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

reuters.com

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

#51

Post by lenerdenator »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #39
lenerdenator wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally not wise to let your geopolitical rival have extensive influence over your populace, which is why CCP doesn't let American companies like Meta operate in China. Turnabout is fair play.

Absent any of these conversations is, in my experience, any notion of what exactly China aims to achieve with TikTok that is so sinister? I'm not even arguing, I wouldn't doubt China has plans or another that involve America, specifically that wouldn't be too great for America, I'm just struggling to connect TikTok to any of them, and any discussion seems to take it as granted that the shifty Chinese government is up…

Oh, you could probably make some effective arguments that they're using it to influence American thought in a way that's designed to diminish the US as a world power through internal strife.

Israel/Hamas would probably be an example.

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

#52

Post by palata »

lenerdenator wrote: post #41

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…

I understand your point, but I don't think it works like that for teenagers. Teenagers need to connect. They will go where the others go, because that's exactly what matters to them.

It's not that they deliberately want the addiction. The addiction is a consequence of it, but they go to TikTok because their peers are on TikTok.

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

#53

Post by SiempreViernes »

zzzeek wrote: post #33

noahpinion has a great post [1] on this today and he points out the interesting observations we can make: 1. because it's "Beijing" who is tasked with deciding whether or not TikTok can be sold makes it extremely clear Bytedance is not an independent private company the way it would be the case in the US. They are legally required to obey CCP directives [2] 2. Beijing had every opportunity to sell the application off…

Some Japanese tried to buy one the these supposedly perfectly "independent private compan[ies]", and the US president said no, but that's completely different I'm sure.

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

#54

Post by johnisgood »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #45
lenerdenator wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally not wise to let your geopolitical rival have extensive influence over your populace, which is why CCP doesn't let American companies like Meta operate in China. Turnabout is fair play.

Yes, but then we also need to realise that pretty much the whole world outside of China is 'controlled' by American tech companies (both hardware and software/apps) So if the US think it is not OK to have something like Tiktok owned by a Chinese company the rest of the world might wonder if it is OK for them to have everything owned by American companies...

The usual story, it is OK for the Americans to have military bases all around the world, much less so when it comes to any other countries.

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

#55

Post by lenerdenator »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #45
lenerdenator wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally not wise to let your geopolitical rival have extensive influence over your populace, which is why CCP doesn't let American companies like Meta operate in China. Turnabout is fair play.

Yes, but then we also need to realise that pretty much the whole world outside of China is 'controlled' by American tech companies (both hardware and software/apps) So if the US think it is not OK to have something like Tiktok owned by a Chinese company the rest of the world might wonder if it is OK for them to have everything owned by American companies...

Well the alternative, in realpolitik terms, is having everything owned by Chinese companies.

I suppose they're free to pick.

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

#56

Post by pjmlp »

poszlem wrote: post #5

I am not saying that it's good or bad, and the geopolitical situation has changed a lot, but I miss the relative innocence, openness, and sense of unity that characterised the 2000-2010s internet. We are slowly going in the direction of European internet, American internet, Chinese internet, Russian internet...

Not only,

European computer, American computer, Chinese computer, Russian computer...

European OS, American OS, Chinese OS, Russian OS...

European programming language, American programming language, Chinese programming language, Russian programming language...

Just like in the good old days of computing during cold war.

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

#58

Post by pjc50 »

donatj wrote: post #18
pjc50 wrote: post #6

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?

A large part of it is obviously negative polarization: you tell people they can't use a Chinese app, they're going to use a different Chinese app. Hence the pictures of Luigi.

It's worth asking why Reels/Shorts didn't take off and those companies had to ask for their competition to be banned instead. Everyone agrees that "the algorithm is better", but this is very hard to quantify. Perhaps something about surfacing smaller creators? Quantity/quality of invasive advertising? Extent to which people feel particular kinds of rage content is being forced on them?

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

#59

Post by alp1n3_eth »

commotionfever wrote: post #48
pjc50 wrote: post #6

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.

Looks like that app may have a backdoor https://x.com/d0tslash/status/1878959715033694492

The backdoor named "backdoor", the l33t h4ck3rs strike again.

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

#60

Post by pjmlp »

jeffbee wrote: post #22
poszlem wrote: post #5

I am not saying that it's good or bad, and the geopolitical situation has changed a lot, but I miss the relative innocence, openness, and sense of unity that characterised the 2000-2010s internet. We are slowly going in the direction of European internet, American internet, Chinese internet, Russian internet...

"I miss being 9 years old" It wasn't possible to share videos with the world in 2000 unless you owned a television broadcasting network. In 2000 you could not freely socialize with Chinese people on the Internet.

As someone watching Quicktime and Real Player videos in 2000, it was surely possible.
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