Americans when China banned their social media:
China is banning our amazing free speech platforms. Censorship! Look at our free speech!
Americans now:
We need to censor social media! Chinese propaganda cannot be allowed to spread! This is a security risk! America must own every social media platform!
Or.... they're all propaganda machines for someone.
Redditor moment
No US social media site would ever be a thinly-concealed arm of state propaganda..
This comic is propaganda and misinformation.
spy on american citizens
BTW is there any actual proof tiktok is doing what the above US companies are? And not just some vague orientalism from anglophone media sources?
Also lets not pretend a US tiktok ban has anything to do with security or privacy. It's about being unable to silence pro-palestine views, which they're able to do only on the US-run platforms.
No on spies on our citizens except for us!
True, but when the US projects the crimes it commits against the world onto its enemies, we need to see actual evidence.
Yes, has there been a lack of evidence for the Palestinian genocide?
Last panel almost has you thinking it's not all corpo social media.
Bummed that it came across that way because I absolutely do not feel like that.
Yeah, just the Chinese aps do that shit. Regular Western apps always protect your data and would never misuse it in any way.
They want the Chinese to buy it from them! /s
I don't understand why the response isn't just stronger privacy laws on this.
[NYT’s Cecilia] Kang’s thesis [link] was premised on years’ worth of media and policymaker fearmongering that TikTok user data was susceptible to surveillance by the Chinese government (BuzzFeed News, 6/17/22; Forbes, 10/20/22; Guardian, 11/7/22). According to Kang’s colleagues, the law’s enactment was prompted by “concerns that the Chinese government could access sensitive user data” (New York Times, 4/26/24). In 2023, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte sought to prohibit TikTok throughout his state on the grounds that “the Chinese Communist Party” was “collecting US users’ personal, private and sensitive information” (Montana Free Press, 5/17/23). (Gianforte’s attempt was later thwarted by a federal judge.)
If such fears were officials’ genuine motivation, one could hope that broader data-privacy regulation might follow. Yet, as the Times neglected to mention, the spying accusations are tenuous—and deeply cynical. As even US intelligence officials concede, apprehensions about China’s access to TikTok user data are strictly hypothetical (Intercept, 3/16/24). And, despite its bombshell headline “Analysis: There Is Now Some Public Evidence That China Viewed TikTok Data,” CNN (6/8/23) cautioned that said evidence—a sworn statement from a former ByteDance employee—“remains rather thin.”
Given their dubious nature, it’s hard to see these data-privacy claims as anything other than a pretext for the US to throttle TikTok. By forcing either divestment or a ban, the US, at least in theory, wins: It transfers a tremendously lucrative and influential company into its own hands, or it prevents that company from serving as a platform—albeit one with plenty of problems—on which people can engage in and learn from discourses that are critical of US empire.
"Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down, potentially, TikTok or other entities of that nature," said Romney. "If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."
I point none of this out to defend TikTok as some beacon of hope: it’s just another corporate social media platform. I don’t have a TikTok account and don’t use it.
The TikTok ban is something Mark Zuckerberg lobbied for. It’s not a good thing.
People love to shit on TikTok, but honestly, I really enjoy it. It's not for everyone, and that's okay. Short-form content can be a lot—for me too. It took me a while to hone my algorithm and wade through stuff I didn't like. But TikTok stands out compared to Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. The content feels more authentic and engaging. When I scroll through TikTok, I often feel like I’m learning something new or having my perspective challenged.
TikTok’s algorithm doesn’t completely suppress leftist views. It’s one of the few platforms where conversations about issues like the genocide in Palestine actually gain traction. Of course, it’s a corporate platform, and it’s far from perfect. It has its alt-right pipelines and played a role in Trump winning this election because it was popular, and his team utilized it. But let’s not pretend that’s unique to TikTok—all social media platforms are allowing and often skewing towards the alt-right.
And then there’s the whole “TikTok is Chinese spyware” narrative, which just feels like a distraction. If we're worried about surveillance, let’s not ignore how U.S.-based platforms are also spying on us—for corporations and the government alike. Singling out TikTok for being Chinese misses the bigger picture entirely. This ban is happening because Meta and others don't want competition.
I don't remember much political shit with vine. Just silly videos that didn't reek of trying to game the algorithm to make money. It makes me think of how tablets failed originally but then apple made them and everyone wanted to pay to lick the turtleneck guy's asshole.
"Push propaganda" [citation needed]
We've already banned Tiktok and 50+ other apps after a border clash.
When will our country start our own mainstream social media networks and get to ban Fb, Insta & X(Formally known as Twitter) which are USAmerican companies that push USAmerican propaganda and spies on Indian citizens?
Where's Saint Peter pulling the lever to send it to hell?
Cringey as hell.