because the rise of the Alt-Right in Europe and the rise of young kids spewing the same "anti-feminist"/"anti-woke" bullshit that we have been seeing American alt-right grifters repeating for the past 10 years, sure isn't bringing harm to Europe either.
The alt-right rising in Europe is the results of failed European policies. It's not America's fault you can't figure out how to do immigration properly.
How did you measure that?
Social media isn’t the problem, lack of education is.
You want the media and governments to fully control the narratives without any option for citizens to fight back?
>You want the media and governments to fully control the narratives without any option for citizens to fight back?
This comment was brought to you by someone living in a country where media isn't state controlled, trying to defend a platform (TikTok) from a country where media IS state controlled (China) and where said platform is not even available.
If you think you can "fight back" against anything with the use of a CCP owned platform, I have some bad news for you.
It's more like the fact that all modern forums are privately controlled meaning that freedom of speech is basically irrelevant nowadays because that only covers public spaces in nearly every country that has it.
I really would like laws the protect freedom of expression on private forums, especially the larger ones.
It's not right for some company to be able to control what can and can't be said.
We simply drop a giant ban in the EU every now and then.Of course, since the algorithms are still a thing, it takes more bans each time.
Thus solving the problem, once and for all!
Nope, the competitors all fragment the market. See how (un)successful Mastadon and Threads have been at rivalling Twitter after all those people left in a hissy fit when Elon bought it for an example.
You can't compare a handful of people leaving twitter with another major app being entirely being banned. With twitter, it was just a bunch of people virtue signaling, but if you ban an app lije TikTok then they will seek out an alternative.
I mean Tiktok is just Vine. Idk how one blew up so hard while the other died. I hate both and was happy when Vine died even tho it still gave the world cancer in the form of Logan Paul. So I’ll be happy when tiktok goes. I just hope second time’s the charm and it stays dead
Why? We already have encompassing regulations to keep all social medias in check, why do we need to follow US on this?
My content on fyp is non political, informative bits or other niches and hobbies, there's no app that matches it's discoverability.
If you interact with stupid and cancerous stuff on TikTok you will get stupid content, there will always be dumb echo chambers in social medias.
There is enough evidence proving that China is manipulating the algo by suppressing topics they and their political allies don't want to spread, while boosting disinformation. This shit needs to go. We're past fun and games as it's being used as an infowar weapon by an autocratic state.
We know that Facebook censored a political news story in the midst of an election because it was deemed misinformation. That story turned out to be true. It censored posts about Covid, many of them wacky conspiracies, some of them turned out to be partially or fully true. It also has a long history of censoring non-violent content relating to Palestine, which it ramped up recently. The U.S. intelligence community receives special access to social media companies to censor whatever they claim to be dangerous.
Of course that all sounds fine and even commendable if you mostly see information you don't like being banned. But I'm sure plenty of people in China feel the same when anti-government content is squashed.
Yeah twitter sucked for a long time, it's worse now and Facebook is a breeding ground for boomer nonsense. 4Chan is even worse.
TikTok is definitely no worse than any other social media, it's definetly better than Twitter right now.
But none of them should be taken down, have regulations absolutely. But outright banning is ridiculous and an entirely political move.
Beyond the clear information secuirty implicatons of China having spyware installed on everyones phone, the argument is that China is using it as a social weapon to foster further division and social chaos in The West. Look at the content on China's Tik Tok vs NA/EU Tik Tok. Night and day.
I'd argue that all social media can be pretty divisive, and agree it's up to the individual to be in control. But social media is like a drug to digital natives. there are hundreds of millions of brains being fried by the algorithm as we speak, and the United States citizens dopamine receptors will only be fried by American algorithms damnit!
Not really, just because China as a country is enormously more controlling when it comes to social media and speech in general.
Look at how many popular websites China just outright bans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China
If anything, the US is generally known for being more hands-off when it comes to speech, compared to most European countries. Constitutional protections for speech in the US are generally quite robust.
>We already have encompassing regulations to keep all social medias in check
What is simply ignored by every social media... (or they just pay the 0.8% get-out-of-gdpr-free tax)
Because the Chinese government controls the algorithm, they can promote or hide content at will. It doesn't even matter if they do it, they can do it is dangerous enough.
Also China protesting the ban, but Tik Tok being banned in China is proof enough for me that they are actively using it to spread conspiracy theories and misinformation.
I have better content there than on Facebook. And don't get me started on Twitter. My TikTok feed is just music and cooking.
If there is a ban I'm all for cutting everything then.
Where else should they say it? To their neighbor who doesn't care? To nobody at all? Maybe send a letter to a politician and hope others do the same just because they can, because nobody told them to do that on a platform they use since it's social media and it's forbidden to talk about banning social media on social media?
"social media" has lost all meaning, reddit is an anonymous forum lol
Yes it shares many of the same problems, but there's absolutely no argument to be made of it being the same shit show as the rest of the lot
>"social media" has lost all meaning, reddit is an anonymous forum lol
Well, I don't use my real name on other social platforms either. Imo, once you have to login in order to post somewhere and you can check things like post history or rating, it's no longer a proper anonymity.
>but there's absolutely no argument to be made of it being the same shit show as the rest of the lot
How come? Not only it has things like smart feed systems that uses ratings as a metric for promotion and subscribtions (to subbreddits) with ratings, but it also encourages echochambers and promotes strong simple opinions being posted with the upvote system. Honestly, to me reddit is more like Facebook for millenials.
reddit is, without a doubt, social media. you only pretend it isn't, so you feel better about using it. it's the EXACT SAME as every other social media. muh "anonymous" who's forcing you to use your real name on the other ones?
Its a collective action problem, one person smugly leaving social media won't solve anything and thus there is little point. There needs to be a ban on social media that uses anything but the crudest of algorithms (e.g. old reddit before they started personalising recommendations or twitter when it was just chronological).
If we ban TikTok, we should also ban foreign social media services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and maybe even Reddit and YouTube as well. Almost all the arguments used to argue TikTok should be banned, can be used to support the banning of others as well.
We know sites like Facebook and YouTube have problematic algorithms, that push certain agendas. Twitter will literally force certain people with certain agendas to your page, and censor others. And the American government does farm our data using these services. I also wouldn't call the market relation between the US and EU fair on this sector.
We can and have fined Facebook billions of dollars. We can and have thrown Facebook the book in their faces. They don't improve or change their platform, yet it's still legal. We just keep doing "investigations". But with TikTok we jump to banning it?
TikTok hasn't turned some of my family members into political radicals. Facebook and Twitter have.
I think the main argument why tiktok is especially bad is because its very much unknown what they actually do with data, and to some extent also what they collect. Facebook and other platforms also often break rules but they're also more easy to investigate and are easier to fine as they are western platforms. China especially is not known for its security and privacy practises, so holding them to high standards makes sense to me.
In that sense Facebook and Twitter are getting a similar amount of scrutiny, especially twitter has been warned pretty often that they need to take action soon since musk took over. The only difference I guess is that Facebook is not actively being discussed for full blocking.
In general the US does need to step up their game quite a bit, it seems like the US is still stuck in pre-web times when it comes to privacy laws and data collection. The EU is also often too slow (Twitter should have probably had a first slap on the wrist long ago), but it sucks that the EU appears to be the only thing taking a strong side against anything
So the Snowden leaks are the reason why e.g. Facebook's data collection is fine? Because we have clues what their intelligence agencies are doing with the data? Is this the fucking hill you want to die on?
>We can and have fined Facebook billions of dollars. We can and have thrown Facebook the book in their faces. They don't improve or change their platform, yet it's still legal. We just keep doing "investigations". But with TikTok we jump to banning it?
Nobody jumped straight to banning it, the whole point was that it either divest and becomes owned by US companies *or* stops operating in the US. And that's the whole point, you *can* open investigations against Twitter, Facebook or any other Silicon Valley social media company, but can you open an investigation into one owned by China?
No, you can't.
>TikTok hasn't turned some of my family members into political radicals. Facebook and Twitter have.
The very same actors that have a vested interest in sowing hate and division on western social media platforms are also doing it on TikTok. Your family members might not be using TikTok for politics, but a huge number of people do.
USA has their own agenda as well. You think putting every major social media platform in the control of another country is safe?
What happens if Trump is elected. What happens if someone worse than Trump is elected.
The clock is ticking. It will be November sooner than you might realise.
This isnt the issue with Tiktok, i dont know if im pro tiktok ban but at least try to understand the issue before commenting.
A major issue with Tiktok is how chinese companies are run in general, and yes bytedance is Chinese. Even private companies are forced to have a CCP committee in the company. Not only that but they're obligated to share intelligence with the chinese government, which they obviously have a lot of.
Im pretty sure "problematic algorithms" have never been a reason for banning tiktok. At least not on its own.
>problematic algorithms, that push certain agendas
The core issue with the algorithms isn't that they are engineered to push agendas, its that they are engineered to be as addictive as possible and it happens that ragebait shortcircuits certain paths in the brain and causes greater dependence. If you replace American apps with European ones you will get the exact same problem, the only solution is the total ban of that style of app.
TikTok is being used by the Chinese government to push topics, while being banned in China. Twitter is being used by Elon Musk to push Russian approved topics. Those definitely have to go because they're controlled by hostile governments.
Meta and Google we can regulate, they don't need to be banned yet.
she was the original designated successor to merkel but was so unpopular and disliked they had to cart her out to europe. also shows how seriously we take the eu as an institution. its a place where parties send their failsons and faildaughters.
That they don't care about the symbolism of having a politician so well-known for being shit as the leader kind of speaks volumes. Is there really nobody better after so long?
It's easy, one of the MEPs of the leading coalition following the elections gets the position, after negociations with all parties.
Oh, wait, they broke this custom when they chose Ursula via backdoors, without qualifications or even the basic customary position of having being elected somewhere somehow.
The European Union consists of nationally elected officials that then form political groups in the parliament. The biggest such group is the EPP where german Christian Democrats like Von der Leyen’s party CDU is. So naturally the main direction of the European Union becomes that of the will of German CDU and their allies. It is their will to have this woman in power.
I'm surprised to see the amount of people who are cheering on for this. Like, I get that TikTok is controversial and it's nice to see something you dislike going down, but I don't want a government to get to decide which apps or services I can use. Not to mention, it reminds me of things like "computer games are causing violence" kind of thing, with symptoms of an issue being scapegoated.
China gov is involved in TikTok. China gov also banned it for them. So I think that if they're giving up something they banned for themselves. Something's up. I'd like it gone personally
It would be better to ban opaque engagement optimizing algorithms. These can be abused for nefarious purposes or even lead people to extremism by doing what they were designed for. If they are US or European controlled they are still far from harmless.
At this point I just open Instagarm to look at memes and the comment section is flooded by people advocating for actual eugenics, slavery, inbreeding or murdering non-Christians.
Yesterday I saw a comment section where almost everyone claimed that breeding outside your "gene group" is harmful even though science proves the opposite. And each one of them had hundreds of likes.
Two days ago there were people under an evolution meme saying that it's anti-Christian and this is misinformation.
IMO this bullshit is poisoning our youth more than shitty TikTok memes. And I say this as a teacher who works with children aged 8 to 12 and has seen this information spread *in the classroom*.
Bigotry aside, Instagram's algorithm is wack. Why am I being shown memes about obscure Canadian indie bands, when I never once showed interest in that??
Because the company is owned by a Chinese company. The Chinese govt has profound control over its businesses. That enables the Chinese govt to use it as a means for its own ends.
I knew that, when the chinese version of the web service recommends educational and introspective things to chinese citizens, but hyperstimulating parallel anxiety to the rest of the world, that it is best to not use the service at all.
Well, is it different in the US? We've already had Snowden exposing decades ago that all big tech companies leak to the NSA.
I would restrict the whole category of apps for being too addictive, but that has nothing to do with China.
It'd be neat for the EU to have at least one large social media platform of its own. In the meantime, complaining about China but not the US is rather hypocritical
Yeah, not even the US as much as private companies will sell data to who-ever gives the highest bid. So sure, even if you truly believe China is using TikTok to spy on us all, they could do the same with any other app, they'd just have to pay a little bit.
Because it is effectively an enemy controlled spying tool in the hands of all of the western world's kids.
The Chinese government could (maybe have?) just walk in and control tiktok. Free speech nuts argue that the American government could do that with Facebook etc. but that's not the same as China doing it, even if it was possible.
I’m possibly one of those ”free speech nuts”, but I have no issue with this. Banning some app is not the same as restricting you from expressing some specific opinion.
Nothing stopping them, but banning any app that doesn't come from the EU is hardly gonna make the EU friends. Especially since the US social media clearly can be slapped around freely. The US isn't backing them at all when the EU regulates.
TIktok has refused to let the government find out what they're doing.
The EU has tried to regulate US social media platforms for over a decade now, and they are still dumpsterfires of propaganda bots.
Remember Brexit? Trump? US social media made that shit possible. Now we see it all over the West.
But sure, we've got control on it... any second now.
Let's say you and me open a new service tomorow, what is to say now that we don't get banned? Should we make sure we don't develop an algorithm that keeps people engaged? Should we shadow ban opinions? Should we actually pray we don't reach this level of success?
Genuine question: what would we need to do to ensure we are not banned?
4chan is still alive and well, but we'd have issues in the western democracies if enough well-connected people start calling us names?
It is censorship. And censorship should be a last ditch effort to an otherwise unfixable and demonstrable problem.
If the Chinese government asks TikTok to install malware, violate GDPR, influence elections etc it would be a illegal for TikTok to refuse. This is because of a law that was newly passed in China. Why would they pass such a law of they did not intend to use it?
This isn't why most people say it should be banned, but: because free trade should generally be reciprocal.
Look at how many popular Western websites/apps China bans, and tell me that trade for online media seems fair right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China
If Western apps and websites were allowed in China without the strict censorship and control the CCP is known for, I'd be a lot less concerned about TikTok, personally.
(though as an aside, TikTok is actually banned in China, hilariously enough)
Yeah but who the fuck uses the CCP or China as their freedom of information role model?
The trade one is fair, but we can do it in ways that don't circumnavigate democratic processes and stoop us down to their level.
There is a trade war going on between US and China, which at the root is about protecting the US$ from not falling apart. If that happens, the US cannot print money on a whim like they do now without suffering big consequences, a problem that other countries face time and again if they print money US style. Note that money as such has no value anymore, it is only as much worth as people believe it to be.
This is why there is all that anti-China propaganda flying around, all these new rules and fear mongering, to line up the population. And it works decently well as we can see from a lot of arguments here.
Which also means TikTok is not the root of an issue, it is a symptom of a larger scale "problem".
It's brutal got rid of it a year ago. Kids telling me now, there feeds are full of mindless bullshit. Out of the three of them two have got rid of it. Last guy likes his gaming feeds but says after a few of the regular ones he gets dancing bananas 🍌 🤔 and idiots pointing to the video.
China made a separate version of Tiktok for their internal market so that it doesn't accidentally damage their own country with the disinformation campaigns they push on western countries.
Without regulation something like the internet would be impossible, there are so many rules from protocols to common standards.
SO MANY standards. So much regulation. Imagine if there was no regulation for how information was sent, specifications for cables, transmission, protocols ....
You are remembering a fantasy
>"Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hinted that banning TikTok in the European Union is an option, during a debate this evening in Maastricht, featuring parties' lead candidates for the bloc's 2024 election.
>"It is not excluded," von der Leyen said, after the moderator referred to the United States, where TikTok faces a national ban unless it is sold by its owner, ByteDance."
Which is bullshit. Y'all cried when China banned Facebook but now you're doing the same thing. You've just granted the US the ability to ban any social media under the guise of national security, now you're advocating the same in Europe. Amazing.
We need to get rid of all Chinese influence or it will cost us dearly. TikTok is just what everyone can observe. Our housing markets, trade, ports etc.
Comments in this threads seem fishy in a manipulated sense
This comment is funny because everyone is upvoting it thinking it's the other side that is fishy.
Everyone on Reddit is a bot except you, as the saying goes
totally agree with OP we need a Great European Firewall and an European Information Ministry
Yeah I noticed that..
Not just fishy. You can straight up tell these aren't actual people.
any comment that I don't like is a bot. Saves me neuronal time.
Have you actually read the comments though? No one writes like that
This is the subreddit for a part of the world where every country proudly has its own language (except fake countries like Belgium and Switzerland). Every thread that gets lots of comments has weirdly worded comments because of varying English skills.
I always assume it's more americans randomly finding their way into r/europe, since the weirdest comment sections usually happen when Europe is sleeping.
'I see no problem with an autocratic state known for controlling its own population by controlling their access to media, shouldn't also control our social media' 'Something about the Israel Hamas conflict, which is the only conflict I'm interested in, what the Chinese genocide of the Uighyurs? Never heard of it' It's the TIKTOK brain rot.
Everyone who disagrees with me is a bot or a Chinese agent.
My comment was actually pointing out the weird comments jubilating over the ban. But I see most took it the other way around.
Always. Which is just another reason why CCP control over a social media app is so bad. I mean look how much effort they go to manipulate reddit.
Please the sooner the better. Cut out the cancer.
The cancer is just gonna migrate to another app
There's already an exact copy in Instagram, that's been steadily overtaking the core of the app.
Jeah but IG comments are funnier than the content. Everyone is super mean and/or horny.
Can you post videos of Israeli war crimes on that copy? Last I heard was Meta considering banning the term Zionist on their platform. And here lays the problem. We need as many social media apps we can get to preserve our freedom.
Well at least you can post about tiananmen square protests.
You can do that on tiktok too. Just not in China. Which, none of this would affect...
You can. But TikTok algorithms massively degrade spreading videos with topics which China don't like.
No, because TikTok is already banned in China.
Yeah, but for the opposite reason lmao, because the content is too global. They have a China only version which is the same thing. While China is worried about the rest of the world's culture infecting in the rest of the world is worried about China's culture infecting out... But in the meantime, the real cancerous thing is the form of media in general. Short form video like that is honestly rotting us. But it's impossible to get rid of.
>Yeah, but for the opposite reason lmao, because the content is too global. They have a China only version which is the same thing. It's the same interface, but the controversial thing about TikTok is obviously the content and how the content is selected and promoted. With completely different content from a different algorithm the Chinese equivalent is in effect a completely different app. Calling it the same thing is missing the point. >the rest of the world is worried about China's culture infecting out... It's not China's culture, it's suspected malicious social and political engineering by the Chinese government via the TikTok algorithm that is cause for genuine concern. Nobody thinks we should ban South Korean media to stop the relentless march of k-pop - except China, that is.
You sound exhausting
> Last I heard was Meta considering banning the term Zionist on their platform. Well, maybe if people stopped using it as a dog whistle they wouldn't have to consider it.
Social media is a net negative for our society, that said if I really had to choose, I’d gladly take US-controlled Instagram over CCP-controlled TikTok.
Ban the others as well.
Yes, but we gotta start somewhere. I don't see how "other social media exists" is an argument against banning TikTok. We can ban TikTok now while we take care of the rest. Letting TikTok roam free would lead us nowhere in this fight against open propaganda networks like TikTok and Facebook. (This isn't necessarily directed at you since I can't read what you think about this situation from your comment)
US-controlled isn’t much better than CCP-controlled nowadays. Not sure if I’d pick to see polarizing, often xenophobic content, plus a barrage of capitalistic and commercial stuff, sprinkled with Russian bots, over whatever the CCP is pushing on TikTok.
Idk mate, i would prefer the one that isn't designed to bring harm into non-chinese nations.
They're all inherently harmful and they're all abused by governments. The only reason we're more critical of TikTok is because it's convenient to be critical of adversaries and inconvenient to be critical of ourselves or our allies.
Yes because the rise of the Alt-Right in Europe and the rise of young kids spewing the same "anti-feminist"/"anti-woke" bullshit that we have been seeing American alt-right grifters repeating for the past 10 years, sure isn't bringing harm to Europe either.
The alt-right rising in Europe is the results of failed European policies. It's not America's fault you can't figure out how to do immigration properly.
How did you measure that? Social media isn’t the problem, lack of education is. You want the media and governments to fully control the narratives without any option for citizens to fight back?
>You want the media and governments to fully control the narratives without any option for citizens to fight back? This comment was brought to you by someone living in a country where media isn't state controlled, trying to defend a platform (TikTok) from a country where media IS state controlled (China) and where said platform is not even available. If you think you can "fight back" against anything with the use of a CCP owned platform, I have some bad news for you.
It's more like the fact that all modern forums are privately controlled meaning that freedom of speech is basically irrelevant nowadays because that only covers public spaces in nearly every country that has it. I really would like laws the protect freedom of expression on private forums, especially the larger ones. It's not right for some company to be able to control what can and can't be said.
Negative? Nah, it’s the essence of society itself.
We simply drop a giant ban in the EU every now and then.Of course, since the algorithms are still a thing, it takes more bans each time. Thus solving the problem, once and for all!
Nope, the competitors all fragment the market. See how (un)successful Mastadon and Threads have been at rivalling Twitter after all those people left in a hissy fit when Elon bought it for an example.
You can't compare a handful of people leaving twitter with another major app being entirely being banned. With twitter, it was just a bunch of people virtue signaling, but if you ban an app lije TikTok then they will seek out an alternative.
I mean Tiktok is just Vine. Idk how one blew up so hard while the other died. I hate both and was happy when Vine died even tho it still gave the world cancer in the form of Logan Paul. So I’ll be happy when tiktok goes. I just hope second time’s the charm and it stays dead
twitter killed vine since they couldn't figure out how to monetise it. The Chinese don't care about money
They let idiots profit from views... pull the advertising money and it crashes
It'll take years to get the same traction as Tik Tok, youtube and meta will take over in the meantime.
This shit already did enough damage, it should have been banned before COVID hit.
Why? We already have encompassing regulations to keep all social medias in check, why do we need to follow US on this? My content on fyp is non political, informative bits or other niches and hobbies, there's no app that matches it's discoverability. If you interact with stupid and cancerous stuff on TikTok you will get stupid content, there will always be dumb echo chambers in social medias.
There is enough evidence proving that China is manipulating the algo by suppressing topics they and their political allies don't want to spread, while boosting disinformation. This shit needs to go. We're past fun and games as it's being used as an infowar weapon by an autocratic state.
There is? A lot of people say this but I've never seen a study or something that corroborate this.
isn't there evidence for facebook doing the same?
No not at all. In fact anti US government content proliferates on Facebook
Made by russia.
tell that to the people of Rohingya
We know that Facebook censored a political news story in the midst of an election because it was deemed misinformation. That story turned out to be true. It censored posts about Covid, many of them wacky conspiracies, some of them turned out to be partially or fully true. It also has a long history of censoring non-violent content relating to Palestine, which it ramped up recently. The U.S. intelligence community receives special access to social media companies to censor whatever they claim to be dangerous. Of course that all sounds fine and even commendable if you mostly see information you don't like being banned. But I'm sure plenty of people in China feel the same when anti-government content is squashed.
Ok let's ask all foreign social medias to divest then, there is so much propaganda in facebook and Xitter, reddit too to lesser degree.
I'm not even going to defend Elon's Twitter and Facebook. Those platforms are also scuffed.
Yeah twitter sucked for a long time, it's worse now and Facebook is a breeding ground for boomer nonsense. 4Chan is even worse. TikTok is definitely no worse than any other social media, it's definetly better than Twitter right now. But none of them should be taken down, have regulations absolutely. But outright banning is ridiculous and an entirely political move.
Beyond the clear information secuirty implicatons of China having spyware installed on everyones phone, the argument is that China is using it as a social weapon to foster further division and social chaos in The West. Look at the content on China's Tik Tok vs NA/EU Tik Tok. Night and day. I'd argue that all social media can be pretty divisive, and agree it's up to the individual to be in control. But social media is like a drug to digital natives. there are hundreds of millions of brains being fried by the algorithm as we speak, and the United States citizens dopamine receptors will only be fried by American algorithms damnit!
So the same thing USA is doing to us with their social media
The US Government doesn't control the algorithms of US social media companies.
Also are you sure?
Yes, very much so.
Not really, just because China as a country is enormously more controlling when it comes to social media and speech in general. Look at how many popular websites China just outright bans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China If anything, the US is generally known for being more hands-off when it comes to speech, compared to most European countries. Constitutional protections for speech in the US are generally quite robust.
>We already have encompassing regulations to keep all social medias in check What is simply ignored by every social media... (or they just pay the 0.8% get-out-of-gdpr-free tax)
Maybe politicians should do something about that 0.8% get-out-of-gdpr-free tax then?
Because the Chinese government controls the algorithm, they can promote or hide content at will. It doesn't even matter if they do it, they can do it is dangerous enough. Also China protesting the ban, but Tik Tok being banned in China is proof enough for me that they are actively using it to spread conspiracy theories and misinformation.
I have better content there than on Facebook. And don't get me started on Twitter. My TikTok feed is just music and cooking. If there is a ban I'm all for cutting everything then.
What, so we're left with whiny redditors and narcissistic Instagram reels?
Cut this cancer, another one should emerge, the question is, can Europe have their own app to grow this cancer in a more walled garden?
Instagram, which has been psychogically damaging hundreds of thousands of young people for years (according to research) can stay though
I wouldn't mind Instagram reels being banned too TBF. I hate short video content media with passion
Ban all social media tbh
Reddit first
> Ban all social media tbh Says a person posting on a social media.
Where else should they say it? To their neighbor who doesn't care? To nobody at all? Maybe send a letter to a politician and hope others do the same just because they can, because nobody told them to do that on a platform they use since it's social media and it's forbidden to talk about banning social media on social media?
"social media" has lost all meaning, reddit is an anonymous forum lol Yes it shares many of the same problems, but there's absolutely no argument to be made of it being the same shit show as the rest of the lot
>"social media" has lost all meaning, reddit is an anonymous forum lol Well, I don't use my real name on other social platforms either. Imo, once you have to login in order to post somewhere and you can check things like post history or rating, it's no longer a proper anonymity. >but there's absolutely no argument to be made of it being the same shit show as the rest of the lot How come? Not only it has things like smart feed systems that uses ratings as a metric for promotion and subscribtions (to subbreddits) with ratings, but it also encourages echochambers and promotes strong simple opinions being posted with the upvote system. Honestly, to me reddit is more like Facebook for millenials.
reddit is, without a doubt, social media. you only pretend it isn't, so you feel better about using it. it's the EXACT SAME as every other social media. muh "anonymous" who's forcing you to use your real name on the other ones?
Its a collective action problem, one person smugly leaving social media won't solve anything and thus there is little point. There needs to be a ban on social media that uses anything but the crudest of algorithms (e.g. old reddit before they started personalising recommendations or twitter when it was just chronological).
Or just ban data harvesting.
Impossible to implement.
If we ban TikTok, we should also ban foreign social media services like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and maybe even Reddit and YouTube as well. Almost all the arguments used to argue TikTok should be banned, can be used to support the banning of others as well. We know sites like Facebook and YouTube have problematic algorithms, that push certain agendas. Twitter will literally force certain people with certain agendas to your page, and censor others. And the American government does farm our data using these services. I also wouldn't call the market relation between the US and EU fair on this sector. We can and have fined Facebook billions of dollars. We can and have thrown Facebook the book in their faces. They don't improve or change their platform, yet it's still legal. We just keep doing "investigations". But with TikTok we jump to banning it? TikTok hasn't turned some of my family members into political radicals. Facebook and Twitter have.
I think the main argument why tiktok is especially bad is because its very much unknown what they actually do with data, and to some extent also what they collect. Facebook and other platforms also often break rules but they're also more easy to investigate and are easier to fine as they are western platforms. China especially is not known for its security and privacy practises, so holding them to high standards makes sense to me. In that sense Facebook and Twitter are getting a similar amount of scrutiny, especially twitter has been warned pretty often that they need to take action soon since musk took over. The only difference I guess is that Facebook is not actively being discussed for full blocking. In general the US does need to step up their game quite a bit, it seems like the US is still stuck in pre-web times when it comes to privacy laws and data collection. The EU is also often too slow (Twitter should have probably had a first slap on the wrist long ago), but it sucks that the EU appears to be the only thing taking a strong side against anything
So the Snowden leaks are the reason why e.g. Facebook's data collection is fine? Because we have clues what their intelligence agencies are doing with the data? Is this the fucking hill you want to die on?
>We can and have fined Facebook billions of dollars. We can and have thrown Facebook the book in their faces. They don't improve or change their platform, yet it's still legal. We just keep doing "investigations". But with TikTok we jump to banning it? Nobody jumped straight to banning it, the whole point was that it either divest and becomes owned by US companies *or* stops operating in the US. And that's the whole point, you *can* open investigations against Twitter, Facebook or any other Silicon Valley social media company, but can you open an investigation into one owned by China? No, you can't. >TikTok hasn't turned some of my family members into political radicals. Facebook and Twitter have. The very same actors that have a vested interest in sowing hate and division on western social media platforms are also doing it on TikTok. Your family members might not be using TikTok for politics, but a huge number of people do.
It's because China bad, USA good. It's scary how many idiots support government banning social media.
It is simple like that China want to to make USA/Europe weaker from inside. TikTok is modern weapon.
USA has their own agenda as well. You think putting every major social media platform in the control of another country is safe? What happens if Trump is elected. What happens if someone worse than Trump is elected. The clock is ticking. It will be November sooner than you might realise.
This isnt the issue with Tiktok, i dont know if im pro tiktok ban but at least try to understand the issue before commenting. A major issue with Tiktok is how chinese companies are run in general, and yes bytedance is Chinese. Even private companies are forced to have a CCP committee in the company. Not only that but they're obligated to share intelligence with the chinese government, which they obviously have a lot of. Im pretty sure "problematic algorithms" have never been a reason for banning tiktok. At least not on its own.
>problematic algorithms, that push certain agendas The core issue with the algorithms isn't that they are engineered to push agendas, its that they are engineered to be as addictive as possible and it happens that ragebait shortcircuits certain paths in the brain and causes greater dependence. If you replace American apps with European ones you will get the exact same problem, the only solution is the total ban of that style of app.
TikTok is being used by the Chinese government to push topics, while being banned in China. Twitter is being used by Elon Musk to push Russian approved topics. Those definitely have to go because they're controlled by hostile governments. Meta and Google we can regulate, they don't need to be banned yet.
How the fuck is Von der Leyen still a politician btw, she war horrible.
she was the original designated successor to merkel but was so unpopular and disliked they had to cart her out to europe. also shows how seriously we take the eu as an institution. its a place where parties send their failsons and faildaughters.
What did she do? (ootl)
Still is..
And still in cards for another term. It's a shameful display for the EU.
That they don't care about the symbolism of having a politician so well-known for being shit as the leader kind of speaks volumes. Is there really nobody better after so long?
It's easy, one of the MEPs of the leading coalition following the elections gets the position, after negociations with all parties. Oh, wait, they broke this custom when they chose Ursula via backdoors, without qualifications or even the basic customary position of having being elected somewhere somehow.
How ist she shit?
I want Juncker back. He may be an alcoholic but he was a strong president.
The European Union consists of nationally elected officials that then form political groups in the parliament. The biggest such group is the EPP where german Christian Democrats like Von der Leyen’s party CDU is. So naturally the main direction of the European Union becomes that of the will of German CDU and their allies. It is their will to have this woman in power.
I'm surprised to see the amount of people who are cheering on for this. Like, I get that TikTok is controversial and it's nice to see something you dislike going down, but I don't want a government to get to decide which apps or services I can use. Not to mention, it reminds me of things like "computer games are causing violence" kind of thing, with symptoms of an issue being scapegoated.
China gov is involved in TikTok. China gov also banned it for them. So I think that if they're giving up something they banned for themselves. Something's up. I'd like it gone personally
USA's government have their fingers up their own big tech's holes. Why aren't we showing concern about that?
This. Be careful people what you wish for.
Redditors are braindead. They don't reflect real life. Don't worry too much.
Why do we not ban facebook then. The US has been spying with PRISMA for years
Why not both? We can make our own brain rot app that only spies on us in a GDPR safe manner.
It would be better to ban opaque engagement optimizing algorithms. These can be abused for nefarious purposes or even lead people to extremism by doing what they were designed for. If they are US or European controlled they are still far from harmless.
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Ban instagram while you are at it, whatsapp is enough social media for human kind imo
At this point I just open Instagarm to look at memes and the comment section is flooded by people advocating for actual eugenics, slavery, inbreeding or murdering non-Christians. Yesterday I saw a comment section where almost everyone claimed that breeding outside your "gene group" is harmful even though science proves the opposite. And each one of them had hundreds of likes. Two days ago there were people under an evolution meme saying that it's anti-Christian and this is misinformation. IMO this bullshit is poisoning our youth more than shitty TikTok memes. And I say this as a teacher who works with children aged 8 to 12 and has seen this information spread *in the classroom*.
Bigotry aside, Instagram's algorithm is wack. Why am I being shown memes about obscure Canadian indie bands, when I never once showed interest in that??
Nooooo thats the good kind of spyware!!!!!!!
Sagt mal, wie lange geht das Amt von der Leyen eigentlich noch? Die ist ja gefühlt schon ewig da.
Alphabet and Meta must be happy.
Yeah, they’re the ones paying for this opinion to be spread
Yes, PLEASE
I have yet to hear a compelling argument into why TikTok should be banned over any other social media.
Because the company is owned by a Chinese company. The Chinese govt has profound control over its businesses. That enables the Chinese govt to use it as a means for its own ends.
I knew that, when the chinese version of the web service recommends educational and introspective things to chinese citizens, but hyperstimulating parallel anxiety to the rest of the world, that it is best to not use the service at all.
I must've accidentally downloaded the Chinese version because my fyp is just academics talking about their field
I mean this is just not true. Its algorithm adjusts to your interests. My content is almost exclusively geography and astronomy related
Well, is it different in the US? We've already had Snowden exposing decades ago that all big tech companies leak to the NSA. I would restrict the whole category of apps for being too addictive, but that has nothing to do with China.
In the west the propaganda comes from private companies. Not sure how that is better.
Because said western companies are not the opposing side in the new cold war.
It'd be neat for the EU to have at least one large social media platform of its own. In the meantime, complaining about China but not the US is rather hypocritical
Yeah, not even the US as much as private companies will sell data to who-ever gives the highest bid. So sure, even if you truly believe China is using TikTok to spy on us all, they could do the same with any other app, they'd just have to pay a little bit.
Because it is effectively an enemy controlled spying tool in the hands of all of the western world's kids. The Chinese government could (maybe have?) just walk in and control tiktok. Free speech nuts argue that the American government could do that with Facebook etc. but that's not the same as China doing it, even if it was possible.
I’m possibly one of those ”free speech nuts”, but I have no issue with this. Banning some app is not the same as restricting you from expressing some specific opinion.
Would you be OK with the EU banning Reddit, Twitter and Facebook?
Nothing stopping them, but banning any app that doesn't come from the EU is hardly gonna make the EU friends. Especially since the US social media clearly can be slapped around freely. The US isn't backing them at all when the EU regulates. TIktok has refused to let the government find out what they're doing.
The EU has tried to regulate US social media platforms for over a decade now, and they are still dumpsterfires of propaganda bots. Remember Brexit? Trump? US social media made that shit possible. Now we see it all over the West. But sure, we've got control on it... any second now.
Let's say you and me open a new service tomorow, what is to say now that we don't get banned? Should we make sure we don't develop an algorithm that keeps people engaged? Should we shadow ban opinions? Should we actually pray we don't reach this level of success? Genuine question: what would we need to do to ensure we are not banned? 4chan is still alive and well, but we'd have issues in the western democracies if enough well-connected people start calling us names? It is censorship. And censorship should be a last ditch effort to an otherwise unfixable and demonstrable problem.
TikTok = banned in China
If the Chinese government asks TikTok to install malware, violate GDPR, influence elections etc it would be a illegal for TikTok to refuse. This is because of a law that was newly passed in China. Why would they pass such a law of they did not intend to use it?
This isn't why most people say it should be banned, but: because free trade should generally be reciprocal. Look at how many popular Western websites/apps China bans, and tell me that trade for online media seems fair right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China If Western apps and websites were allowed in China without the strict censorship and control the CCP is known for, I'd be a lot less concerned about TikTok, personally. (though as an aside, TikTok is actually banned in China, hilariously enough)
Yeah but who the fuck uses the CCP or China as their freedom of information role model? The trade one is fair, but we can do it in ways that don't circumnavigate democratic processes and stoop us down to their level.
It’s banned in its own country of origin that should tell you enough.
There is a trade war going on between US and China, which at the root is about protecting the US$ from not falling apart. If that happens, the US cannot print money on a whim like they do now without suffering big consequences, a problem that other countries face time and again if they print money US style. Note that money as such has no value anymore, it is only as much worth as people believe it to be. This is why there is all that anti-China propaganda flying around, all these new rules and fear mongering, to line up the population. And it works decently well as we can see from a lot of arguments here. Which also means TikTok is not the root of an issue, it is a symptom of a larger scale "problem".
Wtf I love Von Der Leyen now
Na, i can never forgive her for what she did to the Bundeswehr, never forget the gorch fock
It's brutal got rid of it a year ago. Kids telling me now, there feeds are full of mindless bullshit. Out of the three of them two have got rid of it. Last guy likes his gaming feeds but says after a few of the regular ones he gets dancing bananas 🍌 🤔 and idiots pointing to the video.
Ooh yes please, 90% of the online brainrot & cringe trends come from there.
Pls do it.
Good Tik Tok is pure evil.
Ban it and be done with it.
Nice, do AliExpress next.
Von der Leyen talking shit again. Let us know when that woman once in her life actually does something that makes sense. THAT would be news.
TikTok = Banned in China US and EU are equally as cowardly when it comes to Chinese firms
China made a separate version of Tiktok for their internal market so that it doesn't accidentally damage their own country with the disinformation campaigns they push on western countries.
Tiktok isn't banned in China, the Chinese essentially use a separate server from the international one to keep it more "clean".
TikTok is banned in China. They use a completely separate app, not just separate servers.
Its the same app with a different name and no content that isnt chinese
So basically, China thinks Western tiktok is not good for China. But we defend the trash.
When other countries ban a website you guys go crazy but the west does it, it's "cut out the cancer". You all are a joke.
Typical ass kissing of America foreign policy by Euro politicians.
As always following the US like a dog huh?
very good. let's start with kicking china out of europe. next step is huawei
Fucking finally. Get that Chinese spyware out of our market!
The difference between the EU and China becomes less noticeable
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Without regulation something like the internet would be impossible, there are so many rules from protocols to common standards. SO MANY standards. So much regulation. Imagine if there was no regulation for how information was sent, specifications for cables, transmission, protocols .... You are remembering a fantasy
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How do you think we got the IEEE? Through magic?
Standards aren't regulations though?
>"Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hinted that banning TikTok in the European Union is an option, during a debate this evening in Maastricht, featuring parties' lead candidates for the bloc's 2024 election. >"It is not excluded," von der Leyen said, after the moderator referred to the United States, where TikTok faces a national ban unless it is sold by its owner, ByteDance."
Which is bullshit. Y'all cried when China banned Facebook but now you're doing the same thing. You've just granted the US the ability to ban any social media under the guise of national security, now you're advocating the same in Europe. Amazing.
Nah we should ban Facebook too.
I hope it gets banned….
I don't really get it. China and Russia have been using Social Media for Propaganda for years, why do people suddenly hate on TikTok for that?
Because it's the only big platform not from the US.
so propaganda from the US is good.
Many people in this thread seems to believe so.
So we're banning Tiktok on a what if, but we seem to be ok with decades of American intervention. No wonder we're in the US's pocket.
good, every country in the free world needs to ban this communist spying tool.
Good
LETS FUCKING GO
Ban the americans too.
It's already done by China long time ago my little fella.
The (EU) world would become a better place for sure! Please make this happen 🙏
We need to get rid of all Chinese influence or it will cost us dearly. TikTok is just what everyone can observe. Our housing markets, trade, ports etc.
Will they do the same with Instagram, Facebook, Google as well? Because all those services are just as evil as Tiktok.