311–320 of 386 posts
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I've never heard of facebook or snapchat or any of their major stakeholders being involved in mass (or any) industrial espionage. The same can't be said of the Chinese Government. That seems like a pretty distinct reason to be more OK with FB/Insta/Snap than TikTok.
You never heard, obviously. Look up Niantic
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Reddit banned a bunch of hate subreddits. Full stop. I don't care what you think about trans men and women but this is not a case of people being overly sensitive. "Gender Critical" is the spiritual equivalent of "Race Realists" and their subreddits were nothing other than a safe space for them to express their overt hate. This was not a place "simply" for people with an opinion. You don't understand hate speech. Mis…
For what it’s worth, I came across Gender Critical a couple of months back, as a confused neutral trying to understand what everybody was talking about. My impression was of a community uniting around a common anger at new trans-rights encroaching on hard-fought womens’ rights. I didn’t see much hate, and indeed many posters took pains to call out their support for trans-rights in principle . I think the anger was re…
How is this a thing though?
I won't deny that confusion and fear are very real feelings people have when confronted with something that challenges their existing beliefs, regardless of what those are. We have a right to express those feelings; doing so is an important part of grappling with them and growing our understanding of the world.
However, there's a segment of those that seemingly become consumed and blinded by those feelings, then join communities whose express purpose is to stoke them further ("no, we ARE right, those who espouse the challenging ideas are WRONG and they are OUT TO GET US"), and often aren't entirely sincere with their statements that they're really not against the challenging ideas, that they just have ~* concerns *~
Giving them the furthest benefit of the doubt, they're at least confining themselves to communities that largely share their viewpoint, consist of people that don't aren't those bringing the issue to light (how many trans people do you see welcomed and able to express their side in "gender critical" communities? not many? could it be because those communities exist expressly to exclude (from all society, not simply the community itself) and deride them? gee, idunno, hard to say), and are at least populated with some people that are wholly insincere with their "just raising concerns here!" rhetoric and are aiming more to further radicalize whatever subsection of the community is more on the fence.
We would be remiss to also ignore that there's fairly clear historical, if recent evidence that allowing these sorts of communities to persist mostly serves as a means to drive people away from any acceptance of the challenging ideas and further cements them in their existing beliefs. /pol/ isn't exactly as a poster child for such communities about-facing and saying "ah, we were wrong, turns out racism IS bad". There may be outliers, but on the whole, these places are poison, and I commend the services in question for finally taking a "you know, perhaps we /should/ have some level of moderation say and tell these communities 'sorry, but you're not really a fit for the broader community we want to have here'" stance. Are there problems with the specifics of the implementation, and is the process imperfect? Sure, most things are, and it cuts both ways--but strangely, I find fewer people coming out of the woodwork in these sorts of discussions to complain about, say, deplatforming of LGBTQ content on Twitter or Youtube because advertisers are leery about their brands sitting in front of content about gender issues that differs from the norm. That happens too, but doesn't seem to trigger the same "ah! the death of free speech has arrived!" outcry that seems to pop up from the other side--those communities do still complain, but marginalization and bigotry are things they're more accustomed to and live with daily; some are sadly resigned to it.
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Something about Tiktok, whether the algorithm or the sheer volume of content, seems to discourage the sort of look-at-me envy-bait narcissistic posturing that is so common on Instagram. To be popular on Tiktok you actually have to do stuff (even it's fairly banal like dancing or telling stories), not just be (or pretend to be) someone. I found it funny that the author of this post is trying to defend liberal values l…
it's a "superior" product because it's new and not yet commercialized. once it is, you'll get the same sort of gaming (influencer culture, ad placement, etc) that you see in every other social media
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> I consider it quite different, because I know I'm more opposed to the ideology of the CCP than I am of the US. I don’t know that I’m particularly enthused about either country’s ideology, hence my more skeptical view of the idea that any of the major US social media networks are “better”.
Don't need to be enthused to acknowledge one is better than the other. At the end of the day the NSA/facebook is far less likely to use my information to hurt me than the CCP. The only difference is I live in the US, so the CCP doesn't really care and can't really reach me without committing a potential act of war anyway. If I moved to China and maintained my same social media habits I'd be disappeared rather quickly…
Again, I do not reside in the US and do not imagine that the NSA is on "my side", so obviously I'm going to take a more jaundiced view of surveillance apps of US origin.
> Consider that if you use TikTok anything you post will show up in your dossier should you ever visit China, even as a tourist.
Yes. This is equally true of the US. You are ordered to disclose all social media accounts at the border, and can and will be denied entry to the country if your social media posts contain political statements (or even apolitical statements) that the interviewing officer objects to, whether posted by you or merely sent to you: https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/27/border-deny-entry-united-s..., https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16810312, etc
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Reddit banned a bunch of hate subreddits. Full stop. I don't care what you think about trans men and women but this is not a case of people being overly sensitive. "Gender Critical" is the spiritual equivalent of "Race Realists" and their subreddits were nothing other than a safe space for them to express their overt hate. This was not a place "simply" for people with an opinion. You don't understand hate speech. Mis…
I modded a humble mid-sized subreddit, which was not an LGBT sub, but one where LGBT people occasionally asked LGBT-specific questions. My view of the situation initially was that conservative-minded peolle didn't really hate trans people and they were mostly frustrated by being forced to swallow an idea and being censored if they so much as asked an innocent question and that this is what was making them so upset. S…
This a reality that is deeply uncomfortable for people who share political views with the bullies, but it is the reality on the ground.
Because of the dominantly racist view prevailing in the US: if it is a Chinese company, it must somehow be bad, anti-democracy. If it comes from an American company, then it must be democratic and good (even when it does harm).
It has nothing to do with race. China is bad because of the CCP. And the Chinese people suffer the most because of it. Remember in 1968 when the CCP encouraged the cultural revolution that lead to the death of millions of Chinese at the hands of the Red Guard? Or when the Red Guard literally cannibalized their fellow citizens as an ideological purity test? Same party is still in charge with similar goals, just a diff…
Because of the dominantly racist view prevailing in the US: if it is a Chinese company, it must somehow be bad, anti-democracy. If it comes from an American company, then it must be democratic and good (even when it does harm).
I don't think it is a racist view. It is more of an anti-communist view. Americans were not a big fan white communists in Hungary, Poland, Russia, etc when the Soviet Union was a thing.
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Yes, not all of my friends are attractive and rich.
But they are not ugly/disabled and poor. There is a word average just you know.
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> Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women This is a deeply misleading way of understanding this controversy. You can be "simply critical" of the way we define gender or of reddit's policies without being an asshole. "Inclusive" behavior consists, essentially, of just not being an asshole. If someone tells you they're a woman and you don't agr…
> share a bunch of memes making fun of them Making fun of people is crossing the line? This seems like a dangerous slippery slope to say the least. Suppose I make an entire career out of making fun of (say) Irish people. Jokes and stereotypes like "they drink a lot" and "they get into bar fights" and "they're dumb potato farmers" are my bread and butter. Most people would probably agree that this kind of speech shoul…
No, you're right, they're not on the same playing field, though saying that they are because one issue is "politicized" is, apologies, somewhat laughable. Do you know many people (and for clarification, this is from an American perspective) who have, in recent history, been assaulted out of the blue, pushed out of their homes or jobs, or bullied to the point of self-harm because they're of Irish ancestry? How long ago was it that being of Irish ancestry meant that your employer could come out and say "sorry, no fucken micks in my shop, gtfo" or that the state could deny you basic rights afforded to most citizens with the full force of the law on their side, and how long ago was that the case for the LGBTQ community?
These things are different playing fields because they're literally different playing fields: the actual broader issues at hand, in the present, are very different. Losing sight of history isn't the goal here--it's stupid and dangerous to ignore history, full stop--but it's doubly stupid to blind oneself to present.