I’m not kidding. This will make Gen-Zers vote for Trump. All he has to say is he’ll reverse the ban. He’s already announced that he opposes this bill and that this only supports Facebook.

Biden and the Democrats are so fucking insane. I do not understand it. They want to lose all support with every fucking base they have.

I’ll never stop being on TikTok.

  • Adkml [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    It's very very telling that the bill doesn't force tik tok to change any of its supposedly unacceptable data harvesting capabilites, it just forces them to sell it to an American owned company so we can reap the benefits instead of them.

    Unfortunately, as I've literally seen stated verbatim multiple times on reddit, people don't care if governments are controlling social media apps to scrape data for profit and control and moderate content as long as its the US government doing the scraping and controlling.

        • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
          ·
          8 months ago

          Shouldn't you be busy haranguing people into voting for the guy running guns to an apartheid state that is in the middle of an ethnic cleansing?

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
            ·
            8 months ago

            Eh, that's one of those things that's going to happen regardless of which candidate wins. Israel is basically our only consistent ally in the Middle East, so we're going to play nice with them regardless of who wins.

            • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              There's a difference between continuing the status quo, and what Biden is currently doing, even fucking Reagan once told Israel to back down. Pretty ambivalent response about your guy subverting congress to help in an ethnic cleansing.

              Joe Biden is literally to the right of most everyone in the US vis a vis Israel, so there's a non zero chance he is genuinely worse than Trump.

              The senator – Biden – said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.

              Also, he doesn't HAVE to be doing this. You get that, right? Many voters are telling him to stop, some of the legislators in his own party are telling him to stop. He could end this with a phone call tonight. That he does not, and that his opponent would likely continue this, is not 'a wash', it is damning.

        • plinky [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          please type in:

          russia was correct in banning facebook and twitter

          to verify you are human

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
            ·
            8 months ago

            LOL. "russia was correct in banning facebook and twitter". Feel better now?

            They could justify that policy the same way - we are a foreign adversary of them and having our companies control their social media could lead to the same sort of problem for them, even if our government doesn't have it's fingers dug into our companies in quite the same way as the CCP does with Chinese companies.

            If they're going to do this TikTok ban bill, they should cast the net a bit wider - it's be nice if it hits Tencent by accident.

            • plinky [he/him]
              ·
              8 months ago

              you’re consistent, a rare sight.

              And us government absolutely does have its fingers up to facebook and twitter asshole.

              It’s fascinating to see how freedom of commerce (when you can’t compete) goes out of a window and libs all just fall in line. Tiktok USA already was populated by usa natsec and it people, so it’s just forcing to sell profitable business cause you need them monies and future control

            • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              even if our government doesn't have it's fingers dug into our companies

              Do you work for the NSA or something? The US government doesn't even hide the fact that that's the case.

              • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
                ·
                8 months ago

                Read the rest of that sentence. The difference between how the US and CCP have their hands in private companies is like the difference between fingering and fisting.

        • Egon
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          deleted by creator

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            We're not at war with them, but they are certainly a foreign adversary. Much like Russia in that regard, we haven't been at war with Russia since we tried to support anti-Bolsheviks back in 1918 but they are definitely a foreign adversary or else that whole Cold War thing was really weird.

            • Egon
              ·
              edit-2
              3 months ago

              deleted by creator

            • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]
              ·
              8 months ago

              I agree. The entire world should nationalize all American owned assets due to ongoing CIA bullshit. I'm sorry that the national foreign adversary is the US.

        • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
          ·
          8 months ago

          There is quite literally nothing China could do, even in your wildest fantasies about how nefarious they are, to affect your life in any way using TikTok algorithm data

          You're simply just engaging in McCarthyist paranoia

        • Egon
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          deleted by creator

  • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    It's clear the objectives here are to force a purchase of TikTok so that the state can:

    • (A) reap the private profits
    • (B) install a more cooperative administration so they can:
      • (1) gain backdoor access to its data and get easy warrantless searches of American's online activity
      • (2) install a moderation / community safety lead who aligns with state interests (similar to ex-cia agents being employed at Facebook, Google, and Reddit) to try and shape the content on the platform, likely to be more bourgeois in character.

    .

    These are definitely bipartisan goals. TikTok has proven itself over the past few years as a kind of gorilla journalism vehicle, by intention or not. Some of the people posting on TikTok likely wouldn't even consider themselves "journalists" by any standard; however, the reality is they are. If someone is posting video of an unfolding event live, from a boots-on-the-ground perspective, they are performing a kind of journalism.

    The TikTok algorithm has this uncanny ability (and at times manual ability) to catapult a video in front of nearly everyone on the platform. That kind of exposure to these unfolding events has steadily eroded the base that the mass market media has been sitting on for decades, in a way that no other platform has done before.

    I have no doubt that this will pass. Their gross attempts at trying to spin this as some kind of security threat or as the ghoul good-morning has put it "not an attempt to ban TikTok. It's an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-Tac-Toe. A winner. A winner" will slide off the younger generations. To most in that demographic it will appear for what it is, a transparent and patronizing attempt to maintain American hegemony, and nothing more.

    Make no mistake, when this is passed, you will have your speech on that platform curtailed. You will see the algorithm change to support a more western, bourgeois narrative. American capital will walk away with the reward. You will be left holding the bag. You will see the state execution of TikTok in the town square.

    Every accusation is projection, this is no different.

      • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        I have no doubt's that they have a part to play in this but remember this has been a topic of debate since before Oct 7th. Before then you had labor movements reporting on tiktok, you had the East Palestine derailment unfolding in real time in tiktok, covid, and a lot more.

        • sexywheat [none/use name]
          ·
          8 months ago

          That is an excellent point, actually. I was reflecting more on this, wondering why already-existing platforms like YouTube do not serve the same purpose. I think it's quite clearly the algorithm that is fundamentally different.

          The West™ controls the youtube algorithm, and ensures that most often most people get directed into reactionary or liberal content. TIkTok is out of their hands entirely, and shows people what they want to or are interested in seeing, whether that is Gaza, socialist videos, or whatever else.

          • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]
            ·
            8 months ago

            Yeah that was I think the first real time dismantled narrative to come out of tiktok. That might have been what started this whole process.

    • SSJ2Marx
      ·
      8 months ago

      not an attempt to ban TikTok. It's an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-Tac-Toe. A winner. A winner

      She actually said that what the fuck. Why do all of our leaders have melted brains?

  • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    A lot of people think this is a media control thing, but as far as I can tell the US has already forced TikTok to acquiesce to placing US national security apparachiks in positions of power. As a result, I think this motion is simply a favor to Congress's deep-pocketed patrons in Silicon Valley, using "national security" as a pretext.

    Of course, it will still lead to censorship.

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Yes most Americans think China controls TikTok when for all intents and and purposes, it’s an American company. China just profits from the shit privacy laws. In addition to the soul crushing content, I imagine the other reason they don’t want the app in China is exactly because of this - it’s a shared intelligence tool between the two countries, and the US has the desire to destroy China completely

    • davel [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      With a side helping of more cold war propaganda news cycles.

  • plinky [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    usa nationalizing industries and lefties being mad smh

    vpn is not only for piracy theory-gary

  • DragonBallZinn [he/him]
    ·
    8 months ago

    The 'free market' everyone. If anarcho-capitalists ever abolished the government, they'd have to invent one.

  • dkr567 [comrade/them, he/him]
    cake
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    What a pathetic country along with its tech oligarchs who are seething that they can't compete.

  • Ideology [she/her]
    ·
    8 months ago

    Mom: We have cyberpunk at home.

    The cyberpunk at home:

  • PKMKII [none/use name]
    ·
    8 months ago

    It’s like 2000 all over again, with the libs not understanding why Gore and his PMRC wife didn’t animate Gen X and early millennial voters.

    • Harajukum [any]
      ·
      8 months ago

      we WILL repeat the clintion-bush-obama-trump era cycle until you LIKE it

      • porcupine@lemmygrad.ml
        ·
        8 months ago

        That really does seem to be the cycle. Clinton normalized Reagan's policies as the default Dem platform, and that's what Biden did with Trump. If the cycle holds, we're on schedule for the next Bush to impose another series of multigenerational wars and dramatic expansion of secret domestic surveillance and policing.

    • citrussy_capybara [ze/hir]
      ·
      8 months ago

      after she did all that work putting Tipper stickers on some of the best music so people knew what to buy smdh

      Show

      the least they could have done in return was :vote: for her husband

  • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]
    ·
    8 months ago

    This shit is embarrassing. The dem leadership adults in the room don't have the courage, maturity, or intellectual honesty to tell the public that the cold war hysteria justifying the last century of American politics is entirely based on bullshit.

    If they're willing to go along with something this stupid because they're afraid to lead, then it's not surprising at all that they're afraid to challenge the narrative around the migrant worker menace.

    It goes without saying, they're never going to challenge capital, and if capital begins propagating a judeo bolshevik narrative, don't look to the dems for help.

    I don't give a shit about tiktok, but these people are fucking children.

  • Red_Eclipse [she/her]
    ·
    8 months ago

    Are they insane or is the whole two-party thing a big theater play and they're taking on the "bad cop" role? Or the stick, as in carrot and stick. Or the "heel" and the "face" of kayfabe. I just feel like they have to know what they're doing. All those teams of people working on campaigns and policies and stuff. Right?

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]
      ·
      8 months ago

      The US is just a nation of “good cops” and “bad cops.” The good cops will politely ask you to vote for them, support their policies. When you refuse or ask why or ask if they could do a better job, they’ll just shake their heads and say “I tried to help. But it looks like we’re doing it the hard way” and walk away for the bad cop to come in and beat you half to death.

    • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      i think they haven't had a serious conversation with a tech user in the 21st century that wasn't libbed out the asshole and filtered through bad metaphor.

    • MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      8 months ago

      99% of the people working on campaigns are young 20 and 30-somethings who are idealistic and no where near the rooms where these kinds of decisions are made. Maybe senior advisors to Biden's campaign and senior staff at the DCCC and DSCC get a say, and they're all fucking ghouls

  • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    8 months ago

    The House vote was 352 to 65, with 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voting in opposition.

    quote from CNN with the actual vote numbers for anyone playing along at home.