The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.
As a casual observer, I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor? The UI is better than TikTok ever was and a lot of the most popular creators are already mirroring their content there?
TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
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Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#132The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.
As a casual observer, I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor? The UI is better than TikTok ever was and a lot of the most popular creators are already mirroring their content there?
Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#133The migration app of choice appears to be .. xiaohongshu, or "little red book". I'm guessing this won't last since it wasn't intended to have lots of Westerners using it and neither government is going to be happy with that scale of unfiltered contact between ordinary Chinese citizens and US citizens. In the meantime, it's the place for Luigi Mangione memes.
As a casual observer, I don't understand why YouTube Shorts isn't the obvious successor? The UI is better than TikTok ever was and a lot of the most popular creators are already mirroring their content there?
I think both Alphabet and Meta suck at seductive material.
Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#134Why doesn’t China simply open up for domestic competition? What are they afraid of? It’s a serious question. Are they that much afraid of their consumers switching to Western products? I frankly think it’s overblown. Chinese people will simply stick with homegrown products at this point. It’s way too entrenched for anyone to enter their market and succeed. I think they have made enough progress to open up their marke…
Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes! In fact the US court system does a great job of things like that. https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2024/12/24-111... I recommend you start reading on Page 33 if you are impatient. In extremely short. The PRC is an extremely active cyber threat, hacking things all over the US, in large part to gain access do gain access to datasets about U.S. people. Including hacks of the Goverment's Office of Perso…
If they wanted our datasets they could just buy it lol, Remember Cambridge Analytica?
> The PRC’s methods for collecting data include using “its relationships with Chinese companies,” making “strategic investments in foreign companies,” and “purchasing large data sets.” For example [...]
In fact it treats the Chinese investment into TikTok as basically a form of "just buying it" with regards to the information gathering justification for banning it.
Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I know there's no real calculation, it would just be for revenge. ByteDance is very pissed about how they are being treated and so they would rather burn it all down than hand it over to some American.
It is endlessly fascinating to me that people ascribe emotions that individuals experience to organizations, companies, nation-states, etc. As the article says ByteDance is a massive company with thousands of employees in the US alone. It’s ridiculous to think a corporation of that size operates as if it was a singular (and extremely petty) individual, especially to the detriment of its own self interests. There’s a…
Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#137I 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…
Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#138Given 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…
3. The government is concerned that having a company that's beholden to a foreign government control the algorithm that feeds the rising generation much of their worldview may not be a good long term plan. This has a passing resemblance to (2), but the key difference is that the government doesn't believe they have control over the narrative on Facebook, they just know that a foreign government doesn't . It's strictl…
.. by the guy sitting next to the President? It's not yet clear what this "DOGE" thing that Musk has been given by Trump actually is, but it sounds like part of the government to me and has "government" in the name?
Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#139Why doesn’t China simply open up for domestic competition? What are they afraid of? It’s a serious question. Are they that much afraid of their consumers switching to Western products? I frankly think it’s overblown. Chinese people will simply stick with homegrown products at this point. It’s way too entrenched for anyone to enter their market and succeed. I think they have made enough progress to open up their marke…
Definitely not the consumption of foreign products.
The PRC remains a totalitarian government which built itself on an environment where they exert total control over public communication. There are long lists of topics that you simply cannot cover, analyze, talk about or even discuss privately via internet media in China. There's no way to do that if those discussions happen on Snapchat via a data center in Oregon.
Does the CCP need to do that? It's a reasonable question with answers more complicated than I'll be able to offer. But for sure they want (desperately) to do it. Thus, no foreign media in China.
Re: TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday
#140Given 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…
They don't have to, Fox News does it for free /zing. But for real I wouldn't see a problem with it. Less now that the world is more globalized than ever, I can get news from every corner of the globe both from our allies and enemies.
Could they be subtly pushing a narrative of communism or something, sure but this kind of "news is biased towards its owners" is beyond commonplace at this point. Jon Stewart just did a whole bit about why he couldn't criticize Apple or China.