Every negative thing about Tiktok is also true about Instagram and Twitter.
TikTok is solely responsible for that AI voice. Instagram and Twitter have never done anything that compares to the pain and suffering that has caused to humanity.
M A R C U S P U M P K I N
Except the most relevant part: it is owned by a hostile foreign government.
To be fair, so is League of Legends and every product made by Tencent and their subsidiaries. If they're going to go ahead with a ban, they should at least keep it consistent.
The real question you are asking is whether inaction is worse than inconsistency. Should we not put out a fire unless we can put out all fires? What you are suggesting is to let something burn for the sake of consistency.
I want to avoid "everyone has free speech, but some have more free speech than others" from becoming precedent.
I'm basically indifferent to Instagram (IDK what it's about) and I've hated Twitter since I first learned about its high concept. Twitter makes people stupid.
Except the part about the authoritarian regime, the US has many problems but it's still a democracy.
Edit: I'm glad you downvote me because you never had to learn what living in a dictatorship is like, I didn't, but my parents generation still did and I can tell you it looks nothing like the US of today. Women were only allowed to be housewives, groups of more than 2 people couldn't talk openly in the street because that can lead to dangerous ideas spreading out, you would have to be careful what you said even at home because your neighbour could be listening to sell you out, all pieces of art and media would go through an government office to get censored, and so on, so yes, I stand with what I said, the US is a free democratic country even if you have been spoiled enough to think it is not.
It's not a democracy to me.
Y'know Orwell wrote about how warping definitions was a tool of authoritarianism. Typical ML behavior, tbh.
The United States is a democracy only if oligarchies are democracies
the US has many problems but it's still a democracy.
LMAO
I feel like you only think a country is a democracy if it says it's a people's republic while it commits genocide.
Hey I was born in a country with a military dictatorship and my parents grew up under it.
That's exactly why I believe in freedom and liberty. Freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of association. We need to uphold these principles so that the US doesn't slowly slip into authoritarianism like most democracies tend to do over the long term.
That's exactly why I oppose this TikTok ban with every fiber of my being. If a citizen wants to communicate on a Chinese platform, he has every right to do so under our laws. He can make the executive decision for himself about the potential risks or benefits.
That's what it means to live in a free society. You are advocating for authoritarianism while you rail against authoritarianism. Reminds me of 1984. War is peace, right?
He can make the executive decision for himself about the potential risks or benefits
But should he? Is any one by themselves really capable? Note that I don’t really know what to think myself, purely asking.
Not everything that's not a dictatorship is a democracy. You're using a strawman to argue your point.
A democracy stops when there is a severe imbalance in influence on legislation between voters and lobbyists / corporations / or voters depending on income / colour of skin.
There's also a quasi oligarchy with freedom of speech, that's about where western Europe is at. In the US, by now, a large part of the population has been deprived of basic human rights, as shown in unpunished police brutality and murders, and vigilante killings of people for their beliefs, opinions or identity.
Neither still qualifies for democracy. We would have to unite about two thirds of the voters behind a new party to even hope to change anything that matters (hello climate change), and that's assuming that a hypothetical party that would actually act in the interest of restoring democratic mechanisms would be persecuted or otherwise hindered by authorities.
the US has many problems but it’s still a democracy
Given the choice between hot shit and cold shit still ends with you being covered in shit. Heads or tails between two very similar parties hardly counts as a true democracy.
This is incredibly disingenuous. The US might not be a true democracy, but it's not an authoritarian regime. Xi and putin disappear people who have an opinion on whether they should be forever-rulers.
The fact that independent parties exist and hold seats at all three levels of government mean you are fundamentally wrong in saying there are only two choices.
The US is a flawed democracy. That's still better than an authoritarian regime.
Power in the US is held within an oligarchy and when they are threatened people get disappeared. There's examples of that but one that's being made an example of in broad daylight is Julian Assange
While the US might be hot shit, it's still our OWN shit. Keep your cold shit on your side of the pond.
I'm not an American. By your logic, let's ban all American social media.
let’s ban all American social media.
That would be great. Where can I sign?
Just wondering why would you want to ban anything? Does banning something solve any problem that a normal person has? I mean if the ban wave is on it would be fair to ban anything that's not open source but I do think censorship is cancer.
I am not very comfortable with "banning" websites - let's say outright dissolving some companies is probably the better approach, but also a double-edged sword.
However, there is sometimes a need to legally shut down some entities.
I believe that by now it should no longer be a subject of debate that social media has a very unhealthy influence on the public opinion, and that most humans do not have the intellectual capacity to critically reflect on the media they consume. That's already a problem with some TV programs, and it has gotten worse with social media monetizing anger. As a result we get people who vote for politicians who promise them nothing short of a dictatorship. That's incredibly dangerous, and therefore I would like to see all social media federated - centralized services give way too much power to individuals with shady motives.
TikTok is a psyops software disguised as a social media application. Facebook is bad for other reasons. But psysops are not one of them.
Facebook complies with the Cloud Act.
Facebook is bad for other reasons. But psysops are not one of them.
You've obviously never heard of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. That meddled in our presidential election on behalf of a hostile foreign nation.
There are also plenty of other examples of Facebook running psyop campaigns themselves on their own users. Your claim is demonstrably false.
lol I'm not british
And What does that have to do with anything? We aren't dealing with China, we're dealing with a corporation.
The fact that the company that manages TikTok is insisting on maintaining the power structure that allows for influence by the CCP makes that claim incredibly suspicious.
Oh no, should we ban Facebook because the US government can subpoena them for information!?!
First, that's materially different. Second, yes; I think Facebook giving the government our information without a fight is bad. What, did you think I would suddenly think the dissolution of our privacy was good because it was an American company?
Oh that's different than when the Chinese government serves a subpoena?
According to former head engineer for US locations of TikTok, their services are centralized in China to the extent that it probably cannot even run off the US locations alone, and the Chinese owners ByteDance had complete access to everything on the platform including user data and if you believe security experts: your photo library, text message history, contacts list, and information of nearby wireless devices that you've so much as passed by. Also, they're a military partner in China.
That's not a US Corporation in any way, shape, or form. That is espionage. The fact that they announced they won't sell shows that they were never a business operating for profit, it was always about control.
I'm sure you can link these security experts. Since that would be classed as malware and the industry standard is to write public reports on that stuff.
And saying they aren't like a US corporation because they do some military contracting is fucking hilarious.
Would it be classified as malware? I think people hand over permissions on their smartphone for most or all of those things on a daily basis without a second thought.
The report on the vast extent of data obtained by TikTok was published by an Australian firm called "Internet 2.0" but it's pay to view. Seems pretty substantial, though, since it hasn't been debunked in the 2 years since it was published. It also scored the highest recorded score on Malcore, owned by Internet 2.0, with a 63.1.
Lmao. They're trying to sell a product. They admit on their blog that the reason their score is so high is the trackers. Which are all from other social media companies and an advertiser. Oh and they counted Google Crashlytics.
TIL I learned good app maintenance is considered a red flag.
If they cared about money they wouldn't be threatening to shut down rather than sell.
Internet 2.0 is threatening to shut down?
Ah my apologies I thought you meant TikTok when you said "They’re trying to sell a product." It's a pretty common defence and misdirection on these sort of posts.
If you don't trust Internet 2.0 is telling the truth, then how exactly have they evaded defamation lawsuits? Telling lies that negatively impact ByteDance's operations would be grounds for a lawsuit in all 3 of these countries.
Because launching a defamation suit is a PR disaster for them right now. Just look at you breathlessly repeating unproven accusations from years ago. They hardly need to blow up new ones.
Allowing yourself to be defamed is a PR Disaster. Suing the US Federal Government is a PR Disaster.
They could have done it years ago when it hit headlines around the world, too.
Well one of those is required if they want to stay in business and the other one hasn't had much bearing on their US business. So I think it's pretty self explanatory.
We were talking about what TikTok has to do with China, as you seemed to not know how, so you finding their direct obvious ties to China
"fucking hilarious" is telling of your intentions.
No that's ByteDance's direct ties. TikTok would be indirect. My intention is to get to the bottom of this but it's constantly just unsourced accusations and conflations. Not to mention excuse after excuse for why we can't just pass an American GDPR. Instead we have to instigate Red Scare 2.0 which is totally not sus.
ByteDance is not just an indirect tie between TikTok and China, former employees have testified that the TikTok services are centralized in China. The offices in the USA operate like a shell company.
No they haven't. They said they sent head count and engagement data. That's it.
Yintao “Roger” Yu said that the CCP had full "supreme access" to all data. SOURCE
He left ByteDance 4 years before Project Texas. Even if that was happening then there's no evidence it's still happening. But also how is this any different than the US Government telling Facebook it has to share information?
Why would the operation that this company was created to carry out no longer be happening, pray tell?
That's a lot of assumption for no evidence. You might as well ask how TikTok deals with aliens in Area 51.
They're saying that the US is a democracy and the other country is an authoritarian regime. Can you guess which other country is involved with TikTok other than the USA? I'll give you a hint: Hundred Acre Woods.
Are women forced to stay at home in China?
Only the ones trafficked in from overseas. And the ones in concentration camps.
Doesn't really matter unless you live under it. Instagram and Twitter or more dangerous to U.S. citizens.
Care to expand on that
China can't arrest people in the U.S. The U.S. and state governments can.
You got downvoted so much that I had to check if we were on ml or hexbear. Those CCP shills really operating in broad daylight on this post, they must have gotten board of the echo rooms filled with bots on their home instance.
I just have to stop by and voice that I do not appreciate your attitude. This is exactly the kind of toxicity I escaped reddit from.
Every negative thing about Tiktok is also true about Instagram and Twitter.
TikTok is solely responsible for that AI voice. Instagram and Twitter have never done anything that compares to the pain and suffering that has caused to humanity.
M A R C U S P U M P K I N
Except the most relevant part: it is owned by a hostile foreign government.
To be fair, so is League of Legends and every product made by Tencent and their subsidiaries. If they're going to go ahead with a ban, they should at least keep it consistent.
The real question you are asking is whether inaction is worse than inconsistency. Should we not put out a fire unless we can put out all fires? What you are suggesting is to let something burn for the sake of consistency.
I want to avoid "everyone has free speech, but some have more free speech than others" from becoming precedent.
I'm basically indifferent to Instagram (IDK what it's about) and I've hated Twitter since I first learned about its high concept. Twitter makes people stupid.
Except the part about the authoritarian regime, the US has many problems but it's still a democracy.
Edit: I'm glad you downvote me because you never had to learn what living in a dictatorship is like, I didn't, but my parents generation still did and I can tell you it looks nothing like the US of today. Women were only allowed to be housewives, groups of more than 2 people couldn't talk openly in the street because that can lead to dangerous ideas spreading out, you would have to be careful what you said even at home because your neighbour could be listening to sell you out, all pieces of art and media would go through an government office to get censored, and so on, so yes, I stand with what I said, the US is a free democratic country even if you have been spoiled enough to think it is not.
It's not a democracy to me.
Y'know Orwell wrote about how warping definitions was a tool of authoritarianism. Typical ML behavior, tbh.
The United States is a democracy only if oligarchies are democracies
LMAO
I feel like you only think a country is a democracy if it says it's a people's republic while it commits genocide.
Hey I was born in a country with a military dictatorship and my parents grew up under it.
That's exactly why I believe in freedom and liberty. Freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of association. We need to uphold these principles so that the US doesn't slowly slip into authoritarianism like most democracies tend to do over the long term.
That's exactly why I oppose this TikTok ban with every fiber of my being. If a citizen wants to communicate on a Chinese platform, he has every right to do so under our laws. He can make the executive decision for himself about the potential risks or benefits.
That's what it means to live in a free society. You are advocating for authoritarianism while you rail against authoritarianism. Reminds me of 1984. War is peace, right?
But should he? Is any one by themselves really capable? Note that I don’t really know what to think myself, purely asking.
Not everything that's not a dictatorship is a democracy. You're using a strawman to argue your point.
A democracy stops when there is a severe imbalance in influence on legislation between voters and lobbyists / corporations / or voters depending on income / colour of skin.
There's also a quasi oligarchy with freedom of speech, that's about where western Europe is at. In the US, by now, a large part of the population has been deprived of basic human rights, as shown in unpunished police brutality and murders, and vigilante killings of people for their beliefs, opinions or identity.
Neither still qualifies for democracy. We would have to unite about two thirds of the voters behind a new party to even hope to change anything that matters (hello climate change), and that's assuming that a hypothetical party that would actually act in the interest of restoring democratic mechanisms would be persecuted or otherwise hindered by authorities.
Given the choice between hot shit and cold shit still ends with you being covered in shit. Heads or tails between two very similar parties hardly counts as a true democracy.
This is incredibly disingenuous. The US might not be a true democracy, but it's not an authoritarian regime. Xi and putin disappear people who have an opinion on whether they should be forever-rulers.
The fact that independent parties exist and hold seats at all three levels of government mean you are fundamentally wrong in saying there are only two choices.
The US is a flawed democracy. That's still better than an authoritarian regime.
Power in the US is held within an oligarchy and when they are threatened people get disappeared. There's examples of that but one that's being made an example of in broad daylight is Julian Assange
While the US might be hot shit, it's still our OWN shit. Keep your cold shit on your side of the pond.
I'm not an American. By your logic, let's ban all American social media.
That would be great. Where can I sign?
Just wondering why would you want to ban anything? Does banning something solve any problem that a normal person has? I mean if the ban wave is on it would be fair to ban anything that's not open source but I do think censorship is cancer.
I am not very comfortable with "banning" websites - let's say outright dissolving some companies is probably the better approach, but also a double-edged sword. However, there is sometimes a need to legally shut down some entities.
I believe that by now it should no longer be a subject of debate that social media has a very unhealthy influence on the public opinion, and that most humans do not have the intellectual capacity to critically reflect on the media they consume. That's already a problem with some TV programs, and it has gotten worse with social media monetizing anger. As a result we get people who vote for politicians who promise them nothing short of a dictatorship. That's incredibly dangerous, and therefore I would like to see all social media federated - centralized services give way too much power to individuals with shady motives.
TikTok is a psyops software disguised as a social media application. Facebook is bad for other reasons. But psysops are not one of them.
Facebook complies with the Cloud Act.
You've obviously never heard of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. That meddled in our presidential election on behalf of a hostile foreign nation.
There are also plenty of other examples of Facebook running psyop campaigns themselves on their own users. Your claim is demonstrably false.
lol I'm not british
And What does that have to do with anything? We aren't dealing with China, we're dealing with a corporation.
The fact that the company that manages TikTok is insisting on maintaining the power structure that allows for influence by the CCP makes that claim incredibly suspicious.
Oh no, should we ban Facebook because the US government can subpoena them for information!?!
First, that's materially different. Second, yes; I think Facebook giving the government our information without a fight is bad. What, did you think I would suddenly think the dissolution of our privacy was good because it was an American company?
Oh that's different than when the Chinese government serves a subpoena?
We're not talking about subpoenas.
So we're talking about some other official demand for documents? Like an NSA warrant?
According to former head engineer for US locations of TikTok, their services are centralized in China to the extent that it probably cannot even run off the US locations alone, and the Chinese owners ByteDance had complete access to everything on the platform including user data and if you believe security experts: your photo library, text message history, contacts list, and information of nearby wireless devices that you've so much as passed by. Also, they're a military partner in China.
That's not a US Corporation in any way, shape, or form. That is espionage. The fact that they announced they won't sell shows that they were never a business operating for profit, it was always about control.
I'm sure you can link these security experts. Since that would be classed as malware and the industry standard is to write public reports on that stuff.
And saying they aren't like a US corporation because they do some military contracting is fucking hilarious.
Would it be classified as malware? I think people hand over permissions on their smartphone for most or all of those things on a daily basis without a second thought.
The report on the vast extent of data obtained by TikTok was published by an Australian firm called "Internet 2.0" but it's pay to view. Seems pretty substantial, though, since it hasn't been debunked in the 2 years since it was published. It also scored the highest recorded score on Malcore, owned by Internet 2.0, with a 63.1.
Lmao. They're trying to sell a product. They admit on their blog that the reason their score is so high is the trackers. Which are all from other social media companies and an advertiser. Oh and they counted Google Crashlytics.
TIL I learned good app maintenance is considered a red flag.
If they cared about money they wouldn't be threatening to shut down rather than sell.
Internet 2.0 is threatening to shut down?
Ah my apologies I thought you meant TikTok when you said "They’re trying to sell a product." It's a pretty common defence and misdirection on these sort of posts.
If you don't trust Internet 2.0 is telling the truth, then how exactly have they evaded defamation lawsuits? Telling lies that negatively impact ByteDance's operations would be grounds for a lawsuit in all 3 of these countries.
Because launching a defamation suit is a PR disaster for them right now. Just look at you breathlessly repeating unproven accusations from years ago. They hardly need to blow up new ones.
Well one of those is required if they want to stay in business and the other one hasn't had much bearing on their US business. So I think it's pretty self explanatory.
We were talking about what TikTok has to do with China, as you seemed to not know how, so you finding their direct obvious ties to China "fucking hilarious" is telling of your intentions.
No that's ByteDance's direct ties. TikTok would be indirect. My intention is to get to the bottom of this but it's constantly just unsourced accusations and conflations. Not to mention excuse after excuse for why we can't just pass an American GDPR. Instead we have to instigate Red Scare 2.0 which is totally not sus.
ByteDance is not just an indirect tie between TikTok and China, former employees have testified that the TikTok services are centralized in China. The offices in the USA operate like a shell company.
No they haven't. They said they sent head count and engagement data. That's it.
Yintao “Roger” Yu said that the CCP had full "supreme access" to all data. SOURCE
He left ByteDance 4 years before Project Texas. Even if that was happening then there's no evidence it's still happening. But also how is this any different than the US Government telling Facebook it has to share information?
Why would the operation that this company was created to carry out no longer be happening, pray tell?
That's a lot of assumption for no evidence. You might as well ask how TikTok deals with aliens in Area 51.
Which country is this?
They're saying that the US is a democracy and the other country is an authoritarian regime. Can you guess which other country is involved with TikTok other than the USA? I'll give you a hint: Hundred Acre Woods.
Are women forced to stay at home in China?
Only the ones trafficked in from overseas. And the ones in concentration camps.
Doesn't really matter unless you live under it. Instagram and Twitter or more dangerous to U.S. citizens.
Care to expand on that
China can't arrest people in the U.S. The U.S. and state governments can.
You got downvoted so much that I had to check if we were on ml or hexbear. Those CCP shills really operating in broad daylight on this post, they must have gotten board of the echo rooms filled with bots on their home instance.
I just have to stop by and voice that I do not appreciate your attitude. This is exactly the kind of toxicity I escaped reddit from.