Ask Lemmy

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.

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.

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.

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

It's because the Chinese government controls it.

Watch TikTok's US operation get sold not to the highest bidder, but to the American entity most intent on using it to destabilize society.

Also Mnuchin is trying to buy it, I can't imagine this will make it better. It's clearly a power grab.

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

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.

I'm gonna go with hilarious. 😂

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

if they were to actually ban it, it's collectively good for our attention spans, But honestly it's a quelling of free speech, and a monetary hit to the lowest incomes of America.

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

I trust TikTok as much as I trust any American owned company. We all know either way, the data is going to some government or other. It just that America are more likely to do something with it that will affect me. I have no plans on going to China, but seeing as how buddy-buddy the US is with the UK, FAANG are more likely to do me harm than TikTok.

Who would not banish cancer?

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.

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

I trust that China is every bit as manipulative and untrustworthy as western governments, so I absolutely believe that they either have or will use TikTok to further their own geopolitical/economic ends either by feeding content to sway opinions or for intelligence gathering.

But as someone in a western nation I am all for preventing other nations from gathering inteligence or running psyops on us, I dont belive that having something like TikTok that is (or can be) effectively 100% controlled by a foreign government is a good thing.

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.