this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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American Tiktok users would rather use ACTUAL Chinese spyware app than Meta. XiaoHongShu (meaning "Little Red Book") and ChatGPT (for translating the Mandarin only app) are currently #1 and #2 on the App store.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It would be funny if tiktok just put out a transfer request to everyone's accounts and then make a new company called toktik and all content gets transferred with any account that opts in. Then the government has to go through the whole process to shut down toktik again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

There’s no process to go through again. The law is in place now. It didn’t Target TikTok specifically by name. It’s based on foreign company ownership and number of US users. I don’t know the specifics though

[–] [email protected] 94 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Pro Tip: Loops is a federated short form video platform.
Doesn't surprise me though, that most will jump ship to another Chinese spyware instead.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Loops is great but it’s not a TikTok replacement for the average TikTok user. The average TikTok user likes TikTok’s algorithms

[–] [email protected] 21 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

That is a fair point, but I've seen @[email protected] talking about what he plans to do about the algorithm to keep privacy-friendly. If I'm not wrong, I recall something along the lines of having the option to self-host your own algorithm recommendation.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Self-hosting your own recommendations would be amazing. I'm on the Testflight waitlist for Loops, hope I can get access soon.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, that would be dope. An average user probably won't use it, though. But having the option is great, and for user who don't opt in for self-hosting probably an option to export their algorithm data would be cool, for things like changing instances.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago

I would love to have the option to set the algorithm, like if I’m feeling sad use an algorithm that optimizes for happiness, if I’m feeling lazy use an algorithm that optimizes for inspiration, etc. This is the future I want

[–] [email protected] 35 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

A lot of them are going to it because it's Chinese Spyware, just to be petty to the government.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Yep, the sentiment is overwhelmingly what's so bad about China having our data when Meta does exactly the same if not worse. There's literal memes about skipping the middleman and sending it directly to China.

Quite a bunch are also learning mandarin to integrate better with them and a lot of chatter about how the divide is entitely made up by the government. The governments are fighting but the people on both sides are nice.

Some culture shock for americans is families in China can actually afford to stock up on food without going broke. Like, a lot of americans are seeing through the US propaganda for the first time.

They might not have free speech there and the guidelines are pretty strict, but one glaring thing is it's just a good experience there. No arguing, no shitty political takes. The lack of constant negativity and fighting is a breath of fresh air compared to what the american social medias are pushing non-stop because it's clicks and views and ad money.

I think it's all a good thing: diversification of social media platforms so you get different perspectives and cultures. We get to see first hand what life really is over there and the reverse as well. And the likelyhood that both the US and China pressure social medias to silence the same discourse is pretty small. You can make fun of Trump and Musk all day there and you won't mysteriously get burried by the algorithn because Elon pulled some strings to quiet it down. The good stuff has a tendency of being on the other side of borders.

You know the government fucked up big time when thousands of americans are fleeing to Chinese apps and learning the language and all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago

Also shockingly getting more gun content than I ever did on TikTok and YouTube, turns out they kinda like guns too minus the shooting schools part.

[–] Korkki 3 points 20 hours ago

Holy ideology, Batman!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Implementation is too slow - no plug and play app - why would they use it over an app you just need to download to use? I mean same problem as with all federation software: no central guarantors that you will always be able to chat with everyone, too much politics between all instances involved etc. which honestly is the whole point, but that's not what normies want.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

You can also just download loops? Afaik there is only one instance at the moment either way

[–] [email protected] 6 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

No App in neither play store nor f-droid nor GitHub with obtainium please provide a link. I registered this morning (EU time so ~10h ago) on the website and still don't have an admission Email. That's just not normie friendly to make it a big app, while right now would've been the time to fill the maybe void of tiktok, the execution is just too damn sloppy.

Pixelfed app can't play loops as well btw

[–] [email protected] 53 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] 9tr6gyp3 10 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Bro, who downvoted you?? 😂

How dare you point out the obvious correct choice as an alternative.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

Simply having the same or similar features alone doesn't make it a viable replacement. I switched from Instagram to Pixelfed and went from hardly anyone seeing my photography to literally no one seeing it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 18 hours ago

The Chinese users are actually pretty welcoming and funny

They keep harassing US users for pictures of their cats.

[–] esc27 6 points 15 hours ago

I misread that as TikTok banning looming and spent far too much time wondering what looming is. Some sort of viral textile meme ...

[–] [email protected] 31 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

The rednote move is mostly a form of protest. People are fully aware its a dumb idea for privacy.

[–] atrielienz 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

It's a bad form of protest, because it doesn't do what protests are meant to do, but okay.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Protests are about bringing visibility about an issue to a wider audience right?

Tons of news coverage, anyone on the app store or play store are seeing the App at the top of the charts, sounds like visibility to me!

[–] atrielienz 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Protests have to do more than that to be effective. This issue is already incredibly visible just because of the news media covering the ban. People already know. So the protest doesn't get people's attention.

But a good protest provides a lens through which to put the average person in the shoes of those people who are detrimentally affected or trying to effect change.

It also usually inconveniences the institution being protested against, and the people not personally involved to incentivize them to help with a movement.

This doesn't really tick any of the boxes of a protest from what I can tell but I've seen the word protest used to describe it several times.

I'm happy to listen to what the aims of this protest are and what they hope to achieve. Nobody yet has given me much of an answer.

You're actually one of the few people who have bothered to respond who even seems to know that visibility is an important component of a good protest.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

Plenty of discussion happening on tiktok about the reasons and methodology for this, which is where it's being organized from.

Keep in mind that mass adoption of rednote will force the US to ban it as well, which provides another opportunity in the future to bring more visibility to the authoritarianism by which the US government is operating this ban. It also sets a precedent for any other things the US government might target. There's a lot of speculation that other games and apps owned partially or majority by ByteDance will be next, like Epic games, League of Legends, etc. If the rednote jump proves to be a successful method for continuing the conversation, then gamers and users of other services that are banned in the future could see that as a blueprint for their own acts of civil disobedience.

We will see what happens, but if every time the US government bans an app or platform, the people just move onto something even worse for the US governments desires (and especially if we move to something that won't give profits to US companies), then it becomes a tactic the US government will have to abandon. So, more accurately, this is a large act of civil disobedience. Wanna ban tiktok? Great, we'll just go to an actual Chinese-influenced place that actually has Chinese government surveillance

It isn't as good as blocking city infrastructure, no, but it's certainly going to make a lot of shareholders of Meta and other US social media angry that people aren't flocking back to their apps. It also stands a chance of ensuring US officials who signed the tiktok ban and then bought Meta stock won't see a profit from their actions.

A protest on the streets isn't likely going to move the needle on tiktok. The only successful street protests (and barely successful at that) on a national level in recent times have been the BLM protests. The Free Palestine protests haven't been unsuccessful, but they also haven't really moved the needle either. Protesting on the streets runs an ever increasing risk of police violence and retribution by the surveillance state. And with the trump administration signaling it plans to green light further police violence against protesters, up to bringing in the military, that may not even be viable in the future.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

US Spyware app, Chinese Spyware app, whatever its all the same.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Even our spyware is bloody branded. Cant wait for the British ones.

[–] T156 4 points 12 hours ago

It already existed. They called it Bebo before it went Bebust.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 21 hours ago

Be the change you wish to see in the world! Just fork loops , add data collection, trackers, and whatever backdoor the government asks you and call it something like 'Innit!'. Simple as.

[–] nickhammes 3 points 17 hours ago

It's just like TikTok, but if you don't drink milk in your tea, you will be exposed to corrective content as needed

[–] [email protected] 19 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

What the fuck are people doing

[–] [email protected] 19 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Sticking their middle fingers to the government? I even saw a trend where people were talking about live streaming on red note and just walking through all the government buildings near them.

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Sticking their middle finger to the government so they can keep using another government’s spyware?

Ok.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago

What does the Chinese government care what I say about the American government?

What can they do to me anyway?

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[–] NegativeLookBehind 17 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Lol, I just got flamed in a Lemmy.ml community for condemning this shit

[–] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago

I mean it's pretty funny, innit?

It's a Chinese app what of it?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Am I missing something? Nothing in the ML thread you were in reads remotely close to flaming to me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

User could’ve been referring to:

Oh hi, you're awake from your coma. A lot has happened in the last 40 years. Culottes came back, but are already out of fashion again. There's more, but I'm not sure where to start.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 21 hours ago

XIAOOOO HOONG SHUUUUUUUUUU

💸💸💸💸💸

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