TikTok Ban, good or bad?

As someone in the US who has had their private data leaked multiple times (ive lost count) and is extremely careful when browsing you tube as to not be drawn into a conspiracy ridden rabbit hole, I’m not sure what the point of this tik tok ban is. To me tik tok is social media business as usual. If congress is going to go this hard on a social media company and privacy concerns they should be doing this with all the other companies that pry into our private lives and try their best to manipulate us as well (car makers, appliance manufactures, phone makers, wearbales, ect…) otherwise to me this comes across as the US congress extorting a single company to make billionaires richer. It has been shown time and time again that even US based social media companies are vulnerable to influencing conspiracy theorists and swaying the votes of thousands of people.I feel like we are at the pinnacle of technological ignorance here. Thoughts?

angstylittlecatboy, (edited )

My issue is that this is the kind of law I’d traditionally associate with China, and. I do think we should be harder on foreign influence but I think it erodes our freedom to do it like this. Especially given that nothing is being done about AIPAC or white nationalist Russian asset Elon Musk.

I also worry a conservative will buy it and boost manosphere, white nationalist, etc. content more. And as it is TikTok boosts these people, intentionally or not.

I know it’s not completely unprecedented, something similar happened to Grindr, but this is a higher profile case.

Yots92,

Who would not banish cancer?

buddascrayon,

I’m gonna go with hilarious. 😂

This is going to become the greatest game of whack-a-mole the internet has ever seen.

FeelThePower,
@FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’m honestly surprised so many people are for it. I detest tiktok, but what precedent does it set when we start restricting the freedom to access the open internet just like those so-called adversary countries do. If it gets removed from the app stores and that’s it, then yeah whatever I guess. but if we end up like China and post 2022 Russia where we are blocking connection access to a worldwide foreign service entirely only because we don’t like not being in control of the data, then we’ve already lost as the public. Combine this with the potentialities of project 2025 or whatever and then look at that, now we’re the exact same as them.

If the government were doing this for anything other than a power move with theatrics, Instagram and Twitter etc would be cracked down hard too.

exanime,

Gotta love the USA version of capitalism… It’s ALL corporate socialism

Tiktok is hot garbage but not hotter or more garbage than Facebook or Reddit or Instagram… Yet if US corps are losing ground, then daddy gov has to step in

residentmarchant,

The ban is about national security and the fact that the TikTok app has been caught snooping on everything it can get its hands on and sends it directly back to Chinese servers.

I haven’t read anything that says this, but I suppose it’s possible that Meta/Google/Etc. have lobbied to play up that angle, but I would argue that’s the capitalism we live in: the biggest pockets win.

exanime,

Which is different from all the US corps snpooping because it’s just not the US?

I mean these days even cars spy on us and sell the data as well… But I guess as long as it’s someone in the USA getting richer, the gov does not care

residentmarchant,

I agree that it’s not a good thing, but the US gov isn’t going to use the data to blackmail a closeted gay senator/govt official against their own government, while China will absolutely do that.

Source: reuters.com/…/exclusive-behind-grindrs-doomed-hoo…

And considering how good TikTok’s content algorithm is at picking up on subtle ques in browsing habits, I’m sure they know (or at least can venture a good guess at) a lot more than just the information users typed into the app, like in the case of Grindr.

I’m not saying data grabbing for the sake of data grabbing like is happening now is a good thing, but at least it’s controllable within the US for US companies holding data on US citizens. Lesser of 2 emails, I guess?

exanime,

I think you have more faith on the ethics of the US government than I do

Etterra,

Vertical videos and short form content taking a hit can only ever be a good thing.

Beefytootz,

I’m personally all for it. I’ve never used tiktok before and never plan to, but I can see the negative impact it has on my peers. I can’t hang out with my friends without it turning into them just showing their favorite clips to each other. It’s just bad for people and relies of maxing out the happy brain chemical thing to keep people there. It’s like penny slots at the casino. There’s also the data harvesting for the Chinese government through tencent (who is also very heavily involved with epic games and reddit to name a couple others). If I’m remembering right, when the “head” of tiktok was testifying before Congress, he outright said he’s doing nothing different from Facebook or Twitter, and he’s right.

RobotToaster,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

They only did this now because AIPAC wanted it, lol.

Anarch157a,
@Anarch157a@lemmy.world avatar

Banning TikTok would be as good as banning Facebook, Instagram or XTwitter, by that I mean it would be a net gain for society as a whole. But you have to ban them all, without discriminating based on which nation they originated.

But this is not the case here, this is the US congress enacting barriers towards foreign competitors, just like they did with steel, sugar and cars (ever wondered why you can’t buy one of those little European cars in America?).

This TikTok bullshit is Huawei all over again. It’s not to protect “national security” or “the children”, the Huawei ban was all about protecting the business of American companies during the transition from 4G to 5G.

Socsa,

Huawei was sanctioned for violating sanctions, and creating fraudulent financial statements. It is still protectionism, but they absolutely fucked around and got caught.

exanime,

And Facebook, twitter and all the other garbage social media haven’t?

You are not wrong that the Huawei thing was not just protectionism… But it was basically “easy to sell” protectionism

entropicshart,

The argument so far seems to be:

  • it’s not about the fact that they collect the data, but for whom it may be collected.
  • their algorithms of feeding content to consumers can be heavily influenced by non-US political entities.

That being said, I’m all for the TikTok ban, along with all the other social media platforms that have been proven to have negative impacts on the mental and physical health of our society (esp. with how much of it focused on kids).

With each year we spend less and less on the education of our children, while corporations exploit them and force feed junk into heads. Reduce their access to the shit stream, put in effort into their education instead of undercutting it, and we may actually have a chance at a bright future.

givesomefucks,

With each year we spend less and less on the education of our children,

What’s fucked up is the real solution to the whole student loan debate is just extending k-12.

In the 40s only about half of Americans got a highschool diploma, most dropped out at 14 and started working.

But taxes still paid for education up to year 12. Those last four years was basically college back then. Sometimes people failed and quit, but they had the four years to get as far as they could.

Now we’re teaching a shit ton more science, math, history, not to mention how computers are a thing now.

And we just can’t cram it all into 12 years

QuarterSwede,
@QuarterSwede@lemmy.world avatar

That is absolutely not the solution.

Our main issue is that we don’t teach our children critical thinking. They’re taught to tests and end up retaining little. Critical thinking means they can teach themselves and end up learning much quicker and building upon foundations. We want a well rounded education and end up failing in that endeavor for most.

givesomefucks,

The reason the vote was 50-0 is because regular people used it to talk to each other instead of either Dem.or republican friendly billion dollar media conglomerates.

There are valid concerns about China trying to accumulate data and what they use it for, but if that was why TikTok got so much attention, it would have been spread out between pretty much all of social media, even reddit.

If Democrats and Republicans suddenly all agree on one thing…

It’s time to ask why. Because unless something shady is happening, it’s not going to happen.

If Dems proposed a bill saying Trump is president for life, the majority of Republicans would oppose it out of principle because a Dem put it up for vote.

wesker,
@wesker@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Were it an actual ban, I’d say good. But it sounds like it’s more so a changing of hands. So the private data collection just becomes domestic.

buddascrayon,

The truly funny thing about that is that the data collection is currently in domestic hands.

conciselyverbose,

It’s not because it’s a big tech company.

It’s because the Chinese government controls it.

QuarterSwede,
@QuarterSwede@lemmy.world avatar

Let’s be honest: It’s because no US company, and therefore no US politicians, get a dime.

conciselyverbose,

It’s because China is a hostile power who openly abuses its power to use tech to abuse its citizens, and the way their government works, has far more control over companies in their country than most of the rest of the world. Citizens are at much greater risk with their data on Chinese servers than they are with their data on US servers. It’s not that complicated. China outright requires everything to stay in China in the reverse case.

Should they also regulate data collection generally? Absolutely. But TikTok is different.

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