I’m sorry, I’m just now learning that congress has passed legislation to force the sale of TikTok. This is just weird…our uber-capitalist nation is trying to control an independent Chinese corporation?
Wait, not sorry. I don’t use TikTok, so in a personal sense, I don’t care. I’ve glanced at it, and it’s the worst social media app out there — it’s nothing but blipverts for idiots and posers. I never saw the appeal, although it does seem to be extremely popular.
Oh wait, sorry again, Facebook is definitely the most atrocious, evil, terrible social media app. I abandoned that so long ago that I’d forgotten how awful it was. Instagram is bad, too, but I do have an account there, and for the same reason I clung to Facebook as long as I did — I’ve got family who use it, so it’s nice to keep up with them. Although that useful function is being diluted by the fact that I’m seeing family photos interspersed with mobile game ads that I don’t want to play and vapid photos of young women just standing there, smiling at me. I’m a crotchety old man, I just want to yell at them to do something, say something, tell a joke, do you think being pretty is sufficient reason to interfere with my interactions with people I care about? It’s not good.
The solution to my grumpiness is simple, though: don’t subscribe to TikTok, unsubscribe from services that don’t appeal, let people who do like them use them. That feels almost…libertarian to me, but OK, not meddling seems like a good approach.
But then I learn that Trump has an alternative solution. He wants Elon Musk to buy TikTok.
Can you imagine, after seeing the hash he’s made of Twitter, how much worse Musk would make TikTok?
These guys all make the worst possible decisions.
I never used TikTok. I considered it a risk from a privacy angle, as are Facebook etc also. Instead of Zuck data mining me, I really didn’t want to connect to a company even remotely associated with the nefarious ChiComs who have been hacking away at the US for years. TikTok always seemed like a very bad idea. I don’t know that it should be banned though. Caveat emptor, except you’re the product.
As an aside I finally cut my connection to usenet after almost 30 years. Now if I could wean myself from hate-reading WEIT and its overwhelming rightward leaning toxicity 2025 might become more positive…
Oh wait a very bad thing is happening on MLK day. Dreams turn into nightmares as we enter the fashy hellscape of magatocracy.
It would be am interesting social experiment to see how fast Musk can ruin TikTok.
Some of my relatives use Facebook, and the presence of Swedish-language racists and regressive orchs is sporadic so I am keeping it for now.
Hemidactylus @ 1
-BTW is Tr*mp going to continue holding rallies after he is sworn in? I ask, because it will be harder for his staff to cover up cognitive decline if he is making long speeches.
Wouldn’t that be a violation of all of our Antitrust and Anti-monopoly laws?
The US had laws in place to prevent the inevitable creation of monopolies by capitalism.
Since he owns an internet media platform already, adding another one with TikTok would be anticompetitive.
Oh, right. Silly me.
The Rule of Law in the USA is dying fast.
Creating an internet media monopoly here is a feature, not a bug.
I can go even better than getting Elon Muskrat to buy TikTok. Australia is gearing up for an election early this year. One of the governments promises is to invest in completing a full fibre optic national broadband service. This was the original plan because internet service particularly in rural area was poor to non-existent and thee were even parts of capital cities that had poor service. The original tender was lost by the corporatized and privatised telecommunications company which has an abysmal record of customer service. They did a sweetheart deal with the conservative opposition which makes the Republican Party look like saints. The deal was to use copper wire instead and charge much less. The end result was it cost more took longer and the service was terrible. Now the opposition is promising to fix the problem cheaply by doing a deal with Musk to run the broadband service and fix the problem areas by providing access to Starlink. In return of course Musk will run election interference for the opposition. The current opposition leader is nicknamed Il-Duce but he is more of a cross between Mussolini and Lord Voldemort.
I watched TikTok regularly, but unlike the way I think it’s supposed to be used, I found content creators I liked and watched their videos specifically. No nazis, very few ads, just wholesome content about hell, spiders, and music. I do feel bad for some of the creators who will be forced to switch to Instagram or YouTube for their format to continue.
The amusing thing about that chart is dividing Facebook and Instagram. They’re both Meta properties. That means that TikTok is Meta’s only major competition. Interestingly YouTube is not on that list and it’s the other principle platform for seeing some of this material.
I have never used TikTok per se, though I see quite a few TikTok videos as “Reels” on Facebook or Instagram. I dislike the Instagram interface more than I dislike the Facebook interface. I gather that the creators…and some are creative…deliver their material through all these channels but I don’t really know how that works.
I will shamefully confess to spending too much time on the silly stuff but I also like to watch music clips, science oriented material, and some of the thought provoking ones. As I’ve said, I use Facebook mostly because it’s my only connection to a handful of old friends. I’m at the age where any social connection to old friends is better than none. You know, say hello in there.
This is BTW, basic Fascism 101.
Fascists always take over the news and entertainment medias.
One of our longer lasting fascists today, Viktor Orban of Hungary, has done exactly that.
Orban and his power block have taken over almost all of Hungary’s news media.
Fascists do this to maintain power and destroy their opposition.
It’s easier than just killing a lot of people and looks better on the television that they control anyway.
raven@7: It’s quite ironic how in the early days of the WWW people dreamed how the web would undermine the authoritarian’s control over the traditional media, as in this new medium everyone has a voice and everyone can access all the information they want.
Didn’t really work out that way and somehow I can’t take any satisfaction from being right back then in my pessimism.
Yeah, republicans pushed for that one, democrats acquiesced. Trump was in favor before he was against it. TikTok could get around it by selling, but China probably won’t let them. Seems like this will be very unpopular once people realize what happened, but I’m not sure who will receive the blame.
I doubt Musk would buy, but it’s really funny to see Trump volunteer Musk’s money. May it fuel greater conflict between them.
Yeah, republicans pushed for that one, democrats acquiesced.
Because Cold War anti-communist bullshit still resonates with a lot of Americans (i.e. the stupid ones) and any Democrat who is seen as being too cozy with China will lose their seat.
I don’t see why.
Elon Musk has and is doing a huge amount to destroy the USA right now.
China should be and might well be cheering him on, just like the Russians and for the same reason.
I don’t see why I should care if China gets my mundane personal information from TikTok. The worst they could do is start pushing ads for Chinese products like Temu or Shein my way. Which is already happening anyway.
I find Meta, Facebook, Instagram, and X to be far more of a threat to the USA in general and myself in particular.
They are over here on the inside wrecking the USA. China is over there on the outside and doesn’t have any where near the leverage of the American companies.
PS A lot of people are migrating off of TikTok right now as their drop dead date approaches.
Most of them are going to RedNote. Which is also a Chinese owned app.
Partly that, but there are other factors. For one thing, if there’s money to be made by tech monopolists, there’s a bipartisan consensus that it should be made by American tech monopolists. For another, do you imagine the various Three Letter Agencies are happy about having spent all that time, money, and effort back-dooring all the social media networks, just for the next generation of surveillance targets, sorry I mean citizens, to go and start using something else?
There are many in the news (not the main slime media) that are echoing what I am saying ‘the sheople have spoken. They elected a sociopath convicted felon’ This nation is accelerating in its death spiral.
In an hour or two I’m going to post my Heroic Heretic saying: ‘we’ve reached PEAK HERD STUPIDITY’
And, yes that is a reference to the tRUMP Sovid plague. It is resurging, now. His arrogance slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people last time. Just you watch for all his new disasters!
My stupid stumble fingers, should have read: tRUMP COVID Plague
@9 siggy wrote: Yeah, republicans pushed for that one, democrats acquiesced.
I reply: articles today spell out how (as I put it) corporate democraps in congress will ‘roll-over like a puppy and pee on themselves’ to get tRUMPS criminals installed in offices.
Yes, I’m going to say it: this country is in a death spiral into the NEW DARK AGES
Musk’s Twitter has lost most of its audience; Musk’s Tesla seems to be losing sales and is definitely losing credibility; Musk’s spaceships and Martian dreams are basically government funded (I wonder why) … I dunno, maybe he should take over TikTok and finally radicalize the younger generation.
This was never about privacy. This came from the same congress that re-upped Section 702 of FISA allowing unlimited warantless wiretapping of Americans. This was never about national security. We have a thriving data broker industry that sells personal info for cheap, no questions asked. Those same data brokers get pwn3d on a regular basis, all due to homegrown American incompetence and the lack of a nationwide data privacy act that applies to everyone. Congress doesn’t give a shit about any of that.
This ban was about TikTok airing evidence of Israel’s genocide and plenty of anti-Zionist criticism to a mainstream audience. Washington is furious about that — they want an American-owned firm to comply with IDF censors.
And as usual, this sailed through with overwhelming bipartisan approval. The kind of bipartisanship that underlies all of American empire’s nastiest projects.
I have to speak up in defense of TikTok. I have (had?) an account, and it’s not that bad. Its algorithm learns from what you watch and what you skip, so what you see depends on what you’re interested in.
There’s plenty of vapid content and stupidity, like on every social media site. But there’s also science and nature content, books, progressive politics, and other good stuff. I experimented with posting some pro-atheism videos, which got a pretty good response.
I get that it’s a Chinese company, and there’s reason to believe the Chinese government can collect information on users or outright control what they get shown, so the critics aren’t totally wrong about that. But is American social media run by American billionaires any better? Hell, no – if anything, it’s worse.
@14: Raven, I’m afraid you’re substantially off-base in your assumption that “mundane information” won’t matter. All it would take is some reason — like, say, the fact that you post on this obviously un-American, subversive, enemy-of-the-people forum — for someone to use that “mundane information” for inimical purposes. As an example specific to TikTok, the PRC government is “known”† to have used data from social-media feeds to find, harass, intimidate, and even attempt to arrest PRC-citizen (and even family-of) dissidents in foreign countries, including the US. If you actually look at representative bills of particulars, you’ll see TikTok referenced as one of the data sources used by the PRC National Police.
Or you could just whisper “Pegasus is cool” in a crowded room full of iPhone users.
It’s not just you who is at risk, Raven; it’s everyone around you who might be identifiable in/through your social media use. It’s worth remembering that the ad industry is filled with amateurs in this regard… and that there are professionals out there. I’m not going to suggest that these amateurs (and even professionals) frequently engage in “incorrect target analysis,” but…
It’s not paranoia when They really are out to get you. The hard part is identifying the “They”.
† For a value of “known” arising from the certainty and reliability of certain methods of information gathering. For every indictment related to information-gathering that makes its way into the public eye, there are about half a dozen related instances in which there’s an admissibility-of-evidence issue that keeps an indictment from ever issuing, and maybe 20-25 related instances in which the evidence is clear but not clear enough for criminal action.