We should build a Great Firewall and make China pay for it. – Mitt Romney, probably
The New Republic, Mitt Romney Reveals Twisted Reason Why Congress Moved to Ban TikTok
“Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts. So I’d note that’s of real interest, and the President will get the chance to make action in that regard,” Romney said.
This exactly this. It was never about the Chinese spying on American citizens
The shitty American government doesn’t care that fucked up shit is happening to their citizens who it is their sacred duty to serve, they care that China’s doing it, and they want to be doing it instead.
Rooting against TikTok for breaching privacy is fine and all but if we wanna talk about social media that needs to be banned then let’s talk about Meta and Google. It’s painfully obvious that the only reason TikTok came under fire is that it was a threat to American social media companies and they couldn’t compete so instead they regulate.
I really don’t care about what TT does with my data, and I’ve been called a “privacy shizo” by people at work. I’ll mail every bit of my data to Xi Jinping personally before I ever install any apps made by Meta.
In other words, broad regulation on the industry instead of cherry picking TikTok for China reasons.
Let this be a lesson to you all: If you report a post for a reason as stupid as this, I might just let everyone know so they can laugh about it.
P.S. This is Lemmy Shitpost. You can misinform people all you like. Watch: Some camels are actually a type of iguana. But only the Bactrian camels. The rest are types of cacti. And if you drink their saliva, it will cure your gout.
I like how it’s being banned after the election when the damage is already done.
We should really ban Xitter as well as the operator is most likely a Russian bot
Elon got a ton of money from the Saudis to buy Xitter. Wouldn’t surprise me to learn they were pushing the authoritarian centric content.
It was infested by Russian bots even before it was bought by a Russian bot
Meh USA president about to be Russian bot too
Well, with this logic, yeah, fuck TikTok (I mean it, what an awful site)… And twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram, and Tumblr (it’s still alive?) and all the social networks that don’t belong to the user homeland!
They’re all spyware and propaganda machines.
EXACTLY!
This article from 2024 gives a pretty good rundown as to why using this reasoning to ban Tiktok will set a very bad precedent:
If the govt cared about your data privacy, they would create data collection regulations that they could then use to ban tiktok if/when they violate them.
Yes, tiktok wad absolutely the worst, but it speaks very loudly that the US doesn’t hold other companies to the same standard
Yeah but the Chinese one is bad because the American one said so.
not my phone 😋
Nokia 8210?
CalyxOS and utilization of FOSS-only software in addition to leaving airplane mode on on my phone unless I’m expecting a call
I do have a Nokia though. I got it on clearance for like $5 lol
“Hmmm well if you think tiktok should be banned for spying then do you think american social media platforms should be banned for doing the same thing?”
Yes. They should. That is not the argument you think it is.
Love to watch the contortionism .world does to justify the yellow peril
It is genuinely one of the most enjoyable things I could imagine to watch the American empire fall in real time, as its imperial core citizens flounder and flop around in impotent rage.
That’s the thing about reality. It has a leftist bias and it doesn’t give a shit about liberals raging at their own inability to comprehend the contradictions of their existence.
It’s January 20th, introducing Trump Tok!
You made my laugh for the first time today. But you might not be far off the mark. It seems pertinent to repeat the old Chinese curse - “May you live in interesting times”. Shit’s become far too interesting for my taste.
It will be all right little buddy.
Wow. What prompted such condescension from my reply?
You spelled condolences improperly lol.
Don’t be a fucking dick. Are you a child in age or just emotionally?
Uh are you yelling into the mirror? I just sent every in the universe is gonna be alright. You agree?
Oh yeah this planet ain’t even a pixel in the universe. Universe gonna be fine. Hell even earth will be fine once we’ve caused the extinction of all life, including us.
Not meaning this in defense of Tiktok, but…
If Tiktok doesn’t push this kind of social divisiveness in their own country, it’s because they regulated it in their home country. They’re simply exploiting the fact that the US has basically zero regulations in place, so they’re allowed to promote socially destructive content. Why wouldn’t they? It’s not like what they’re doing is materially different than what Xitter, Meta/Facebook, Reddit, and so on do. Honestly, it’s already happening at Bluesky because we have no rules and rely almost exclusively on site moderators enforcing social decorum rules. If Tiktok in China is “better” it’s because the government there forces it to be, like maybe we ought to consider doing maybe.
The US government just doesn’t like it when it’s not their guys propagandizing and dividing the populace. They want to enjoy the fruits of that, not a foreign actor. The mask is truly off, they really do think their own poverty-striken citizens are the enemy. The government speaks out of both sides of its mouth about backdoors in encryption, with one part of the FBI saying you need to use encrypted services to safely communicate, and another part saying we need backdoors in encryption even though Salt Typhoon literally saw hackers exploit US telecom backdoors that which the hackers still persist in exploiting.
