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TikTok goes dark in the US

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Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#941

Post by datavirtue »

moviet wrote: post #695

(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world. This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate. TikTok has an immense amount of cultural p…

I have started to change my stance on China. Is it worse than the US if you hold them both up to the light? Sure, all of us can cite Chinese ills that we don't have, especially in regard to individual freedoms and democracy. But those things can be fixed.

China has never in its history practiced imperialism. They don't have a burgeoning and entrenched oligarchy.

What good is democracy when popular initiatives never see the light of day? What good is it when political parties ignore court ruling and continue to hold elections on Gerry meandered maps? What good is it when people are continually enslaved by debt and taken advantage of?

I'm not arguing for China here but we have a handful of social media properties controlled by one man who can change the narrative on anything with the drop of a hat.

We don't even really promote the individual (liberal democracy) anymore. The rich and powerful leverage ignorance to hold power. It is disgusting.

And for the record, I still hold onto American exceptionalism as principal and believe America is the light of the world. This experiment has allowed many to ascend from poverty and make something of themselves despite what they were born into many, many times over.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#942

Post by crote »

dayvid wrote: post #793
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".

It's not just broadcasting of info, it's having information on your location, contacts, comments, biometric data, etc. It's the reason why the military banned it first. It can definitely be a national security threat.

They don't need their own app for that. American companies are more than happy to sell all of that to the highest bidder.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#943

Post by lqstuart »

ok123456 wrote: post #704
moviet wrote: post #695

(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world. This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate. TikTok has an immense amount of cultural p…

I'm an American too, and I trust an app that has "china" somewhere in it's org chart more than Zuckerberg or any meta product.

I'm an American, and I have worked for both Zuck-owned and Chinese-owned companies, and you really, REALLY might want to re-think your stance. It's extremely ironic that we as Americans have this "question authority" thing so deeply ingrained in our DNA that it pushes us towards authoritarianism just to be contrarian.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#944

Post by [deleted] »

moviet wrote: post #695

(Perspective from an American) Information is the gold of the 21st century. Whoever controls the flow of information has all the wealth and all the power. Therefore, data is the greatest currency in the world. This outcome was never intended to happen, but ByteDance is taking a chance that the American government will relent. We’ll see in a few months who wins the stalemate. TikTok has an immense amount of cultural p…

[deleted]

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#945

Post by kjkjadksj »

whimsicalism wrote: post #873
int_ wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

what “false flag” war has the US engaged in? would love a single legit example of a false flag, closest i can think of is gulf of tonkin which was quite some time ago and not actually a false flag. i hate that nationalism is becoming another hyper-polarized topic - now we get people who are ridiculously jingoistic/anti-cosmopolitan and other people who reject fully the notion that a government’s first responsibility…

Remember when we overthrew Saddam’s government because Iraq had WMDs?

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#946

Post by 1970-01-01 »

danans wrote: post #934
1970-01-01 wrote: post #927

The story everyone seems to be missing is how gatekeeping app stores are enforcing it. That is, if TikTok was sold as a "desktop program" which came in an envelope, and was given away for free just as America Online did decades ago, it very likely would be untouchable under the first amendment. The gatekeeping mechanisms at play are a large story that we've become ignorant to. >TikTok, however, suggested this was not…

> and was given away for free just as America Online did decades ago, it very likely would be untouchable under the first amendment. Even if they could distribute it under 1st amendment l, what is stopping authorities from IP blocking TikTok servers? Gatekeeping can take place pretty deep in the OSI network stack, at levels that transmit data that can no longer simply be characterized as speech.

There is no "great firewall" on my side and there never will be.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#947

Post by palata »

gardenhedge wrote: post #852
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 think it makes sense to ban it. The threat is not the same from American companies.

I think Europe should ban the US social media as well as the Chinese ones.

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#948

Post by qvrjuec »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #805

As someone who has used TikTok, I don’t hate the outcome, but hate the mendacity with which it was executed. TikTok is brain rot, a better way of describing it is digital crack. You can spend hours and hours on TikTok in a numb state, with no sense of what’s going on in the world around you. If the government decided, this addiction is not good, let’s treat it like a drug and ban it, I would be all for it. But claimi…

Your understanding of the situation is incredibly naive. TikTok can selectively suppress or emphasize viewpoints that are geopolitically advantageous to China that are not as overt as "China GOOD!" or whatever you imagine propaganda to be.

This is studied and proven to be happening already: https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...

Re: TikTok goes dark in the US

#949

Post by lvl155 »

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".

That’s rich coming from Europe. You guys pillaged rest of the world for 700 years. Took all the gold from the Americas then proceeded enslave Africans for centuries. And normalized it. Play by the rules? What rules?
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