this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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I'm not gonna suggest that it's right that US companies often evade government scrutiny and action, but I also don't think it's hypocritical for a country to be interested in protecting itself from other countries. That's just national interest. We need protections within the country too, but that's not the same conversation.
And tbh, the meme is pretty on point because a family may treat each other poorly often, but they are much less accepting of an outside party doing the same as it can be seen as a risk to the group at large.
people seem to glaze over the fact that China is at odds with the United States politically, the ban has little to do with protecting people's privacy and more to do with preventing another country from having such an influential tool ready at their fingertips.
Also I know it's the whole "you are not immune to propoganda" meme but look at the reactions to this bill online. If this isn't proof enough that ByteDance has the tools and ability to push an agenda through their app idk what is, and the U.S. has already had enough problems with foreign interference. If we cannot trust ByteDance not to retaliate against the U.S. when profits are on the line, they probably shouldn't be trusted with so much control on what our citizens are watching and hearing.
I don't like this bill because it's another bandaid solution to a systemic problem. Okay, so we ban Tik Tok, but that won't stop Chinese and Russian actors from using other social media to do the same thing. If Tik Tok is a problem then so are Truth Social and Parler.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Except I don't consider this to be "good." There's already rumors about people in the US buying Tik Tok to get around this ban. They'll be doing the same bullshit but because it's American bullshit it's suddenly okay.
I don't want Steve Mnuchin to have my data just like I don't want the CCP to have it.
That's not hard to get around though. It just costs money because most of everything you consume on the internet is free because sites make money through ads.
Use a VPN, Firefox, disposable emails and usernames, and you're already 95% of the way there. None of it is magic, propaganda is generally pretty damn obvious, look at what you're viewing through the lens of reality and not the bias of wherever you're seeing it.
Okay, how about this: I don't want Steve Mnuchin to be able to influence elections just like I don't want the CCP to be able to do it.
Vote Democrat and push to get Citizens United repealed. Until then he's going to have more power that way anyway.
Even after that repeal, billionaires will have that influence regardless. Public opinion means squat when there's a select minority voting against their constituents wishes anyway.
People say that like anyone knows where to push. Should I be looking for a lever or a button? Is it labeled?
Which is exactly my problem with this: Yes, letting the CCP influence are elections is bad. But so is letting billionaires, but nobody in the government seems to give a damn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Democrats_of_America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factions_in_the_Democratic_Party_(United_States)#Progressives
https://progressives.house.gov/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factions_in_the_Republican_Party_(United_States)#Progressives
Okay, I pushed all those links. Is that what I should be pushing?
Your hand to vote. That's it. There's not much else to do mate.
Help your friends who would also vote democrat or people on the fence. Otherwise there's not much to do lol. Regardless, demeanor matters, and the internet is a real place. Apathy kills.
I don't have friends and have been voting consistently - including primaries - since 2000.
If that's all I can do that's... disheartening.
That's democracy lol.
From the outside looking in, I'm sorry but the opposite is evident. How fast older Americans are rushing to setup their own firewall, making one thing illegal in America is crazy.
We're heading towards a world where just like China blocks Facebook, America has its own firewall to block tiktok. Two sides of the same coin.
Tiktok was the one platform that young Americans were able to organize politically, and the older Americans are going against everything America is supposed to stand for to stop that happening.
True or not, this statement is hilarious. If the 10-second video trend platform getting blocked ruins your political machinations, they weren't particularly stable to begin with.
There are plenty of platforms where kids can do that. Tik tok just gor popular because of how add short and quick it is to doom scroll.
But the app has already proven itself to be extremely invasive in how much data it collects and stores. It was even collecting Mac addresses for quite a while, finding a loophole around Apple and googles prevention of it.
Then it also obtains precise GPS data, monitors all inputs and screen interactions, has been keeping auto generated logs of everything said in the videos, and automatically id's objects it can recognize in your background. Then it's also free to covertly shape and push videos it wants people to see and there's no accountability for it outside of China. Youtube tried doing something like that at some point and they got in trouble for it and were forced to stop. The US can't do that with China.
Make no mistake, either. We're in something of a cold war with China and Russia, N Korea, and a few other countries. The countries have low key been trying to destabilize our country and others for the past 20 years or better. It's not like there wouldn't be a tik tok clone that wouldn't pop up and take over use. Heck. Look at the site you're on now. Everyone used to be on Digg. Then they moved to Reddit because Digg got too greedy. Now people are starting to move over to places like Lemmy because reddit has started doing the same as Digg. Everyone also moved from MySpace to Facebook. They'll always be a similar competitor you can go to.
China blocks a lot, lot more than just Facebook, so to try and conflate the two is disingenuous at best and trolling at worst. I'm also very skeptical of this idea that TikTok is the only platform where organization can occur. Maybe this pushes them to the Fediverse, or to more established methods like Telegram, but it's not going to be this great silencing of young voices.
I'd also like to point out that many of the media sources that are picking up on this as a horrible ban are owned by people who like to sow division like Murdoch, or are affiliated with ByteDance. Checking for unbiased sources is pretty big on a topic like this, and I would absolutely ignore anything posted on TikTok at a minimum.
We are heading towards a world where Americans are prevented from accessing a social media that the rest of the world can access. This is undeniable. It's disingenuous to suggest that this is not like the Chinese ban on foreign social media's.
It's worrying that people such as yourself are willing to take on the same playbook as a government you supposedly hate.
It's worth noting I am not American, I will not be affected by this ban. I just see America slipping into a bad place. You aren't immune to propaganda, and you aren't questioning this stuff enough. Next time, it'll be for something you don't guttrally hate, and no one will be supporting you then.
Maybe I just don't want a platform controlled by a country actively committing a genocide to be able to shape the narrative around another genocide? Maybe I don't want to offer a country that kidnaps and retrains dissidents access to data they can use to target foreign dissidents? Maybe I think that a power that actively targets American institutions with cyberattacks on a regular basis shouldn't also have access to the minds of millions of Americans via an algorithm that is seriously, dangerously addictive?
Like in what world are people seriously coming to the defense of China? What, we suddenly trust a dictatorship that openly and brazenly wants to destabilize Western nations? We trust that ByteDance is very independent and totally cool and doesn't have to support the CCP at gunpoint at all?
I think people are massively understating the power that control over these platforms offers, and massively overstating the impact they have. Massive protests were successfully organized way before TikTok, they will continue to be organized after it is gone. This isn't the herald of the end of social media in the U.S. If anything, perhaps a Fediverse alternative could spring up to fill the gap, which is by far the best platform for organizing.
The amount of sanity thats suddenly shown up in this thread is throwing me for a loop. Am i still on Lemmy here?!
More seriously, Chinese propaganda on here is all over the place in 3 forms,
The shit ur calling out: "ccp good, murica bad. Western media all propaganda, consume more state media from "leftist" regimes."
The pre-deflection, "idk why ppl say russian/chinese propaganda is on lemmy, theres none to be found." Quickly then backed up with another 1 or 2 echoing, "yeah, ive seen nothing of this nature here at all."
And then the most difficult to convince the bystanders of, "if u think im parroting chinese/russian talking points, ur just a dirty neolib who hates true leftism!" Followed immediately by 15 more comments just underneath circlejerking over how leftist opinions are oppressed, all true leftists get called tankies but also tankies dont exist, and pretty much muddying the waters of what leftist theory is typically about (e.x. having a currency, market, and or billionaires is not antithetical to communism).
No one's defending China. Everyone is calling out America's hypocrisy and the slide into doing the same shit that China does. If anything, we're trying to warn that America is becoming a China to fight China.
Not to mention how the local area average content algorithm is a known tool of those foreign policing units to keep Chinese nationals abroad in line even when they specifically avoid downloading anything the CCP could normally use to keep an eye on them.
People are getting mad that their right to participate in the extraterritorial oppression of Chinese folks is being infringed because it also involves them getting to watch videos of reddit drama stories set to shitty Minecraft parkour.
Bull. Being at odds with someone is about protection. We should want our information to be free from whatever they want it for. I don't like the bigger US companies doing it either. But that is usually for profit. Who knows what a foreign nation that hates us wants it for.
Most sane and freedom loving people are also at odds with United States politically.
I think the US government is upset that China has provided people with a way to communicate and organize that has actually been effective.
I find it hypocritical that America forces it's tech down other countries throats and demands open markets globally while wanting to now close off their market once they have a viable foreign competitor. I agree it's logically the right move but, I still find it hypocritical.
I think the most hypocritical part is obviously the guise of data privacy. But even regarding national security or foreign influence, I think there is some hypocrisy because we know that there are foreign actors on Facebook, for example, as well.
The foreign actors don't control Facebook. They only exploit it. This is a significant difference.
Back in my day we had an open internet. But "China bad" has gotten to the point where we're ok with the government deciding which countries are allowed to have apps in the US market. I definitely don't see any problems with establishing that kind of precedent.
If your worried about China influencing and/or spying on US citizens via a social media app, there are things the US could do short of a forced sale or outright ban (and not an actual ban btw, this is the government telling app stores what apps they're allowed to carry, another super cool precedent). Maybe a public education campaign, like DARE but for tik tok, maybe it's convincing influencers to switch platforms, maybe it's dumping some money into alternatives like the fediverse. Or you could just wait a year or two until TikTok loses popularity like every other social media platform ever.
Anyway, we need to stop pretending this argument is about anything like spying or Chinese mind control. For Republicans it's simply China bad. For Democrats it's about protecting meta and Google, donors, from TikTok kicking their ass in the free market.
It's dumb, short sighted, a horrible precedent, and people cheer it on at their own perril.