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TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

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Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#891

Post by htaunay »

_7acn wrote: post #876

I think apps like TikTok or YouTube Shorts literally brainwash people. It’s one of the dumbest things ever invented on the Internet, yet incredibly addictive at the same time.

its like how 30 years ago when people would numblessly flip through hundreds of cable channels for hours, but with endless tailored content and extra dopamine shots on top from social feedback

its very telling how, while youtube (classic) also has these same ingredients, the ux of looking through a menu is far less addicting than the slot machine mechanism from swiping up

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#892

Post by _heimdall »

ourmandave wrote: post #181
shihab wrote: post #8

Is anyone aware of any opinion poll among US population about banning tiktok? This to me feels like one of the issues with potentially largest disconnect between voters and politicians Edit: found one from Pew. "The share of Americans who support the U.S. government banning TikTok now stands at 32%." Sept 05, 2024. In contrast, 87% US lawmakers voted for the law that caused this.

I wonder if those numbers would change if people read the same intel reports and knew how far the Chinese spies are up our asses.

A lot of people hold the view that privacy isn't important unless you have something to hide. They likely wouldn't care about some government on the other side of the world knowing what stupid tiktok videos they watch.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#894

Post by EDEdDNEdDYFaN »

appleorchard46 wrote: post #392
Brystephor wrote: post #34

What's that saying? The best way to get a promotion is to cause a problem and then fix it? Political things aside, it's crazy to see so much of a flip-flop so quickly. Has there been any other behavior like this in the past where a company "shut themselves down" to make a big political statement and then almost immediately undid the shut down?

> Has there been any other behavior like this in the past where a company "shut themselves down" to make a big political statement and then almost immediately undid the shut down? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_Un...

lol perfect

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#895

Post by mr_world »

uniq7 wrote: post #881
_7acn wrote: post #876

I think apps like TikTok or YouTube Shorts literally brainwash people. It’s one of the dumbest things ever invented on the Internet, yet incredibly addictive at the same time.

Never had TikTok, but that's exactly what I thought when Youtube introduced Shorts and I found myself spending long sessions in them. However, now I think it's the same infinite scroll we already had in twitter and reddit -- but instead of text and images, now it's just videos. At the beginning the content was really dumb and bad, but after some time it became way better. Now my feed is basically cooking recipes, che…

That is exactly what TikTok does, they are more popular because their tastes algorithm is even better than Shorts for figuring out what you actually want to watch

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#896

Post by philippejara »

ourmandave wrote: post #181
shihab wrote: post #8

Is anyone aware of any opinion poll among US population about banning tiktok? This to me feels like one of the issues with potentially largest disconnect between voters and politicians Edit: found one from Pew. "The share of Americans who support the U.S. government banning TikTok now stands at 32%." Sept 05, 2024. In contrast, 87% US lawmakers voted for the law that caused this.

I wonder if those numbers would change if people read the same intel reports and knew how far the Chinese spies are up our asses.

I assume most americans today are already under the impression their government spies on them and facebook/google will gladly give anything that is asked for, how does the chinese spying on them make any difference for the average citizen? If I was a regular american and had to choose I'd take the foreign spy 10/10 times. What will the chinese do to the regular american citizen compared to what his own contry could do with this information?

If you're diaspora and other smaller interest groups for sure, but the general citizen probably wouldn't care at an individual level. I'd argue that the NSA revelations and how everything just got worse and worse since then killed any chance of the public caring about this kind of stuff.

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#897

Post by throwaway287391 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #435

Correct me if I'm wrong but TikTok was never forced to shut down for US users, it was just going to be removed from the stores and unable to be updated. Is it back on the stores or not? Because if not, nothing about the ban has changed, it's only that TikTok undid the decision that THEY took to shut down.

Yes, this is correct -- TikTok's own "shutdown" was never required by law. I'm not in the US so I can't check for myself, but from googling it still seems to be removed from both the Apple and Google stores.

If Apple/Google don't change their minds, TikTok won't be able to get any new US users, and won't be able to distribute updates to current US users. To continue using it in the current state, US users will have to keep the same phone and TikTok will have to continue supporting whatever last version(s) they're on indefinitely. (Modulo the few that might jump through VPN and app store locale setting hoops.)

And I don't see how Apple/Google could change their minds: the ban bill comes with a 5 year statute of limitations, so regardless of how convincing the Trump administration is in their promise not to enforce the law, the next administration inaugurated in January 2029 would still be able to impose the penalties on Apple/Google for 4 years of non-compliance. Those penalties would be cripplingly massive even for the world's largest companies (I'm reading an estimate of $850B [0]).

As far as I can tell, the only events that could end this are (1) TikTok finding and agreeing to sell to a US buyer or (2) Congress overturning the ban.

It's odd that people are talking as though the saga is over now...

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/19/24347325/tiktok-service-p...

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#898

Post by lm28469 »

gklitz wrote: post #568
BrenBarn wrote: post #418

It's odd to me that people seem to be mostly viewing this as a free speech/democracy issue. To me it's more like if newspapers were printed with toxic ink or something. The negatives of TikTok have nothing to do with the speech expressed by the "creators" on the platform, but rather with the overall harmful effects of the algorithmic firehose. It's true that this means all similar US-based things should be banned as…

> The negatives of ~Tiktok~short form videos have nothing to do with … It feels silly with this coloring of TikTok as the evil when meta, Google and a dozen other American companies are doing the same, just less successfully because they let advertisers and corporate interests buy priority in the algorithm which literally just boils down to “you likely like the same stuff as people who like the same stuff as you”.

> It feels silly with this coloring of TikTok as the evil when meta, Google and a dozen other American companies are doing the same

Ban them all...

You're arguing crack should be legal because cigarettes are

Re: TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

#899

Post by fqye »

_7acn wrote: post #876

I think apps like TikTok or YouTube Shorts literally brainwash people. It’s one of the dumbest things ever invented on the Internet, yet incredibly addictive at the same time.

I can't believe how ignorant some people could be.

It is so easy to find reports and evidence of how Tiktok could be of great value to people.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/dining/tiktok-ban-cooking...

https://www.today.com/popculture/books/what-is-booktok-meani...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-67555175

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