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TikTok goes dark in the US

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Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#891

Post by whimsicalism »

picafrost wrote: post #315

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…

we are not at war with China. i did not vote to be at war with China. i am an adult and should be trusted by our elites to be able to read whatever i want.

the entire ethos of our country is antithetical to this notion of well-educated, affluent urbanites deciding what information diet is ‘correct’ for the dirty masses to consume.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#892

Post by gdubs »

bharrison wrote: post #853
gdubs wrote: post #224

I think a lot of people on here never spent much time on TikTok and it shows. It wasn't just for young people and it wasn't all brain rot. There were vibrant communities, subcultures. Real issues were aired there. Real people connected. From the early days of Covid it provided a window into a broader world.

Vibrant communities are perhaps a product of, but certainly not defined solely by their territory. Luckily they're comprised of humans (mostly? Probably another discussion), and the ability to migrate is component to their nature; the good ones find greener pastures and adapt as necessary to define their next generation.

Yet on this very website it's likely majority opinion that if you want to start a startup you should move to SF.

A lot of those people have actively tried to build communities on those other platforms, but those platforms algorithms actively work against the emergence of the types of groups we've seen on TikTok.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#893

Post by baryphonic »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

(American here.)

I don't think I'd support a ban if ByteDance was a European company or Indian or South Korean or Japanese. China is a unique threat given the totalitarian turn they've taken over the past decade combined with the fact that no Chinese company is truly private in its day-to-day operations. All Chinese companies must have CCP influence as a matter of Chinese policy. It would be like if T-Mobile (the US mobile division of Deutsche Telekom) was required to have the influence of the German government including the monitoring and reporting of phone calls to senior party officials.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#895

Post by bill_joy_fanboy »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

As a European, you are allowed to feel however you want. As an American, I am allowed not to care.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#896

Post by thuanao »

fourside wrote: post #865

This thread is trying to have a serious conversation about the merits and dangers of the US banning TikTok. I don’t think it’s going to happen. There’s too much value for Trump to leave on the table. He’s a showman and he’s giving us, mainly gen-z, a show. On Monday he will “save” TikTok. He can ingratiate himself with a demographic that historically had not leaned conservative. It seems so obvious yet I see people t…

Maybe. Or it could get worse.

We put communist sympathizers in jail in the past. We imprisoned 100k innocent Japanese US citizens in concentration camps.

Instead of rolling the ban back this could be the first event in a new kind of McCarthyism.

Be careful. Being seen as soft towards China could make you an enemy of the state soon, if it doesn’t already.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#897

Post by [deleted] »

geokon wrote: post #45
meyum33 wrote: post #16

I clicked open the link to find Yahoo has gone dark in China since 2021. Doesn’t work even with a VPN. I miss the good old days of the Web.

The chasm between the current tech world's culture and Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" is really jarring

[deleted]

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#898

Post by jMyles »

geokon wrote: post #45
meyum33 wrote: post #16

I clicked open the link to find Yahoo has gone dark in China since 2021. Doesn’t work even with a VPN. I miss the good old days of the Web.

The chasm between the current tech world's culture and Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" is really jarring

Barlow's vision is alive and well. Go to a Billy Strings show and talk to bluegrass hacker hippies that ride the rail there. Or a good traditional Grateful Dead cover band. Or go to one of the more regen/cypherpunk ethereum events (GFEL, Regens Unite, Schelling Point, etc).

John Perry has tons of fans who came up through his songs and have since connected those dots.

https://justinholmes.bandcamp.com/track/barlows-jig

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#899

Post by bill_joy_fanboy »

mcherm wrote: post #766
bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

An an American, I also find it outrageous. In fact, as I understand it, our most fundamental law (the Constitution) clearly guarantees "freedom of speech and freedom of the press" which specifically means that the government may NOT shut down a particular publisher because the government does not like what they say, or who it is that owns them. Unfortunately, our Supreme Court unanimously disagrees with me about what…

The whole thing is moot when you can be banned from platforms for voicing certain speech.

If platforms can do censorship, so can the government.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#900

Post by TulliusCicero »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #725

As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held. It is the old-school imperialist school of thought. If you think Bytedance is harming Americans, despite following american law, then amend the rules for social media companies. Or at least be honest enough to say: "The free market is great, but only if we hold all the cards".

> As a European, I find it quite outrageous to demand a company be sold to the US because it is too successful and valuable to be foreign-held.

These sorts of bad faith comments are so tiresome to read.

We all know that if the foreign country in question was Japan or France then nobody would really give a shit. Even a more neutral country like India or Brazil would likely be completely fine. It's specifically an issue because China is a geopolitical opponent of the US that we're engaged in a sort of new cold war with.

Not to mention, China blocks basically every popular social media site from the US already, and a bunch of other websites and apps besides. Tit-for-tat is very common in trade, you can't expect other countries to leave your foreign ventures untouched if you heavily restrict theirs.

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