BREAKING - Tiktok has now SHUT DOWN SERVICES in the United States, noting “A law banning Tiktok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate Tiktok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”

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  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    6 hours ago

    As predicted, here comes the Trumper Youth.

    Watch him insist on it being run by Truth Social, and be filled with noisy cunt videos of immigrants being hilariously deported at gunpoint.

  • thelucky8@beehaw.org
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    7 hours ago

    There is a recent study on Tiktok and how it compares to Instagram and Youtube – (pdf)

    An article about the study says:

    The three-level study, which has now been peer-reviewed, looked at TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

    Typing in four politically-loaded key words – “Tiananmen,” “Tibet,” “Uyghur,” and “Xinjiang” – the team first looked at what content the respective algorithms delivered.

    The researchers found that while TikTok might not deliver more pro-CCP content, it did deliver less anti-CCP content than the rival platforms. It also, interestingly, delivered more content that researchers say was irrelevant to the keywords.

    The team next looked at engagement to see if this explained why anti-CCP content was performing less well. But it found that TikTok users “liked or commented on anti-CCP content nearly four times as much as they liked or commented on pro-CCP content, yet the search algorithm produced nearly three times as much pro-CCP content”. This didn’t happen on Instagram or YouTube.

    The last element of the study looked at the impact the content was potentially having on users. The researchers surveyed 1,214 Americans to find information on their social media usage, and their opinion on China’s human rights record. What they found was that the more time users spent on TikTok, the more positive their attitude towards the CCP was.

    The researchers came to the damning conclusion that “taken together, the findings from these three studies raise the distinct possibility that TikTok is a vehicle for CCP propaganda.”

    Another widely ignored issue regarding Tiktok and other Chinese apps is that European digital rights organization Noyb has filed GDPR complaints against TikTok, AliExpress, SHEIN, Temu, WeChat and Xiaomi for unlawful data transfers to China.

    • bungalowtill@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 hours ago

      Can‘t find the pdf of the study under the address. Then again, is it really worth reading it: They found that there isn‘t more pro-ccp stuff on TikTok than on the American platforms but less anti-ccp content on it. I mean they tried real hard finding something, looking for the decisive keywords, yet this is the outcome? There is more anti-ccp content on American platforms that on a Chinese one! Does that tell us something about Chinese or about American propaganda?

      • thelucky8@beehaw.org
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        3 hours ago

        @bungalowtill

        I suggest you read the study before commenting (the link works fine here, but you’ll find it also in the article).

        The study finds, among others, that TikTok users exhibited significantly more positive attitudes towards China’s human rights record as reports on forced labour and other human rights violations by the Chinese government are suppressed.

        The Chinese government is actively silencing the views of Americans who try to criticize the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, according to the study.

        Free speech doesn’t mean that foreign autocratic governments can silence Americans (nor other countries’ citizens) from expressing their opinion in public forums. This is what happens on Tiktok, and, even more so, on Red Note.

  • Engywuck@lemm.ee
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    9 hours ago

    As an European, I sincerely envy you. Death to these crappy social networks.

    • Orwin of Camber@lemmy.ml
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      9 hours ago

      Social media peaked in 2012/2013, before just before recommendation algorithms became a thing. Everything became insufferable afterwards.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        8 minutes ago

        That’s kind of my feeling too, although it’s dangerously close to “better back in my day” given my age.

        The period after they shut down browser popups but before they invented vitrual DOM-hacking popups was great, and that’s a measurable change.

      • Engywuck@lemm.ee
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        8 hours ago

        TBH, I found FB insufferable already in 2008, when I deleted my back-then 1 y/o account.

        • orcrist@lemm.ee
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          8 hours ago

          Agree, I felt the bad effects of FB around then. It was just so pointless.

    • Wahots@pawb.social
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      7 hours ago

      People forget shit so fast, it doesn’t even matter. All that matters is the present + six months for most Americans.

      Shit, I think many 14-16 yo Americans don’t even know who Obama’s VP was, or would have to think for a second a least, haha.

  • friendbot@beehaw.org
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    13 hours ago

    I just don’t see how this move and the timing was not orchestrated to manipulate uninformed TikTok users into supporting Trump. The explicit callout to Trump in the message… I have been fearing the next presidency and this was a blow.

    • azolus@slrpnk.net
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      5 hours ago

      Glazing Donald’s ego is a last ditch effort to save their platform. This is entirely on the Democrats—they didn’t have to agree to the ban, they could have insisted on higher standards for transparency and data security for social media instead. But banning the platform that featured pro-palestinian sentiment was more important to them. Now all that’s left is billionaire owned pro-Trump social media which Tik Tok may or may not join in the future. Good job guys!

    • satxdude@lemm.ee
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      11 hours ago

      I don’t know if it’s that ByteDance wants to push people into supporting Trump, but it could be that Trump agreed to “save” it if they appeared to kiss his ass.

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      12 hours ago

      On one hand, yeah, on the other hand Biden literally signed the law banning it. If Democrats didn’t want Tik Tok being banned to be associated with them and to give Republicans an easy, obvious win by unbanning a wildly popular app, then they could have just… not done that. This was just completely an unforced error on the part of the Democrats.

      • Commiunism@beehaw.org
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        6 hours ago

        I’ll get a bit conspiratorial here, but if what Bernie has said is to be trusted in his video about oligarchy, up on his youtube channel, then Democrats are largely owned/influenced by billionaires who would benefit from the increased Trump support. It would make sense to do this, but yeah it could also just be a blunder, given how Trump was the first one to propose the ban and Democrats could take it as “hey if we do this, we’ll win the moderate right support again!!”, though who knows.

      • Sonori@beehaw.org
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        10 hours ago

        As is traditional, the Republicans drafted a law, got bipartisan support to push it through congress, and then after it passed publicly flip flopped their support for the law they just wrote when they realized they could score political points by complaining about it while the Democrats would hold to their agreed support.

        This way the Republicans get the law they want, get to claim any benefits of said law by pointing to their voting record, and get to blame anything people don’t like about it on Democrats, all at the same time.

        Meanwhile there are no consequences to their bad faith actions because the Democrats will just bend over and take it in the name of bipartisanship and working across the aisle because half of them are Republicans, they just don’t want to call themselves Republicans and leadership is willing to fight tooth and nail to protect said members.

      • OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org
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        12 hours ago

        Or instead of targeting tiktok specifically, they could have chosen to pass a data privacy law and actually did something worthwhile instead of pointless, unpopular grandstanding. Haha just kidding, they would never do anything to reduce even slightly shareholder value.

      • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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        12 hours ago

        Accurate perspective but another one is this was a very successful social engineering of US politics by its global adversaries.

        Dems have been been trying to pull back the moment they released they got played but its to late. Above messaging is additional salt in the wound.

        • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          10 hours ago

          How did they “[get] played”? Like the poster you replied too said, it was a completely unforced error on their part. It feels like they tried to jump on the right-wing “China bad” bandwagon and it bit them in the arse.

          • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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            9 hours ago

            Its pure speculation but i suspect china may have purposely pushed for the tiktok is spyware narrative and fueled the china bad bandwagon themselves.

            They made it a real privacy nightmare but also by made sure western leaders know it is a privacy nightmare.

            Something i noted is that European parlement and many individual European govs have in recent years put up laws banning tiktok for gov officials and all staff but not the general public/citizens.

            • spit_evil_olive_tips@beehaw.org
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              8 hours ago

              Its pure speculation but

              you know you can just…stop typing after that, right?

              i suspect china may have purposely pushed for the tiktok is spyware narrative and fueled the china bad bandwagon themselves.

              you’re making the same racist assumption that underlies the TikTok ban itself - that Chinese people are inherently nefarious, untrustworthy, always hatching schemes and plots and subterfuge.

              the US does not need to be “tricked” into passing laws that are rooted in anti-Chinese bigotry. it’s basically a national pastime.

              • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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                5 hours ago

                Lol, This implies that Chinese citizens somehow have a say in what their government elite desires. I don’t think they are much different then anyone else.

                If it makes you feel better the US puts just as much energy into manipulating other countries as other countries do into them. And may i remind you of the chat control Europe routinely tries to sneak in a ban encryption for all its citizens without them noticing. my original comment addressed “global adversaries”, i only mentioned china replying to a comment specify about china. So not racist, I am anti any centralized power structure because power always corrupts.

                The fact is that governments have always (amongst other things) been rooted in a centralized resource and population control. The big problem as i would call it is that the emergent complexity of global politics makes the dynamics so complex not a single person, not even a president is capable of knowing more then the micro-environment they exist within. This is precisely why states feel a need to create extensive bureaucracies and specialized agencies which historically have a tendency to evolve into centralized powered structures themselves and power always corrupts.

                No nations, No borders, No gods, No masters

            • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              9 hours ago

              Honestly this just sounds like more conspiracy theory than fact. Remember Occam’s Razor, the simplest solution is usually correct.

              Like don’t get me wrong, TikTok is absolutely an extension of soft power, and it’s likely that the Chinese government has access to the huge amount of data the platform collects. But I think anything beyond that is just not likely.

    • SoupBrick@yiffit.net
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      11 hours ago

      I would imagine this is them putting political pressure on Trump to uphold his campaign promise. The uniformed will open the app, see that message, and know where to direct their attention.

    • TranquilTurbulence
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      10 hours ago

      Or Loops. You know, being open source, privacy respecting and all that.

      Nah, just kidding. Who wants any of that when you have the little red book instead.

      • drawaline@beehaw.org
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        9 hours ago

        Or maybe people don’t want to join an app with no app (other than a TestFlight version, as far as I can see) and no user base? Maybe?

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          10 minutes ago

          It’s always a bit ironic when people post this on the internet.

          It’s not wrong, per se, but much more specific instructions on how not to waste your life would be nice. There’s old people that have spent their whole life on the metaphorical grass and are still dumb as shit.

            • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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              2 hours ago

              It’s only brain rot if it’s all you do all day long. Everything in moderation. It’s also often times the only window into other cultures for people that don’t have the money to travel. I’d rather scroll through stuff that teaches me something, than I would the endless US oligarchy brain rot feeds.

          • Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            8 hours ago

            Sorry, my bad. The privacy is pretty standard, it’s the terms that are shady. Specifically §7

            1. CONTRIBUTION LICENSE

            By posting your Contributions to any part of the Services or making Contributions accessible to the Services by linking your account from the Services to any of your social networking accounts, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to us an unrestricted, unlimited, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free, fully-paid, worldwide right, and license to host, use, copy, reproduce, disclose, sell, resell, publish, broadcast, retitle, archive, store, cache, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, transmit, excerpt (in whole or in part), and distribute such Contributions (including, without limitation, your image and voice) for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such Contributions, and grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. The use and distribution may occur in any media formats and through any media channels.

            This license will apply to any form, media, or technology now known or hereafter developed, and includes our use of your name, company name, and franchise name, as applicable, and any of the trademarks, service marks, trade names, logos, and personal and commercial images you provide. You waive all moral rights in your Contributions, and you warrant that moral rights have not otherwise been asserted in your Contributions.

      • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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        2 hours ago

        I think it only uses it for initial verification. I already get a ton of spam on my number so it doesn’t really bother me. Highly recommend checking some of the content out though if you want an unfettered view into everyday life in China. It’s been a fun adventure.