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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

#911
post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness I must live in another universe because it all feels fake.

The algorithm is genuinely very good. That's why I deleted it. It's very addictive and not always just shoveling slop. I don't know if I can do it justice but there's something genuinely quite fresh about the AI stuff I see every now and again e.g. Anna from the red scare podcast shilling industrial glycine was a meme for a while. Very Land-ian. Neo-china...

same here. I found myself loosing an hour of just scrolling through short videos, most of them really good and ones that I liked. I had to delete the app because it was working too good.

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

#912
post #115

"I would literally write my social security number on a sticky note and stick it to Xi Jinping's forehead than go back to using Instagram Reels" I saw this yesterday and it's hilarious but this is the feeling right now. TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness and Instagram is so phony and overly perfect (not to mention ads and so many bots and spam). It's like shutting down Reddit and telling everyone…

> TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness I must live in another universe because it all feels fake.

Fake compared to what? Alt-right Zuck with a fresh perm?

Seriously. US social media is taking a massive turn to the right while its owners are swearing allegiance to Trump. To most of the world that is a much more real danger than the Chinese communists.

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

#913
post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TikTok has such a culture of authenticity and realness I must live in another universe because it all feels fake.

The algorithm is genuinely very good. That's why I deleted it. It's very addictive and not always just shoveling slop. I don't know if I can do it justice but there's something genuinely quite fresh about the AI stuff I see every now and again e.g. Anna from the red scare podcast shilling industrial glycine was a meme for a while. Very Land-ian. Neo-china...

  """ Within such a possible future system, the only command or need
  that the machine would not respond to would be the one command that
  I have a feeling some of us would most want to type into the
  machine. Which is the demand that it destroy itself, you see, that
  would be my problem with the machine. It would meet all the needs
  except my need to see it destroyed. It would take every other
  command well, and meet every other need well, but the need to just
  to just shut it down. Television is something like that now.

  I feel sometimes as though I am plugged into a giant computer that
  will take every command I give it except the one that I want the
  most. The command that the damn machine blow itself up. It will do
  anything else I say. I type in "food", and out comes food. I type in
  "I want to give this talk in Washington". It comes out.  But the one
  command I want is the command for the damn thing to just go "boom!",
  and all the little transistors just to go... """

  Rick Roderick 1990

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

#914
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US gov's intention was not at all to shut down TikTok. It was to force ByteDance to sell it. The fact that ByteDance is opting for a shutdown instead is a huge PR stunt, and their unwillingness to sell under the circumstances kinda proves their whole First Amendment claims are made in bad faith. Something deeper is going on, and it's not about your social security number.

This isn't rocket science. What's going on is having the keys to the kingdom with regards to serving videos to influence the mind of a user with extremely precise targeting. China doesn't want USA doing that, and banned their social media. USA doesn't want China doing it because they've been doing it all over the world to everybody since Radio Free Europe, and likely before. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Radio-Fre…

The timing of this with the Israeli crimes in Gaza is clear.

https://www.thefp.com/p/tik-tok-young-americans-hamas-mike-g...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/13/tiktok-...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/16/tiktok...

https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palest...

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-listening-post/2024/3/...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/business/tiktok-israel-ha...

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

#916
The one source of true, lasting happiness in life is the love of others.

All of this stuff - TikTok, Instagram, etc - are entertainment, distraction, and that's fine, but taken to excess is unbalanced, and no matter what, cannot bring true, lasting happiness because they are not the love of another person.

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

#918
post #917

From an engineering point of view it is VPN companies that need to be bracing for 1000x spikes.

This isn't a 'great firewall' solution. It just prevents google/apple from hosting it in their app stores. If tiktok wanted to they could still host it from outside the USA and let people access it via the web (or sideload the apk on android). Having said that tiktok has announced if the ban does occur they will shut down service on Sunday.

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

#920
post #822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment and quote is telling of the zeitgeist. I would be more aghast by it, but then I remember that my SSN has been a subject to multiple data breach notices in past year.. so.. what is one more bad actor at this point?

Exactly. They keep fear mongering about China stealing our data but when these companies leak every single piece of sensitive data about hundreds of millions of americans they get a slap on the wrist. Tells you exactly where their priorities are.

What I don't understand is what's with all the China apologists around here, it's absolutely insane to me to see how even here, but also on reddit, for example, there is this wave of praising everything that a dictatorship does, do people really believe that what China does is ok and something to follow, or is it just propaganda? And no, I'm not ignoring all the bad stuff in the west, but I'm a bit afraid of the Chinese model appreciation.
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