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TikTok goes dark in the US

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Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#411

This morning I felt the urge to download TikTok for the first time. I did, but I didn't bother creating an account. There is a passage in the book Life of Pi, where Pi's family is gathered and ready to leave India for Canada. And his mother does something out of the ordinary: > The day before our departure she pointed at a cigarette wallah and earnestly asked, "Should we get a pack or two?" > Father replied, "They ha…

> Do I use TikTok? No, I've always advocated against it. This, to me, is a weird stance. On what grounds did you advocate against it? I just had to create a new account tonight after the ban[0] to keep using it. When you first start TikTok you might be presented with a wave of seemingly crap, bizarre or boring videos, but after several minutes of liking and watching the good stuff the algorithm very quickly starts se…

Not OP, but the users of it I know my person seem hypermobilized by what I consider brainrot ideologies amd generally seem to have highly destabilized psychologies.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#412
post #400
post #257

Unreal. Land of Freedom bans Social Media app that runs on US servers, on its own terms, with censorship teams staffed by dozens of ex-US State officials[1]. Amazing that Congress will see bipartisan action on this issue before any of the other much more important issues. It absolutely destroys criticisms of China banning Facebook, etc. 1. https://www.mintpressnews.com/tiktok-chinese-trojan-horse-ru...

China also bans TikTok. That should tell you everything you need to know about whether they believe it is a positive influence.

China also has a firewall, are we going to do that too? I guess that is one day to become communist, just copy them tit for tat...

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#413
Can someone please explain to me, why it is illegal to publish biased media? Please relate your answer to US native broadcasters like Fox News.

The public discourse in the US appears very distorted. The rececently elected legislative heavily tampers with the executive/judicative and somehow this is stil democratic?

IMO the tiktok ban is only about media control, no morale or legality, just political power and somehow there is still free speech for all?

All this is so bizare to me. I dont expect reasonable answers.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#415

It’s always uncomfortable when realpolitik clashes with the values we aspire to have. What is freedom, anyway? Surely it can’t include allowing a foreign adversary access to a knob to twist on an important demographic of society. A foreign adversary who is actively compromising the network infrastructure of that society [1] but definitely wouldn’t touch infrastructure around an app owned by a Chinese company. There’s…

that's a slippery slope. The Russian government is also justifying all of its censorship with foreign interference (this line of argument works with the Russian public, just to note), take care!

I'm less certain that it's a slippery slope than it is a fine line. The government does not appear to have a problem with the speech occurring on TikTok. It is not trying to apply censorship or forcing the app to close down. It tried to force it to be sold away from its Chinese ownership. It tried to mitigate the possibility that a foreign adversary can use the app as a tool for its own interests. Had TikTok divested itself instead of shutting itself down the dancing would have continued on.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#416

The app was shutdown a couple of hours ago in the US and this was the message all TikTok users saw when they opened the app.[1] The same guy who pushed for a ban massively last year, is going to save the app despite the security concerns he and most of our government said they had. If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing that made them vote together across party lines. [1] https://a57.foxnews.com/st…

I wonder how much ByteDance got from the incoming administration to pull that stunt. Super shady. "We voluntarily shut down our service in your country (er, I mean, we HAD TO, for real!) but don't worry, a true hero is soon arriving to save the day!"

Other way round: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/jeff-yass-billionaire...

Yass has paid in tens of millions of dollars, he's going to call that in to get an unban.

I really don't know which way to bet on this though. The Trump presidency is going to be consistently unpredictable.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#417

Outside the US all the American account contents are still up and visible. How does TikTok designate where an account is from? Can Americans not sign in and delete their content? Do VPNs work if American-created accounts log in? Interesting rollout here I wonder if this will change in the coming days.

I can access the site on desktop with a VPN through Canada, but it won't let me log in to any account that was created on the USA-hosted servers.

I created a new Canadian account and now I see a lot of Canadian memes that I don't get lol

On mobile the VPN doesn't work as it checks your app store country. I saw a few USA refugees on Canada TikTok saying they changed their Apple App Store country and it works just fine now. I think I'll sacrifice an Android device and do it that way.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#418

When the CCP asked Google to censor search results, that was a bad thing. When the US government asks China to censor TikTok, that's a good thing. Make it make sense.

First, the United States government isn't asking China to censor TikTok.

Second, the two proposed situations are entirely different. The former is censoring particular results, the latter is a content-neutral ban with the ability for ByteDance to continue operating with no change to content.

Third, perhaps this is controversial, but many people don't want a foreign adversary to have the ability to manipulate public perception. If you are the United States, allowing an enemy to have the ability to manipulate massive amounts of your population is extremely dangerous.

I don't even know that I support the ban, but I certainly know that most of these sorts of comparisons simply don't make sense and are either missing or ignoring vital pieces of the puzzle.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#419
post #355
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can’t manufacture consent anymore regarding false flag wars that only benefit large war profiteering corporations.

the problem this law solves is that in tiktok's case the "they" who has the power to manufacture consent is the PRC

They don't need to, people share and watch the content voluntarily because it has novel value.

"Why wasn't I told this before?" Is a common sentiment in those videos.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#420

This morning I felt the urge to download TikTok for the first time. I did, but I didn't bother creating an account. There is a passage in the book Life of Pi, where Pi's family is gathered and ready to leave India for Canada. And his mother does something out of the ordinary: > The day before our departure she pointed at a cigarette wallah and earnestly asked, "Should we get a pack or two?" > Father replied, "They ha…

There is a statement from India’s information technology ministry, after 20 Indian soldiers died during border skirmish with China. When India banned TikTok in 2020 [0] > Chinese mobile apps were stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data. > The compilation of such data, and its mining and profiling by elements hostile to India is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measure…

If they were really concerned about privacy, they would strengthen privacy laws. Adopt a GDPR like framework with opt-in consent and force platforms to implement a GrapheneOS like model with mock permissions and scoped consent. Banning apps is just a veiled attempt to appease other interests.
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