691–700 of 1001 posts
Lots of American social media are banned here by the Russian government (all for the same reason of protecting citizens from foreign avdersaries), and we just use VPN. We're used to it, and if a service is popular (like Instagram), it's practically impossible to ban it. Monetization provided by the service is replaced by embedding sponsors' videos directly in the video (and getting money directly from the sponsor wit…
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> Social networking platforms are among the most effective tools for mass influence, second only to religion. Fox News and talk radio demonstrate that isn't true in the US.
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I suggest making a substantive argument instead of just posting snark.
Banning individual apps in this manner is wrong, IMO. In a country where concepts like freedom of speech and restrictions on government censorship are not insignificant considerations (in theory, at a minimum) a decision like this is unfortunate. China bans apps... tons of apps... in order to maintain strict control over the content and identity of users. This strategy is not something the US should be mimicking. The…
That's a possible tool of disinformation.
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It makes no sense to me how this is an argument of free speech. I assume you are saying this is curtailing the creators speech? However the creators can move to any other platform, they are not being restricted in what they can say or produce. So perhaps the concern is about TikTok's free speech; which, thank god the constitution does not protect a foreign adversaries right to free speech.
Not free speech. INHO its about free assembly. 140M of us assembled there, and now that meeting place is being distroyed, and we are being dispersed, without any actual harm being in evidence. If the government can do that here, it can do it anywhere.
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In English, it seems to be called rednote. But I doubt that it will be a real successor. At the moment it's a funny meme, and for some people satisfied cultural curiosity. But we already see the problems appearing, from the poorly localized interface, to people getting banned for reasons outside their understanding. My guess is, at the end we will see maybe some million users from the USA and some more millions from…
My kids in HS and their friends all downloaded “Red Note” this week. I said “what about Reels?” — “That’s for you and mom”.
Let’s be clear about one thing: it’s never about protecting the privacy of private citizens—that’s just the justification. Social networking platforms are among the most effective tools for mass influence, second only to religion. The U.S. has held a monopoly on this power, leveraging it to gather data on citizens worldwide and projecting our value systems onto others. Banning TikTok is simply an effort by us to main…
Other countries have rules, make rules, the reality is they don't want to make rules because that might persuade foreign companies from not doing business here. Why make rules when you can get a warrant from a fisa court preventing any and all public scrutiny and getting everything you want?
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That's mostly true and it's a good thing for the US to prevent hostile, autocratic, foreign powers from gaining undue cultural power.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. A foreign enemy keeps us from focusing on our own domestic policies. Turns out, if you look into it, we're the baddies. In addition to widespread data collection and social manipulation, we also intentionally shove our culture down the throats of other nations in order to maintain cultural supremacy.
The nice thing about fiction is that you can make anything sound plausible. Ironically, what people consider the most prosperous time of America happened to be the time when America was opposing a vague foreign adversary. If anything, nihilist platitudes like this that have created a void in civic engagement that megacorporations and malicious actors are happy to fill in.
"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 I must live in another universe because it all feels fake.
My Reels feed, on the other hand, is 100% bot drivel. It's all stolen viral videos by artificially-boosted accounts, and the comments appear to be fake comments that were 'paid for'. I assume there must be some sort of financial incentive to gaming the system this way.
The end result is that TikTok feels like scrolling through (attention-grabbing, reactionary) stuff by real people, and Reels feels like scrolling through some sort of bot wasteland.
I guess I should add that, due to its size, TikTok almost certainly also has a bot problem, but if it does it's not as clearly evident in a way that is detrimental to the platform.
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 am a US Citizen and I 100% want this. I think this is far too small a step; I think all social media should be banned.
Would you feel the same way if the US government banned all mainstream media organizations except the ones you ideologically oppose?