New: US censorship, US surveillance, US narratives (patriot approved)
I feel like this outcome is so much worse than just banning the platform.
This is the status quo for a lot of US media, but TikTok is actually much worse. The "US narratives" in this case are in service of Trump, possibly behind closed doors as table stakes for the purchase agreement.
> The Joint Venture will secure U.S. apps through software assurance protocols, and review and validate source code on an ongoing basis, assisted by its Trusted Security Partner, Oracle.
So the new team will be in charge of content moderation, training, and "review and validat[ion]" of source code. Not actually a new app.
Just put the political stuff aside, they are often too short for any details over any topics if not straightly brainrot, ending up making people get distracted and lost patience easily. I never a fan of YouTube shorts and instagram reels either because of the same reason.
Perhaps they are good for promotion, but as a user perspective, can anyone really point out one good reason to use these platforms?
The answer to this is the same as the answer to your first question.
Heck, how does that person think people read books? Six to ten hour sitting marathons?
It's bonkers to me, but I guess my patterns of information lookup have just calcified with age.
It introduces her to new fashion, new restaurants, new places to visit. Local, hyper local and hidden, and her favorite travel destinations.
It's full of bite size tutorials. Tips and tricks. Genuinely useful stuff. Blogs and websites you'd find this stuff on are not as visual, not as well edited, and are hard to find or full of SEO spam.
It's introduced her to all kinds of hobbies. Gen Z is all about finding old consumer digital cameras from 2000 or even older Kodak one-use disposables and transplanting the lenses. TikTok nucleates these interests and trends.
The news breaks almost immediately on TikTok, and there's immediately insightful community commentary - why would you ever need CNN talking heads?
Every day there's a new "fad". It changes fast, on a day to day basis. Just a few days ago, there was this "an owl but from [x]" meme that was really cute/funny.
TikTok is genuinely everything. It's amazing. Much of the old internet it replaces doesn't hold a candle to it.
Not arguing against the rest of your comment, but I find the concept of "breaking news" to be generally terrible for society. News outlets should wait until they have enough information to present an event as accurately as possible, but the rush to be the one that gets there first means this is often not the case.
And I expect this goes double for randos publishing on TikTok.
They are a replacement for TV. You know, the thing that people used to watch for hours upon hours a day?
For most people, it's a distracting little jolt of dopamine and a way to get quick news or commentary.
It's definitely not good for our brains for that to be the main kind of content we consume, but it's not useless.
At first, it was all about the novelty: lip-syncing and dance videos. Over time, though, my interests evolved. I started following creators for travel vlogs, occasional financial advice, health tips, yoga and exercise—and last but not least, singing, which I only began at age 55.
I don’t have many viewers, and that’s perfectly fine. My account isn’t about chasing likes or comments. It’s simply a way for people to see who I am rather than engage with a random, unknown profile—if they’re curious enough to look. It also helps avoid mixed signals: when you know who I am (even though you never truly know someone), you can usually tell whether something is meant as a dad joke… or a Daddy joke
As a result, my consumption of TV, Netflix, and HBO has dropped significantly. I find it far more engaging to follow real people and see what they’re doing with their lives. And here’s the irony: aside from the first two or three seasons of Survivor, I’ve never been into reality TV—yet somehow, I’m completely hooked on this one.
[ Wordsmithed by AI ]
My wife loves TikTok to a point that she will take it personally when I complain about it, but I absolutely hate the "vertical short form video" crap that's gotten popular. I'm probably just showing my age, even with my admittedly-quite-flakey attention span, I feel like TikTok and YouTube shorts are just kind of irritating. So much stuff on there is either low-effort crap with lip syncing to some clip from a movie, or shit yelling at me with burned in giant subtitles, both of which are almost certainly part of my own personal hell.
How is TikTok user data more private today than it was a year ago?
My husbands TickTock feed is full of things like “10 things Americans do that Chinese think are weird”, “10 reasons Chinese cities are in the 22nd century” etc etc.
I personally don’t think that’s propaganda - most of it is factually true and would be pushed to the front of any fair algorithm because it is engaging. But I can kinda see the concern, even though I disagree with the outcome.
Chinese ownership as a security threat is currently in between reality and conspiracy realms but the US govt meddling as a threat is a proven reality worldwide.
Since controlling these platforms is probably the best ROI for swinging public opinion, I'm sure it's a matter of time before they get seized (one way or another) and redistributed to reliable political allies.
China is currently providing weapons for Russia to wage large-scale war in Europe, while supporting a dictatorship in North Korea that regularly launches nuclear-capable misiles in my general direction.
There's also the issue of the algorithm being used for propaganda, which (again) is also terrible in the hands of either party, but with potentially very different outcomes.
Private surveillance however has the possibility to be much worse than government surveillance. We are already seeing collected data being used by the government to carry out enforcement (see period app subpoenas and the cameras that track where everyone drives), but the private actors have a perverse incentive to surveil as much as they can and make as much actionable data on it as possible. They can then show up at the governments door and offer it.
That is, private surveillance has the potential to surveil in ways governments don't even know they want, and they have an incentive to find any hole in the surveillance market and fill it.
burnt-resistor•1h ago
selectodude•1h ago
coffe2mug•57m ago
... live tracking by ICE
eudamoniac•1h ago
manuelmoreale•43m ago
All the other American controlled social media platforms are exactly like your China description from my point of view: it’s American agencies and data brokers mining it and American interests pumping it.
Do you think a reasonable course of action is for us to force the sell of American platforms? I have no sympathy for what China is doing but I have no sympathy for what America is doing either.
Why do you think one’s more acceptable other than “it’s my country doing it”, assuming you are American that is.
kelnos•32m ago
> Do you think a reasonable course of action is for us to force the sell of American platforms?
Yes, absolutely. If your country's people believe that WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are a threat in the same way, they should take the same action.
(Mind you, I don't believe for a second that this was the real motivation behind what's gone on with TikTok, but I think it's a reasonable course of action to take if you think there is a threat there, regardless of what company or country we're talking about.)
malevolent-elk•13m ago
Personally, I worry more about the platforms and data brokers themselves, as I think everyone should and does. They hold disproportionate power and their incentives drive us all in the wrong direction.