You can make a good case for breaking up Facebook. Twitter is just twitter and is slowly eating itself. Eventually, the advertisers will see just how much of the userbase are bots and either pull or negotiate for lower rates.
But how does that help capitalists make more money by eliminating their competition?
Never happen, why would the government shut down one of its favorite surveillance tools.
There will be a rush of US startups to replace it, and they will all be stage 1 enshittification, so they might actually be good for a while, like TikTok once was.
Or people will just migrate to the YouTube and Insta clones.
snapchats spotlight will do the best probably in terms of memes
YouTube shorts is such a hellhole that tiktokers migrating to it might improve things.
If they said or implied anything else, they would lose all leverage. The public couldn't care less about who owns tiktok, so they need people to think they'll lose it to have any public support.
It's probably not a bluff. They've pretty much saturated the U.S. market; there's not much room left to grow here. It would make more sense to focus their efforts on growing in other regions where they have plenty of headroom to increase their userbase and monetization. Depending on how things play out, they could match their current revenue in a matter of years and still have room left to grow. There's also the potential to re-enter the U.S. market down the line. Why would they throw that all away and essentially create their own competitor by selling their core technology and diluting/confusing their brand with whatever U.S. company they sell to?
I'd think the fact they've saturated the US market is exactly why it'd be too valuable to give up. They'd lose a ton of revenue, tanking their valuation. They may be better off selling. From there they could prob just clone it and promote a competing service in those unclaimed markets using a portion of the extra sale price they get for maintaining (and selling a product with) US market dominance
They’ve pretty much saturated the U.S. market; there’s not much room left to grow here
That... doesn't make sense to me. So because there's no room to grow, they pull out of the U.S. and lose the likely ~$1 bil spent on digital stickers for live streamers?
they use the same algorithm across all of their companies so selling it would create a strong competitor and the chinese government is likely to block the sale anyways. tiktok revenue is a small slice of bytedance's income, so it makes sense to swallow the relatively small loss to keep their product intact when it's crystal clear that it's far superior to anything else atm.
The tiktok algorithm is good in the same sense that cocaine is good.
Is it good or do they just have a massive network and data advantage. If tik tok left and everyone switched over to Instagram reels or YouTube shorts and they had the same amount of data tik tok has I think the experience would converge to whatever was on tik tok in a month or so.
There's no secret sauce to tik tok, they're throwing massive amounts of data at a recommendation AI and telling it to optimize for watch time, any sufficiently scaled company can do that nowadays. It's more a matter of getting and maintaining an audience to create that data and content creators, both of which due to the network effect, and without federation, are drawn to the biggest service, not necessarily to the best.
I love how the media has thrown around the word algorithm. They don’t need to sell their algorithm for a competitor to compete. An algorithm produces some result output. So you could easily clone an algorithm without knowing its exact implementation.
Maybe I know quicksort, but you know mergesort. The customer doesn’t give a fuck which algorithm was used, so long as it’s sorted.
This is a bad take. Yes, “algorithm” is a vague term, but it’s incorrect to suggest that they’re easily cloned. These algorithms are what makes social media companies. Without them, they wouldn’t have the same kind of user engagement. It’s why, outside of the fediverse, social media companies try to hide or demote linear timelines. It’s why they pour most of the R&D money into the recommendation algorithms.
But that’s not really an algorithm.
algorithm is a word employed here to help dumb down the concept of the IP that people will want to buy from tiktok; no one means a literal algorithm.
That was my original point. The media and hence business / management use this term (incorrectly)
They could just say IP, or platform, or service, or implementation. But I guess saying algorithm makes everyone sound smart.
US should call their bluff. If Tiktok gets banned, people will complain for a little bit until people forget and move on to what's next. Why doesn't an American company make something that's practically identical? People will be all desperate for their 5 second dopamine rush that they will download anything.
Vine.co returns!
I think Elon might just do that based on what I've been reading.
Dear god no
As I recall, the guy who makes Pixelfed (dansup?) is also working on a vine clone called loops. It looks like the site is https://loops.video/ Doesn't appear to be operational yet.
i never got to experience vine (and google+)
It would be his first good instinct. But bringing back the domain is t going to bring back the magic. Vine is dead and nothing Musked is going to be any fun.
India did this and Instagram reels is the main one that benefited. Probably be the same for US if it pulls through on this.
YouTube and Instagram already have identical features. Most US creators who post on Tik Tok also use those platforms already
They can't, the algorithm is the best part about tiktok and none of the competitors come close.
That's interesting, what's so clever or original about its algorithm?
If I remember correctly from my rabbit hole, it tracks your viewing habits by a far wider list of variables and on a micromanaged scale. It can be annoying if you have someone sending you content you don't like because viewing them will slot them into your feed immediately, but it's just as quick to discard those things. I found it very easy to train for my interests in cooking, goblincore, and irrational humor.
Meanwhile, YT Shorts sees me watch one video then gives me nothing but that.
Personally I've not tried shorts, I don't have any issues with it but I've only ever used YouTube for long form educational videos or horror fiction so it never has anything to offer me.
If you have to ask that question you definitely don't use Tiktok it's far far superior algorithmically than Reels and YT Shorts which are both absolute garbage.
It's Vine time!
What? Just... just bring it back. Call it "Kudzu" or some crap if Elon Musk owns the rights to Vine.
It’s fre
Free sha voc a doo.
I honestly think about this a lot. She did a good job with what she was given.
Could they please pull from Europe, too?
We tried that with facebook in the eu. Didn’t work
Me, an American, to my German cousin:
"So, yeah, I'm changing email addresses, here's my new one."
"Email? Are you using WhatsApp?"
"Er, no, how about text?"
"We all have WhatsApp."
"Okay, maybe Google Chat?"
"WhatsApp? WhatsApp."
I've had basically the same conversation with my sister who lives in Albania. I just want to use something encrypted like signal but she just refuses and says it's either WhatsApp or Facebook messenger. Cause of that I barely talk to her.
WhatsApp is e2e encrypted. It uses the same tech as Signal.
*allegedly
No one knows for sure, since WhatsApp is proprietary
Btw it wouldn't even matter, since the encryption happens in the client app. The server basically just passes around encrypted pieces of data between devices.
The owner is a problem though.
bring fediverse flags to Eurovision then.
Here's the trick (maybe):
"Don't you know that WhatsApp is owned by Meta and collecting information on your chat metadata (who you chat to, when, your contacts, their contacts)."
Tell them to get Signal. If there's any country on this planet where convincing people to use Signal is easier, it must be Germany. GMaps streetview was banned there until recently, everyone uses fake names on Facebook, if they even made one in the first place.
Surely they must be amenable to Signal
We're gonna try harder next time
Google knew youtube shorts didn't stand a chance in a fair market.
If money wasn't the point, then influence was. Congress is right to shut them down.
Foreign owned, FARA-unregistered influence operations have never been a facet of "free speech" in the USA.
It's pretty weird that they'd admit it.
The smart move would have been to sell it and take the L, and use the new money to build the next thing.
Money is still the point. There's an entire world outside the US.
They'd lose money in a sale as they'd lose their IP.
If the Chinese government is behind this, it's a great play. Having Joe Biden be "the guy who banned tik tok" would severely undermine his election chances.
Guess we'll find out whether TikTok or reproductive freedom is more important...
TikTok or reproductive freedom
Both of those bans have happened during the Biden administration
Yes, we all know Biden was super excited about Dobs. -_-
Abortion ban happened because of Trump's corrupt judges in the supreme court, yeah
14 year olds aren't the only people who use Tik Tok
Lemmy really seems to generally think that TikTok isn't massively overall popular. Lemmy would have someone thinking it's a niche app only being used by teenagers.
First, negotiations are not yet over, so they’re hoping courts overturn the ban.
Second, TikTok is very popular outside the US too, though 40% of ad revenue is in the US. They’d survive.
Even if they do plan to sell they wouldn't say it. If buyers think that a sale is inevitable they can offer less because they "don't have a choice" but to sell. If they act as if their plan is to pull out the buyers need to not just make them an offer that is higher than the others, but also high enough to make them reconsider their whole position.
This is right on. The best PR right now is to say they’ll never sell. Take a hard line while they challenge the law in court. They can always have acquisition meetings in private, and announce it out of nowhere at the last second if they do find a buyer.
Good 1 less spyware app
For good
Good?
Yeah
Excellent
Cool, please do.
I do wonder if this is america being anti communist as history has shown before.
Not to say China is actually communist but the economic system is hybrid socialist/capitalist and China is catching up or surpassing america so with this said what's to say america starts using this tactic against more of chinas Chinese owned exports?
Beyond that america has meta which has done much the same as tiktok, targeting youth, furthering mental health issue, spying, anti trust and coverups yet they get a slap on the wrists.
Anti communist? With everything else we buy from China, this is the tipping point to be anti-communist? How about all the US social media platforms that China won’t let in? Is that “anti-capitalist?”
Um yeah this is cold war type shit. It's not a "tipping point", just part of that broader context.
socialism has always been anti capitalism. socialism is based on principles like international revolution and a highly configured economic structures whereas capitalism is extraction of capital which western countries have been doing in china as much as china will allow but this isn't what i am arguing.
something to keep in mind is that we don't buy tiktok, similarly to meta and alphabet (google).
Cuba and North Korea (the forgotten war) are both good to look in to.
i hope the history can bring context to my previous statement as geopolitics is never as it seems.
While I appreciate the additional info, that really doesn’t add to the conversation about what the tipping point is for the parent comment.
i was not talking about a tipping point, i was focused on the geopolitics in my original comment.
Anti communist? With everything else we buy from China
would you argue America to be pro communist?
this is the tipping point to be anti-communist?
maybe but i'll be honest, i dont know what you mean by this, the fight against communism has been a steady state of proxy wars, embargoes, surveillance and propaganda campaigns, so i would definitely say banning tiktok sits within embargo and propaganda.
How about all the US social media platforms that China won’t let in?
yea socialism is apposed/untrusting of capitalist products, usually seen as exploitive by the communist this is due in part to the never ending revolution.
Is that “anti-capitalist?”
100%
I didn’t argue that we are pro-communist.
The point of my observation was that the premise of the TikTok sale is “anti-communist” and that it’s being brought up at all against the background of all the existing, deep economic ties between the US and China. IOW the US putting its foot down on TikTok is anti-communist, but accepting everything else gets a pass?
Funny that you point out the mistrust of (in this context of social media) western products as being exploitative when the Chinese exploitation of data and use of algorithms to manipulate what we see on TikTok is exactly one of the reasons the US wants the sale.
should Facebook be banned or at least forced to sell? this is why the fiasco is coming across as anti-communist, an extension of cold war hostilities.
IOW the US putting its foot down on TikTok is anti-communist, but accepting everything else gets a pass
Tiktok offers no financial incentive to America unlike Chinese exports, apple are not about to pay a reasonable amount to create an iPhone in America, china is in a pretty good position with its fabrication and engineering, consumer products or even solar panels are far superior to what America can make on a similar budget.
Funny that you point out the mistrust of (in this context of social media) western products as being exploitative when the Chinese exploitation of data and use of algorithms to manipulate what we see on TikTok is exactly one of the reasons the US wants the sale.
this is because you view things through a capitalist scope, i am guilty of this too. Facebook as linked in the above article does the same.
They are not the same. One manipulates and exploits its own country’s citizens for profit, the other exploits and manipulates both its own and citizens of other countries for profit and government data collection.
While TikTok doesn’t offer financial incentive to any US corporation, it certainly offers incentives to the users of the platform.
Let’s not move the goalposts/butwhatabout to talking about minors using social media or Chinese manufacturing, that’s too much to get into and keep it focused on the communist/capitalist debate and why TikTok is being treated as it is.
this debate wont be answered in till documents either leak or become old enough to be declassified like what happened with some of the cold war documentation otherwise we're arguing points of conjecture.
It's less about communism and more about authoritarianism. Even historically, communism was (IMO) just the trigger word associated with a slide into authoritarianism ... which is what seemingly happened in countries that had a communist uprising to overthrow the government and broader "owning class."
China seemed like they were on course to be a friendly communist country at one point, but they've slid back into authoritarianism under Xi.
I fully expect more hostility towards Chinese exports. Part of the reason for that is going to be that China is happy to use government money to subsidize certain industries to help gain dominance (Sherrod Brown - D Ohio) was recently speaking out about the risk Chinese subsidized EVs pose to the US auto industry domestically and internationally.
communism is not innately authoritarian same with libertarianism and capitalism instead its bad actors that make it so and once bad actors get involved then communism is not meeting its definition. china is a weird one where its communist in name alone with its hybrid economic system and repressive regime which goes against core principles of socialism/communism. i think the death of the USSR which had lead the revolution, as well as the many western embargoes on socialist countries have soured relations.
if your interested in podcasts id like to recommend you listen to blowback as it follows US hostilities against socialism/communism. i believe its on several platforms
A part of me genuinely would like to see communism work.
Another part of my looks at the past century and sees the same pattern of well meaning revolution to communism, that results in a corrupt government that owns and controls everything.
I don't think the Russian people that got the ball rolling for the USSR were stupid or evil, but I also don't think it worked out like they wanted.... and I think that's true of every other case of communism that's been tried in practice.
Part of the problem is without ownership, you don't own the situation. Which house is taken better care of, the one that's rented or the one that's owned?
Another social mind game, are you better off getting into an accident with 1 person around to call for help or 20? It's been shown that when people can put off responsibility/assume someone else is going to "own" the situation, they do.
I think capitalism with regulation to keep money out of politics, mixed with more social programs (particularly socializing the insurance industry) makes the most sense.
personally, communism in a capitalistic world is very hard.
Cuba wanted to break away from American capitalists and gangsters using Cuba to store money and exploit the Cubans for sugar plantations then the US sets embargoes, Cuba maintains its independence and manages to get its literacy level up to 1953—56% 1970—88% 1986—nearly 100%
implemented free social health care with newly built hospitals and students had to work in small towns and villages for part of they're doctorate. but American meddling was constant with the Cuban missile crises which laughable America clutched they're purls whilst having setup nukes on the USSR's doorstep as if that wasn't threatening.
Cuba has sadly remained under the sanctions and is struggling to stay afloat.
its important to view economics outside of our place of living, while western life is so so although homelessness is forever on the rise but outside of these countries life is different and the people are very much exploited by capitalism whether through ford or amazon, this is why we live the way we do.
I agree with your last paragraph in particular, I think if we ever want to have a hope of capitalism, communism, or socialism it starts with teaching people "the cheapest option isn't the best."
I am fortunate to have a well paying job. I do not buy cheap third world or authoritarian made products unless I absolutely have to. I go out of my way to find products made in democracies that have stronger labor and environmental laws. A recent example, I could've gotten cheap placemats for my table or a cheap table off of Amazon or at a department store.
Instead, I paid local Amish carpenters to build me a table and bought placemats from a company in Indiana. I also encourage anyone and everyone who has the means to do the same. Try and look at the product beyond "what it does" and "what it costs you." If nobody was willing to buy an iPhone made with slave labor, the gears at Apple would turn very very quickly.
Edit: And yes, it's awful how we've treated our neighbors to the south.
I agree with your last paragraph in particular, I think if we ever want to have a hope of capitalism, communism, or socialism it starts with teaching people “the cheapest option isn’t the best.”
i am glad you can take something from that, sadly while your doing your part in society it still leave others to be exploited and a few smart consumers wont stop this. capitalism is by design repressive, while it exploits me and you some what the people in Afghanistan, China, South America to name a few beer the true brunt of it. suicide nets around Chinese factories, opium doubling in Afghanistan since us meddling as well as political in stability and South America is treated like a stopping ground for the rich where they'll own holiday homes hotel pricing locals out or run plantations.
i campaign with the socialist party, help with protests and union action, eventually i hope for international reforms.
if you'd be interested in hearing more about socialism id be more than happy to talk.
It may be simplistic, but the short version of what you seem to be saying at the beginning is: "every '-ism' is inherently neutral until people get involved."
Which is why I believe no system that is conceived by humans will ever be not exploited.
This is very true, a knife isn't inherently evil.
Though some systems are more susceptible to manipulation, dictatorships, free market capitalism and feudalism are some of the worst culprit's.
Which is why I believe no system that is conceived by humans will ever be not exploited.
Sadly whilst we occupy the word in clusters of people we must have a system of governess
dictatorships, free market capitalism and feudalism are some of the worst culprit's.
Agree. Thinking about it, the romantic in me wants to believe that the best system was probably the small indigenous tribal units. Collective social goals, group welfare, close-knit often matriarch families, conservation mindset...
A bit hard to pull off in the 21st century world though. :/
Sounds like primitive communism, its dreamy but wouldn't take much for a few tribes to consolidate power leading to a form of feudalism and class issue between different tribes.
This is something democratic socialism tries to address
I was going to include the social democracies of northern/central Europe as another better path, but it was really late and I was tired,and now I lost my train of thought. The Nordic countries, the Netherlands... while no system is perfect and every country has its challenges, these seem to exceed most on the measures that should matter.
I think this is a good move honestly, they want it to be an algo similar to meta which you know is terrible, meta is like mostly dudes saying gen Z men are AWAKE and hate LGBT people and tate clips. They seem to have much less success in the algorithm on tiktok
Another example of the falling US influence.
Exactly. We spent four years playing into their hands, its going to take us decades to recover from that mistake.
Nah, they'll sell. It would be foolish for them to admit it publicly, that would drive down the price. They'd also lose influence in the American media landscape if they killed TikTok. Finally, they're fighting this law in the courts, and admitting they'd sell if forced too would be weakening their position. It's not like selling would really hamper CCP control all that much, they'd just send texts to people's personal phones when they need something instead of sending official emails.
✌🏽
Back to Vine we go
Very unlikely.
They'd basically instantly be undermining literally every narrative they were trying to push about this by doing that lol
All those kids that were defending the shit TikTok pulls because "well American companies do it too!" are really gonna have to get that egg off their faces
I'm just baffled, why am I not free to install whatever crap I want onto my phone?
Let me ask you a question. How do you think they're going to "ban" TikTok? Remove it from the app store on Google and apple? You'll still be able to download the app and use it as long as you have the Internet.
ByteDance has 270 days (+90 days at president discretion) to divest of TikTok and sell to an entity not affiliated with an "adversary country" (China, Iran, Russia, N. Korea).
If they don't sell, hosting providers of TikTok application (servers, storage, app store, etc) will be fined up to $500 times the number of users in the US if they continue to host the application
So basically, the law will impose a fine of US hosting providers of the app. If the app moves all services overseas to foreign entities, then the app presumably will continue to work even if banned if already installed (plus the website if hosted overseas).
ISPs and search engines are explicitly exempt from the bill so there is no mechanism to ban connections to TilTok servers or links to TikTok.
Probably just need to use a VPN to access it at most, which Ironically might actually make the content contributions from Americans better since it's only gonna be people willing to invest in a VPN who are on it lol
You have a point!
True, I can go get it still from the aurora store.
This would be a win for Facebook and Twitter/X.
They would say that at this stage. They are still working on getting the law overturned by courts and threat of shutdown mobilizes people against the law in a way that selling it wouldn't.
When the time comes to shut down they will probably do some paper work fuckery that technically makes it an Irish company but doesn't change the people in the company.
while i'm obviously sure it's a bluff, pulling out instead of selling would be the clearest admittance that tiktok is (or at that point: was) not about the profit, but about Chinese influence in the US. the message being "we rather leave a hudred billion dollars on the table than give away our surveillance technology to some US company."
but yeah, they will def. sell if they need to.
There are valid commercial reasons not to go through a forced sale with a ticking time limit, which will inevitably carry a steeply discounted price. Rather than getting robbed, it makes sense to hang on to the company and take profits from the rest of the world.
It's more like their US profits are no match for their Chinese profits. Social media use in China and other Asian countries dwarfs US use.
Let's be honest, this is only their outlook until the courts make their decision. They'll sell if that doesn't go in their favour.
They should redirect US users to a walled garden that says "Trump is against the ban. Vote Trump 2024" and see how quickly they reverse this. Oh political interference? Trump is all about that too.
Oh man, imagine what hellscape awaits us under a second Trump administration. Glory to Arstotzka!
Y'all are dumb as hell for supporting this bill. It doesn't just ban tiktok, it applies to any app with 20% or more ownership by any person/entity from a country that is a "foreign adversary".
Im not making a stance on it but I read more to it.
It seems very focused on “social media” as in software that is about users sharing their own content with other users with 1,000,000 monthly active users.
Those that support it on tiktok likely would for other similar services.
The part that stands out to me is it mentions real time communication. So Telegram probably counts.
It lists the foreign adversaries, they aren't just made up on a whim. Iran, N. Korea, China, Russia.
Where is WhatsApp based?
WhatsApp is American owned. You may be thinking of WeChat?
Not sure if you’ve been paying attention but citizens have no say over stuff like this. 99% of the politicians in office were placed there by rich people - they have the only true votes. The bill included money to Ukraine (great), and Israel (WTF), and Taiwan, and TikTok. It shouldn’t be legal to package all that stuff together, but it’s pretty standard. Anyway not sure who you’re talking to - there are like a few hundred politicians who supported this bill, most of them probably for other reasons, and none of them are on Lemmy.
Talking about the comments here.
I see, well Lemmy is a bunch of Reddit refugees for the most part. Probably happy to see social media corps dying no matter how?
A lot of the users here are just butthurt anti social media people, not actually principled free speech or rule of law advocates. This ban is arguably unconstitutional and TikTok is being targeted for purely political reasons, not because of any credible threat to "national security." This is some Patriot Act level overreach bullshit, but the clueless mainstream just clamors for it because CNN/Fox spends hours of airtime decrying the dangers of TikTok, and a fraction doing the same for Meta/X/Reddit.
TikTok is literally controlled directly by the Chinese government, which is officially considered a foreign adversary (for a good reason)
Source?
There are more than enough sources, just google "TikTok Chinese government influence". Just a few examples:
Also, just think about it: The CCP loves spreading propaganda. There's a massive social media platform controlled by China, which is used by young people in foreign adversary nations. Why wouldn't they leverage this platform to spread their lies and influence people? It's literally the perfect opportunity.
Wow. How predictable. Nothing you posted has anything to do with the Chinese government "literally directly controlling" TikTok, despite those being the exact words you chose and used.
Instead, you posted one story about TikTok in Europe running ads by the CCP, and two about the CCP using accounts on TikTok.
It's a well known fact that the CCP runs accounts on Reddit and other socials. TikTok accepting and running ads from the CCP in Europe is a European problem. Could be addressed by updated regulations around ads, idk, I'm not European. Meta could run ads from the CCP or Russia in Europe, perhaps? Or maybe TikTok broke European advertising regulations. Still, has nothing to do with the USA.
So again, you people are repeating US intelligence propaganda about the Chinese government "owning and controlling" TikTok and then posting "proof" that proves nothing.
Try again?
It's painfully apparent you have a fundamental lack of understanding of how the CCP works in relation to companies in China. Or how they behave on the world stage outside of your ech chamber. If they operate in a critical sector, they are controlled by the CCP. I mean, you do accept that the CCP is an oppressive, authoritarian regime, right? If you don't accept that, then we can't carry on because you're not in the same reality or arguing in bad faith.
And before the defense: "but they're really capitalists" - yeah, so what? Errybody greedy. Still doesn't change that the CCP is an authoritarian regime. I have the feeling that no matter what, you're going to move the goalposts because, I dunno, America bad? (and yeah, we've got a lot to account for and I'm no 'merica cheerleader). And no amount of evidence will sway you.
TikTok users are already in darkness, unless you think it's a happy coincidence that their algorithm suppresses anti-China views, support for Hong Kong, and support for Taiwan. Just because you can't notice you're being deceived doesn't mean you aren't.
Awesome, do META next please!
Before X?
X seems to be destroying itself without any external intervention lol
Boy I'd love it if that were really true.
Way way way way too many idiots still going there.
Elon Musk vs. Twitter, lol (timestamped)
https://youtu.be/oK9oPk8bsvk?t=39s
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/oK9oPk8bsvk?t=39s
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You can make a good case for breaking up Facebook. Twitter is just twitter and is slowly eating itself. Eventually, the advertisers will see just how much of the userbase are bots and either pull or negotiate for lower rates.
But how does that help capitalists make more money by eliminating their competition?
Never happen, why would the government shut down one of its favorite surveillance tools.
Even better
There will be a rush of US startups to replace it, and they will all be stage 1 enshittification, so they might actually be good for a while, like TikTok once was.
Or people will just migrate to the YouTube and Insta clones.
snapchats spotlight will do the best probably in terms of memes
YouTube shorts is such a hellhole that tiktokers migrating to it might improve things.
Still better than the Chinese propaganda machine
If they said or implied anything else, they would lose all leverage. The public couldn't care less about who owns tiktok, so they need people to think they'll lose it to have any public support.
I see this as a win win
Call their bluff
It's probably not a bluff. They've pretty much saturated the U.S. market; there's not much room left to grow here. It would make more sense to focus their efforts on growing in other regions where they have plenty of headroom to increase their userbase and monetization. Depending on how things play out, they could match their current revenue in a matter of years and still have room left to grow. There's also the potential to re-enter the U.S. market down the line. Why would they throw that all away and essentially create their own competitor by selling their core technology and diluting/confusing their brand with whatever U.S. company they sell to?
I'd think the fact they've saturated the US market is exactly why it'd be too valuable to give up. They'd lose a ton of revenue, tanking their valuation. They may be better off selling. From there they could prob just clone it and promote a competing service in those unclaimed markets using a portion of the extra sale price they get for maintaining (and selling a product with) US market dominance
That... doesn't make sense to me. So because there's no room to grow, they pull out of the U.S. and lose the likely ~$1 bil spent on digital stickers for live streamers?
they use the same algorithm across all of their companies so selling it would create a strong competitor and the chinese government is likely to block the sale anyways. tiktok revenue is a small slice of bytedance's income, so it makes sense to swallow the relatively small loss to keep their product intact when it's crystal clear that it's far superior to anything else atm.
The tiktok algorithm is good in the same sense that cocaine is good.
Is it good or do they just have a massive network and data advantage. If tik tok left and everyone switched over to Instagram reels or YouTube shorts and they had the same amount of data tik tok has I think the experience would converge to whatever was on tik tok in a month or so.
There's no secret sauce to tik tok, they're throwing massive amounts of data at a recommendation AI and telling it to optimize for watch time, any sufficiently scaled company can do that nowadays. It's more a matter of getting and maintaining an audience to create that data and content creators, both of which due to the network effect, and without federation, are drawn to the biggest service, not necessarily to the best.
I love how the media has thrown around the word algorithm. They don’t need to sell their algorithm for a competitor to compete. An algorithm produces some result output. So you could easily clone an algorithm without knowing its exact implementation.
Maybe I know quicksort, but you know mergesort. The customer doesn’t give a fuck which algorithm was used, so long as it’s sorted.
This is a bad take. Yes, “algorithm” is a vague term, but it’s incorrect to suggest that they’re easily cloned. These algorithms are what makes social media companies. Without them, they wouldn’t have the same kind of user engagement. It’s why, outside of the fediverse, social media companies try to hide or demote linear timelines. It’s why they pour most of the R&D money into the recommendation algorithms.
But that’s not really an algorithm.
algorithm is a word employed here to help dumb down the concept of the IP that people will want to buy from tiktok; no one means a literal algorithm.
That was my original point. The media and hence business / management use this term (incorrectly)
They could just say IP, or platform, or service, or implementation. But I guess saying algorithm makes everyone sound smart.
US should call their bluff. If Tiktok gets banned, people will complain for a little bit until people forget and move on to what's next. Why doesn't an American company make something that's practically identical? People will be all desperate for their 5 second dopamine rush that they will download anything.
Vine.co returns!
I think Elon might just do that based on what I've been reading.
Dear god no
As I recall, the guy who makes Pixelfed (dansup?) is also working on a vine clone called loops. It looks like the site is https://loops.video/ Doesn't appear to be operational yet.
i never got to experience vine (and google+)
It would be his first good instinct. But bringing back the domain is t going to bring back the magic. Vine is dead and nothing Musked is going to be any fun.
India did this and Instagram reels is the main one that benefited. Probably be the same for US if it pulls through on this.
YouTube and Instagram already have identical features. Most US creators who post on Tik Tok also use those platforms already
They can't, the algorithm is the best part about tiktok and none of the competitors come close.
That's interesting, what's so clever or original about its algorithm?
If I remember correctly from my rabbit hole, it tracks your viewing habits by a far wider list of variables and on a micromanaged scale. It can be annoying if you have someone sending you content you don't like because viewing them will slot them into your feed immediately, but it's just as quick to discard those things. I found it very easy to train for my interests in cooking, goblincore, and irrational humor.
Meanwhile, YT Shorts sees me watch one video then gives me nothing but that.
Personally I've not tried shorts, I don't have any issues with it but I've only ever used YouTube for long form educational videos or horror fiction so it never has anything to offer me.
If you have to ask that question you definitely don't use Tiktok it's far far superior algorithmically than Reels and YT Shorts which are both absolute garbage.
It's Vine time! What? Just... just bring it back. Call it "Kudzu" or some crap if Elon Musk owns the rights to Vine.
It’s fre
Free sha voc a doo.
I honestly think about this a lot. She did a good job with what she was given.
Could they please pull from Europe, too?
We tried that with facebook in the eu. Didn’t work
Me, an American, to my German cousin:
"So, yeah, I'm changing email addresses, here's my new one."
"Email? Are you using WhatsApp?"
"Er, no, how about text?"
"We all have WhatsApp."
"Okay, maybe Google Chat?"
"WhatsApp? WhatsApp."
I've had basically the same conversation with my sister who lives in Albania. I just want to use something encrypted like signal but she just refuses and says it's either WhatsApp or Facebook messenger. Cause of that I barely talk to her.
WhatsApp is e2e encrypted. It uses the same tech as Signal.
*allegedly
No one knows for sure, since WhatsApp is proprietary
So are Signal's serverside components.
Uh, no? I don't know who told you this lie, but https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server
Btw it wouldn't even matter, since the encryption happens in the client app. The server basically just passes around encrypted pieces of data between devices.
The owner is a problem though.
bring fediverse flags to Eurovision then.
Here's the trick (maybe): "Don't you know that WhatsApp is owned by Meta and collecting information on your chat metadata (who you chat to, when, your contacts, their contacts)."
Tell them to get Signal. If there's any country on this planet where convincing people to use Signal is easier, it must be Germany. GMaps streetview was banned there until recently, everyone uses fake names on Facebook, if they even made one in the first place.
Surely they must be amenable to Signal
We're gonna try harder next time
Google knew youtube shorts didn't stand a chance in a fair market.
If money wasn't the point, then influence was. Congress is right to shut them down.
Foreign owned, FARA-unregistered influence operations have never been a facet of "free speech" in the USA.
It's pretty weird that they'd admit it.
The smart move would have been to sell it and take the L, and use the new money to build the next thing.
Money is still the point. There's an entire world outside the US.
They'd lose money in a sale as they'd lose their IP.
If the Chinese government is behind this, it's a great play. Having Joe Biden be "the guy who banned tik tok" would severely undermine his election chances.
14 year olds don't vote
The largest demographic of tiktok is women between the ages of 18 and 29.
Guess we'll find out whether TikTok or reproductive freedom is more important...
Both of those bans have happened during the Biden administration
Yes, we all know Biden was super excited about Dobs. -_-
Abortion ban happened because of Trump's corrupt judges in the supreme court, yeah
14 year olds aren't the only people who use Tik Tok
Lemmy really seems to generally think that TikTok isn't massively overall popular. Lemmy would have someone thinking it's a niche app only being used by teenagers.
They were 14 four years ago
Why would China want Biden to lose?
Awesome
Bye Felecia
Even better
Okay bye Felicia
Nice hope they won't budge.
First, negotiations are not yet over, so they’re hoping courts overturn the ban.
Second, TikTok is very popular outside the US too, though 40% of ad revenue is in the US. They’d survive.
Even if they do plan to sell they wouldn't say it. If buyers think that a sale is inevitable they can offer less because they "don't have a choice" but to sell. If they act as if their plan is to pull out the buyers need to not just make them an offer that is higher than the others, but also high enough to make them reconsider their whole position.
This is right on. The best PR right now is to say they’ll never sell. Take a hard line while they challenge the law in court. They can always have acquisition meetings in private, and announce it out of nowhere at the last second if they do find a buyer.
Good 1 less spyware app
For good
Good?
Yeah
Excellent
Cool, please do.
I do wonder if this is america being anti communist as history has shown before. Not to say China is actually communist but the economic system is hybrid socialist/capitalist and China is catching up or surpassing america so with this said what's to say america starts using this tactic against more of chinas Chinese owned exports?
Beyond that america has meta which has done much the same as tiktok, targeting youth, furthering mental health issue, spying, anti trust and coverups yet they get a slap on the wrists.
Anti communist? With everything else we buy from China, this is the tipping point to be anti-communist? How about all the US social media platforms that China won’t let in? Is that “anti-capitalist?”
Um yeah this is cold war type shit. It's not a "tipping point", just part of that broader context.
socialism has always been anti capitalism. socialism is based on principles like international revolution and a highly configured economic structures whereas capitalism is extraction of capital which western countries have been doing in china as much as china will allow but this isn't what i am arguing.
something to keep in mind is that we don't buy tiktok, similarly to meta and alphabet (google).
brief easy to read history of cold war activity.
Cuba and North Korea (the forgotten war) are both good to look in to. i hope the history can bring context to my previous statement as geopolitics is never as it seems.
While I appreciate the additional info, that really doesn’t add to the conversation about what the tipping point is for the parent comment.
i was not talking about a tipping point, i was focused on the geopolitics in my original comment.
would you argue America to be pro communist?
maybe but i'll be honest, i dont know what you mean by this, the fight against communism has been a steady state of proxy wars, embargoes, surveillance and propaganda campaigns, so i would definitely say banning tiktok sits within embargo and propaganda.
yea socialism is apposed/untrusting of capitalist products, usually seen as exploitive by the communist this is due in part to the never ending revolution.
100%
I didn’t argue that we are pro-communist.
The point of my observation was that the premise of the TikTok sale is “anti-communist” and that it’s being brought up at all against the background of all the existing, deep economic ties between the US and China. IOW the US putting its foot down on TikTok is anti-communist, but accepting everything else gets a pass?
Funny that you point out the mistrust of (in this context of social media) western products as being exploitative when the Chinese exploitation of data and use of algorithms to manipulate what we see on TikTok is exactly one of the reasons the US wants the sale.
you make a good point that Tiktok is doing some shady stuff but meta were court covertly collecting data from Snapchat through unknowing users devices.
Facebook whistleblowers testimony where she speaks of fb knowing the harm the platform does, and knows that fb targets minors even though Facebook has a minimum age 13.
should Facebook be banned or at least forced to sell? this is why the fiasco is coming across as anti-communist, an extension of cold war hostilities.
Tiktok offers no financial incentive to America unlike Chinese exports, apple are not about to pay a reasonable amount to create an iPhone in America, china is in a pretty good position with its fabrication and engineering, consumer products or even solar panels are far superior to what America can make on a similar budget.
this is because you view things through a capitalist scope, i am guilty of this too. Facebook as linked in the above article does the same.
They are not the same. One manipulates and exploits its own country’s citizens for profit, the other exploits and manipulates both its own and citizens of other countries for profit and government data collection.
While TikTok doesn’t offer financial incentive to any US corporation, it certainly offers incentives to the users of the platform.
Let’s not move the goalposts/butwhatabout to talking about minors using social media or Chinese manufacturing, that’s too much to get into and keep it focused on the communist/capitalist debate and why TikTok is being treated as it is.
Facebook isn't shy from governments surveillance either.
this debate wont be answered in till documents either leak or become old enough to be declassified like what happened with some of the cold war documentation otherwise we're arguing points of conjecture.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/tiktok-bill-foreign-influence/677806/
It's less about communism and more about authoritarianism. Even historically, communism was (IMO) just the trigger word associated with a slide into authoritarianism ... which is what seemingly happened in countries that had a communist uprising to overthrow the government and broader "owning class."
China seemed like they were on course to be a friendly communist country at one point, but they've slid back into authoritarianism under Xi.
I fully expect more hostility towards Chinese exports. Part of the reason for that is going to be that China is happy to use government money to subsidize certain industries to help gain dominance (Sherrod Brown - D Ohio) was recently speaking out about the risk Chinese subsidized EVs pose to the US auto industry domestically and internationally.
communism is not innately authoritarian same with libertarianism and capitalism instead its bad actors that make it so and once bad actors get involved then communism is not meeting its definition. china is a weird one where its communist in name alone with its hybrid economic system and repressive regime which goes against core principles of socialism/communism. i think the death of the USSR which had lead the revolution, as well as the many western embargoes on socialist countries have soured relations.
if your interested in podcasts id like to recommend you listen to blowback as it follows US hostilities against socialism/communism. i believe its on several platforms
A part of me genuinely would like to see communism work.
Another part of my looks at the past century and sees the same pattern of well meaning revolution to communism, that results in a corrupt government that owns and controls everything.
I don't think the Russian people that got the ball rolling for the USSR were stupid or evil, but I also don't think it worked out like they wanted.... and I think that's true of every other case of communism that's been tried in practice.
Part of the problem is without ownership, you don't own the situation. Which house is taken better care of, the one that's rented or the one that's owned?
Another social mind game, are you better off getting into an accident with 1 person around to call for help or 20? It's been shown that when people can put off responsibility/assume someone else is going to "own" the situation, they do.
I think capitalism with regulation to keep money out of politics, mixed with more social programs (particularly socializing the insurance industry) makes the most sense.
personally, communism in a capitalistic world is very hard.
Cuba wanted to break away from American capitalists and gangsters using Cuba to store money and exploit the Cubans for sugar plantations then the US sets embargoes, Cuba maintains its independence and manages to get its literacy level up to 1953—56% 1970—88% 1986—nearly 100% implemented free social health care with newly built hospitals and students had to work in small towns and villages for part of they're doctorate. but American meddling was constant with the Cuban missile crises which laughable America clutched they're purls whilst having setup nukes on the USSR's doorstep as if that wasn't threatening.
Cuba has sadly remained under the sanctions and is struggling to stay afloat.
its important to view economics outside of our place of living, while western life is so so although homelessness is forever on the rise but outside of these countries life is different and the people are very much exploited by capitalism whether through ford or amazon, this is why we live the way we do.
I agree with your last paragraph in particular, I think if we ever want to have a hope of capitalism, communism, or socialism it starts with teaching people "the cheapest option isn't the best."
I am fortunate to have a well paying job. I do not buy cheap third world or authoritarian made products unless I absolutely have to. I go out of my way to find products made in democracies that have stronger labor and environmental laws. A recent example, I could've gotten cheap placemats for my table or a cheap table off of Amazon or at a department store.
Instead, I paid local Amish carpenters to build me a table and bought placemats from a company in Indiana. I also encourage anyone and everyone who has the means to do the same. Try and look at the product beyond "what it does" and "what it costs you." If nobody was willing to buy an iPhone made with slave labor, the gears at Apple would turn very very quickly.
Edit: And yes, it's awful how we've treated our neighbors to the south.
i am glad you can take something from that, sadly while your doing your part in society it still leave others to be exploited and a few smart consumers wont stop this. capitalism is by design repressive, while it exploits me and you some what the people in Afghanistan, China, South America to name a few beer the true brunt of it. suicide nets around Chinese factories, opium doubling in Afghanistan since us meddling as well as political in stability and South America is treated like a stopping ground for the rich where they'll own holiday homes hotel pricing locals out or run plantations.
i campaign with the socialist party, help with protests and union action, eventually i hope for international reforms.
if you'd be interested in hearing more about socialism id be more than happy to talk.
It may be simplistic, but the short version of what you seem to be saying at the beginning is: "every '-ism' is inherently neutral until people get involved."
Which is why I believe no system that is conceived by humans will ever be not exploited.
This is very true, a knife isn't inherently evil.
Though some systems are more susceptible to manipulation, dictatorships, free market capitalism and feudalism are some of the worst culprit's.
Sadly whilst we occupy the word in clusters of people we must have a system of governess
Agree. Thinking about it, the romantic in me wants to believe that the best system was probably the small indigenous tribal units. Collective social goals, group welfare, close-knit often matriarch families, conservation mindset...
A bit hard to pull off in the 21st century world though. :/
Sounds like primitive communism, its dreamy but wouldn't take much for a few tribes to consolidate power leading to a form of feudalism and class issue between different tribes.
This is something democratic socialism tries to address
I was going to include the social democracies of northern/central Europe as another better path, but it was really late and I was tired,and now I lost my train of thought. The Nordic countries, the Netherlands... while no system is perfect and every country has its challenges, these seem to exceed most on the measures that should matter.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/well-developed-public-education-system
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/quality-of-life
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/social-purpose
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/agility
It's America being "anti criticise Israel "
I think this is a good move honestly, they want it to be an algo similar to meta which you know is terrible, meta is like mostly dudes saying gen Z men are AWAKE and hate LGBT people and tate clips. They seem to have much less success in the algorithm on tiktok
Another example of the falling US influence.
Exactly. We spent four years playing into their hands, its going to take us decades to recover from that mistake.
Nah, they'll sell. It would be foolish for them to admit it publicly, that would drive down the price. They'd also lose influence in the American media landscape if they killed TikTok. Finally, they're fighting this law in the courts, and admitting they'd sell if forced too would be weakening their position. It's not like selling would really hamper CCP control all that much, they'd just send texts to people's personal phones when they need something instead of sending official emails.
✌🏽
Back to Vine we go
Very unlikely.
They'd basically instantly be undermining literally every narrative they were trying to push about this by doing that lol
All those kids that were defending the shit TikTok pulls because "well American companies do it too!" are really gonna have to get that egg off their faces
I'm just baffled, why am I not free to install whatever crap I want onto my phone?
Let me ask you a question. How do you think they're going to "ban" TikTok? Remove it from the app store on Google and apple? You'll still be able to download the app and use it as long as you have the Internet.
No need to guess, it's all outlined in the bill:
So basically, the law will impose a fine of US hosting providers of the app. If the app moves all services overseas to foreign entities, then the app presumably will continue to work even if banned if already installed (plus the website if hosted overseas).
ISPs and search engines are explicitly exempt from the bill so there is no mechanism to ban connections to TilTok servers or links to TikTok.
Probably just need to use a VPN to access it at most, which Ironically might actually make the content contributions from Americans better since it's only gonna be people willing to invest in a VPN who are on it lol
You have a point!
True, I can go get it still from the aurora store.
This would be a win for Facebook and Twitter/X.
They would say that at this stage. They are still working on getting the law overturned by courts and threat of shutdown mobilizes people against the law in a way that selling it wouldn't.
When the time comes to shut down they will probably do some paper work fuckery that technically makes it an Irish company but doesn't change the people in the company.
while i'm obviously sure it's a bluff, pulling out instead of selling would be the clearest admittance that tiktok is (or at that point: was) not about the profit, but about Chinese influence in the US. the message being "we rather leave a hudred billion dollars on the table than give away our surveillance technology to some US company."
but yeah, they will def. sell if they need to.
There are valid commercial reasons not to go through a forced sale with a ticking time limit, which will inevitably carry a steeply discounted price. Rather than getting robbed, it makes sense to hang on to the company and take profits from the rest of the world.
It's more like their US profits are no match for their Chinese profits. Social media use in China and other Asian countries dwarfs US use.
Let's be honest, this is only their outlook until the courts make their decision. They'll sell if that doesn't go in their favour.
They should redirect US users to a walled garden that says "Trump is against the ban. Vote Trump 2024" and see how quickly they reverse this. Oh political interference? Trump is all about that too.
Oh man, imagine what hellscape awaits us under a second Trump administration. Glory to Arstotzka!
Y'all are dumb as hell for supporting this bill. It doesn't just ban tiktok, it applies to any app with 20% or more ownership by any person/entity from a country that is a "foreign adversary".
Im not making a stance on it but I read more to it.
It seems very focused on “social media” as in software that is about users sharing their own content with other users with 1,000,000 monthly active users.
Those that support it on tiktok likely would for other similar services.
The part that stands out to me is it mentions real time communication. So Telegram probably counts.
It lists the foreign adversaries, they aren't just made up on a whim. Iran, N. Korea, China, Russia.
Where is WhatsApp based?
WhatsApp is American owned. You may be thinking of WeChat?
Not sure if you’ve been paying attention but citizens have no say over stuff like this. 99% of the politicians in office were placed there by rich people - they have the only true votes. The bill included money to Ukraine (great), and Israel (WTF), and Taiwan, and TikTok. It shouldn’t be legal to package all that stuff together, but it’s pretty standard. Anyway not sure who you’re talking to - there are like a few hundred politicians who supported this bill, most of them probably for other reasons, and none of them are on Lemmy.
Talking about the comments here.
I see, well Lemmy is a bunch of Reddit refugees for the most part. Probably happy to see social media corps dying no matter how?
A lot of the users here are just butthurt anti social media people, not actually principled free speech or rule of law advocates. This ban is arguably unconstitutional and TikTok is being targeted for purely political reasons, not because of any credible threat to "national security." This is some Patriot Act level overreach bullshit, but the clueless mainstream just clamors for it because CNN/Fox spends hours of airtime decrying the dangers of TikTok, and a fraction doing the same for Meta/X/Reddit.
TikTok is literally controlled directly by the Chinese government, which is officially considered a foreign adversary (for a good reason)
Source?
There are more than enough sources, just google "TikTok Chinese government influence". Just a few examples:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2023/07/26/tiktok-chinese-propaganda-ads-europe/
https://www.axios.com/2024/03/11/tiktok-china-us-elections-influence
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/11/china-is-using-tiktok-for-influence-campaigns-odni-says-00146336
Also, just think about it: The CCP loves spreading propaganda. There's a massive social media platform controlled by China, which is used by young people in foreign adversary nations. Why wouldn't they leverage this platform to spread their lies and influence people? It's literally the perfect opportunity.
Wow. How predictable. Nothing you posted has anything to do with the Chinese government "literally directly controlling" TikTok, despite those being the exact words you chose and used.
Instead, you posted one story about TikTok in Europe running ads by the CCP, and two about the CCP using accounts on TikTok.
It's a well known fact that the CCP runs accounts on Reddit and other socials. TikTok accepting and running ads from the CCP in Europe is a European problem. Could be addressed by updated regulations around ads, idk, I'm not European. Meta could run ads from the CCP or Russia in Europe, perhaps? Or maybe TikTok broke European advertising regulations. Still, has nothing to do with the USA.
So again, you people are repeating US intelligence propaganda about the Chinese government "owning and controlling" TikTok and then posting "proof" that proves nothing.
Try again?
It's painfully apparent you have a fundamental lack of understanding of how the CCP works in relation to companies in China. Or how they behave on the world stage outside of your ech chamber. If they operate in a critical sector, they are controlled by the CCP. I mean, you do accept that the CCP is an oppressive, authoritarian regime, right? If you don't accept that, then we can't carry on because you're not in the same reality or arguing in bad faith.
And before the defense: "but they're really capitalists" - yeah, so what? Errybody greedy. Still doesn't change that the CCP is an authoritarian regime. I have the feeling that no matter what, you're going to move the goalposts because, I dunno, America bad? (and yeah, we've got a lot to account for and I'm no 'merica cheerleader). And no amount of evidence will sway you.
May you have the day you deserve.
That's all platform agnostic. You think they didn't have accounts and ads on every major service?
Sorry why should I be against that?
....ok? You realize that actually makes it even better right?
Ok...?
China does the same.
So we should do whatever China does??? Are you ready for the firewall? lmfao
Leaving US in darkness
TikTok users are already in darkness, unless you think it's a happy coincidence that their algorithm suppresses anti-China views, support for Hong Kong, and support for Taiwan. Just because you can't notice you're being deceived doesn't mean you aren't.