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TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

reuters.com

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#381

I say this as someone who was in high school as the first wave of social media sites (early Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, etc.) came up: Just get rid of all of them. They're battery acid poured on the human psyche. Or, at least, get rid of the centralized massive ones. If you have to combine your online interactions with people with the interactions you have with them in real life, you're better off, and that doesn't hap…

What are you actually saying? The government should make these websites illegal? I like tiktok. I scroll for a bit in the morning and watch some funny videos. Who are you to say that's immoral and shouldn't happen?

The government’s banned owning media with too much reach before, placing limits on audience size per owner.

We no longer know how to actually govern the country, but it used to be entirely possible.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#382

I say this as someone who was in high school as the first wave of social media sites (early Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, etc.) came up: Just get rid of all of them. They're battery acid poured on the human psyche. Or, at least, get rid of the centralized massive ones. If you have to combine your online interactions with people with the interactions you have with them in real life, you're better off, and that doesn't hap…

basically go back to old SMF/php forums with maximum 100s of known people. I thought about this recently… It was really better times.

Even decentralized mastodon is too big and it makes it far too easy to post BS and hateful / unhealthy stuff. Plus there are far too many posts you can’t relate to or just don’t want to read („algorithm“ or not), without even mentioning the bubble effect, much worse there than on X to be honest.

Smaller communities which you can connect to /disconnect from plus a good combo of RSS feeds to get news. That’s probably it.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#383

Given how easy it is for China to buy US data legally from data brokers and how similar the functionality of TikTok and YouTube Shorts, I feel like the only explanations are: 1. The govt is mad that a foreign company is outcompeting a domestic one Or more likely, given that there are so many other industries that didn't get a ban: 2. The govt is mad that they have control over the narrative on Facebook but do not on…

The big issue isn't data security; it's propaganda. Irrespective of whether the government has control of the narrative on Facebook (I would argue they pretty clearly don't) there is no reason to let a foreign adversary have a deniable propaganda line to millions of Americans. Would we have let the USSR acquire a major television network? And even if you disagree with the national security reasons for disallowing Chi…

> Irrespective of whether the government has control of the narrative on Facebook (I would argue they pretty clearly don't)

Posting pro-Palestinian content on Facebook will get your account terminated for "supporting terrorism". The pro-western censorship regime on FB is extremely strong. US lawmakers specifically cited the amount of pro-Palestinian content on TikTok as why they were banning the app.

Sources:

https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palest...

https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#384
post #115

"I would literally write my social security number on a sticky note and stick it to Xi Jinping's forehead than go back to using Instagram Reels" I saw this yesterday and it's hilarious but this is the feeling right now. TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness and Instagram is so phony and overly perfect (not to mention ads and so many bots and spam). It's like shutting down Reddit and telling everyone…

>TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness...

LMAO

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#385

US citizens do not want this. Every news article descending into tangents on any other point than that is part of why we can't have nice things. The whole country has turned into some sort of lower primate improv troupe where whatever stupid thing comes up gets a "Yes and let's" diversion instead of an adult in the room standing up and cutting the crap.

I think part of the problem is everyone thinks they are the "adult in the room" and everyone else is the "primates". I agree policy discussions are a bit of a farce though (in a sorta funny twist places like TikTok are responsible for that since the engagement metrics have a tendency to promote nonsense and lies)

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#387
post #299

I say this as someone who was in high school as the first wave of social media sites (early Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, etc.) came up: Just get rid of all of them. They're battery acid poured on the human psyche. Or, at least, get rid of the centralized massive ones. If you have to combine your online interactions with people with the interactions you have with them in real life, you're better off, and that doesn't hap…

> Or, at least, get rid of the centralized massive ones. Herein lies the rub. How do you decide what the threshold is? Who gets to decide what that threshold is, and how do you do it without inviting accusations of regulatory capture? If you make it blanket all social networks, then things like discord and even public slack orgs will inadvertently become collateral damage. If you make it focussed on only a few large…

My social network is WhatsApp and Telegram: 1-to-1 messages and some groups where I usually know everybody in them. That's the threshold.

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#388
post #382

I say this as someone who was in high school as the first wave of social media sites (early Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, etc.) came up: Just get rid of all of them. They're battery acid poured on the human psyche. Or, at least, get rid of the centralized massive ones. If you have to combine your online interactions with people with the interactions you have with them in real life, you're better off, and that doesn't hap…

basically go back to old SMF/php forums with maximum 100s of known people. I thought about this recently… It was really better times. Even decentralized mastodon is too big and it makes it far too easy to post BS and hateful / unhealthy stuff. Plus there are far too many posts you can’t relate to or just don’t want to read („algorithm“ or not), without even mentioning the bubble effect, much worse there than on X to…

> basically go back to old SMF/php forums with maximum 100s of known people. I thought about this recently… It was really better times.

I'm going to take a wild guess and assume this is how you grew up?

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#389

I say this as someone who was in high school as the first wave of social media sites (early Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, etc.) came up: Just get rid of all of them. They're battery acid poured on the human psyche. Or, at least, get rid of the centralized massive ones. If you have to combine your online interactions with people with the interactions you have with them in real life, you're better off, and that doesn't hap…

The real issue with Facebook is the inability to tune easily. One of the reasons I use Instagram and Threads is because I feel I can easily tune the algorithm with likes. I can keep up with my friends via stories. I dont need to post on my "wall" stupid stuff like the beer im drinking. Instagram + Stories feels like the best medium to see what my friends are upto with short stories and images. The explore feed can be…

I love that I can have multiple profiles in IG and Threads, each tuned like you talked about for a specific interest of mine with no cross-pollination

Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

#390

This is about censorship

Which makes all the positive comments about rednote hilarious. It's like two proles in 1984 talking one another about how they're gonna defect from Oceania to Eastasia because citizens are treated just so much better there!

Again I note the distinctive lack of self-awareness from the demographic that is moving away from TikTok to a communist country value harboring app like RedNote

The Rednote or "Xiaohongshu" in Chinese is literally referring to the Mao Zedong's propaganda book the modern counterpart being "Xi's Book of Thoughts"

It's frightening how much young Americans hate their own country and the values that have allowed them this much freedom.

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