U.S. House of Representatives votes to ban TikTok

[convulsivespace]

They want to shut it down or gut it because they are terrified about left-of-center politics spreading among people under 30.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a direct reaction to the Gaza backlash and all these demons getting booed in public.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

They want to shut it down or gut it because they are terrified about left-of-center politics spreading among people under 30.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a direct reaction to the Gaza backlash and all these demons getting booed in public.

is tiktok really that left wing? i wouldve thought most 'political' content on it is ragebait, trad wife stuff and (especially) conspiracy theories that would get censored on youtube. ive seen a few labour politics and social history things, but most of what i see is utterly wank attempts by progressives do the latest cool thing. there's a few academic 'radical' accounts but they're like the Poochy of social media use

i do sincerely believe that the move towards easily privated, homogenous platforms like Twitter/Tumblr/etc and making things like Reddit into consultant approved admin-ocracies accountable to corporations, happened in part because online forums are potentially a place where solidarity can emerge independently of demographic or social differences. a place where a white english person could read about censorship in egypt, an irish person could read about black peoples and healthcare in the states, where middle class american progressives could look at the real consequences of the free market on the environment, where liberal feminists could see the world through eyes of a male immigrant, etc. however all the major platforms we have now conveniently boil everything down specifically by interest group so there is less chance of you encountering unexpectedly shared opinions with people you happen to share music or sports interest with. and there's enough "gamergate caused trump" numpties out there to applaud think that this is a good thing. the internet has turned into a battle ground between american 'soft power' around cultural wars nonsense, and russian/chinese resistance to that.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I think that'll just result in them being pushed into slightly more private spaces like discord of course that's an easily-surveillable platform and I guess some biased ai language model could read everything, mint.

[jamiefairlie]

They want to shut it down or gut it because they are terrified about left-of-center politics spreading among people under 30.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a direct reaction to the Gaza backlash and all these demons getting booed in public.

Yeah all them girls shaking their booties to some auto-tuned monstrosity for 45 seconds is really going to bring the walls tumbling down.

Tik Tok is the perfect opium of the masses.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

social media is great for western nations because more than any media thing ever, it promotes fame and luxury as the main thing in life and that Anyone Can Make It If They Work. everything is mainly english language, american language and the cool radical politics is all american and the panto villain fascists mostly are too

at least in the 90s you could blot it out and concentration on your own shit, but in the pandemic it was amazing i was using those same platforms to get news about virus mutations and whether we'd all die or not

[DelurkedToHelp]

Yeah all them girls shaking their booties to some auto-tuned monstrosity for 45 seconds is really going to bring the walls tumbling down.

Tik Tok is the perfect opium of the masses.

Yes, because that's the only content that's on TikTok.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

yes there's also stuff that caters to my incredibly specific fetish

[Urinal Cake]

If the US law goes through (and survives the inevitable legal chellenges, like the recent successful challenge to a state law in Montana), probably a more likely outcome is that ByteDance would be forced to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners, in which case the ban wouldn't apply. ByteDance could presumably hold on to Douyin, the original version of TikTok which is only available in China.

Yeah there's a few different ways it could work out. If you were ByteDance you'd be angry that the US have probably halved your asking price. I presume ByteDance would be willing to sell the US, European and other Western-aligned subsidiaries but still retain control in Asia, Africa etc. a BRICS social app.

[superthunderstingcar]

He's an officious arsehole, but he means well, so I think the US is overreacting frankly.

Underrated post.

[BlodwynPig]

They want to shut it down or gut it because they are terrified about left-of-center politics spreading among people under 30.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a direct reaction to the Gaza backlash and all these demons getting booed in public.

Choose Rich

[Mister Six]

Leaves them open to a honking hypocrisy accusation, though, since all our homegrown red-white-and-blue social media apps are just as pernicious when it comes to data harvesting, abuse and user manipulation.

Not really - they have no problem with any of that in principle, only when it's being conducted by an enemy government. Which is, as you say, a fair point.

[idunnosomename]

GOOD I HATE YOUNG PEOPLE

[convulsivespace]

Yeah all them girls shaking their booties to some auto-tuned monstrosity for 45 seconds is really going to bring the walls tumbling down.

Tik Tok is the perfect opium of the masses.

It's not about TikTok being a left-wing paradise. It's just a social media network that happens to be immensely popular with people under 30, and that the U.S. government does not have direct or indirect control over. Social media networks are good for spreading messages very quickly (good or bad), and politicians are furious that young people are getting too "woke"

Not very hard to understand. The generational myopia (even among millenials who think the entire world revolves around Twitter) is strange.

[monkfromhavana]

Still the best Bond henchman.

[Senior Baiano]

Worst Little Britain character

[touchingcloth]

They want to shut it down or gut it because they are terrified about left-of-center politics spreading among people under 30.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is a direct reaction to the Gaza backlash and all these demons getting booed in public.

I think they want to (threaten to) shut it down to project the US government and tech industry's power.

It's an insane policy, though. The US can't keep control of American social media companies for a start, and you can imagine what the reaction would be if China said that Google had to divest its American majority ownership in order to operate their Chinese subsidiary*

*I think this is what the US bill is suggesting - they wouldn't accept a Tik Tok subsidiary based in the US, which is what China allow for with Google.