Just fucking get it over with already! I’m tired of hearing about this shit every single day.
Cool
Bye tiktok
Or hello TikTok? I’m stoked to see a popular social network app without the US!
Great! You’re in luck!
funny, that not one has been euro/asian/african centric so far, that has gained enough momentum or content to peak your interest yet, lol
If you know of an English speaking socisl network with those characteristics, do let me know
Too bad you can’t find a guide to locating like-minded folks on TikTok anymore
It’s really making me super sad 😢
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I wouldn’t really say TikTok is socialist like, but yeah it’s clear it was only banned because they don’t like it and not its harms
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China is socialist like 1940 Germany was socialist.
can’t really explain those camps away, can they…
Yes the country with 200 billionaires is totally socialist and not a capitalistic shithole borrowing honor from their own past because modern Chinese leadership is such a tragic failure.
This guy is getting downvoted for truth. TT is the only big media platform that consistently promotes socialist policies and openly attacks western status quo. If there are any truly ideological reasons to ban TT it was because of that. We’re being ruled by the oligarchs and their interests were threatened but let’s not kid ourselves - China has their own who’d happily take their place.
Reminder: TikTok is not actually important. Everyone can live their lives without TikTok, YouTube, etc. There’s an infinite amount of ways to entertain ourselves and there’s a lot of competing apps.
This isn’t the government abusing its power to shut down some small business/upstart. It’s shutting down a serious national security threat and a monopoly. TikTok has abused their position many times in many ways, refused to cooperate, and has reached the, “find out” phase.
Reminder: there’s an ongoing trade war between US and China and this is likely just a part of it.
There is a false dichotomy on Lemmy, that the government should shut down Meta due to security threats too because of this. They can both be bad.
Yeah, they should shut down both. Honestly, X should be on the chopping block even faster that Meta, but Zuck seems committed to racing Musk to the bottom.
I finally drew the line last week and deleted my Meta accounts.
ok, i’m for that, when do we start
This is absurd. Facebook was literally used to sow division and help elect a fascist who constantly says he wants to rule for life and wants to imprison his enemies. Facebook and instagram is wayyyyy more of a national security threat.
A congressman explicitly stated tiktok videos are swaying the opinion of people against israel and america’s genocide in palestine and now its being shut down. This is an abuse of power and its laughable you dont care because “china bad”
If its not censorship because theres alternative ways to communicate than nothing is censorship other than being killed
National security threat?
So how come Twitter ain’t shut down then?
I don’t entirely agree. TikTok isn’t just silly dances, thirst traps, and trends—it has played a significant role in community organizing and coalition-building across social movements. Consider the university Pro-Palestine encampments or mainstream news reporting on social media reaction to the United Healthcare CEO’s killing. Neither is solely attributable to TikTok, but the scale and nature of discussion on the platform have demonstrably influenced real-world conversation and activism. Another example is Keith Lee’s viral restaurant reviews transforming the viability of small mom and pop businesses overnight.
What sets TikTok apart isn’t just its massive reach (150 million monthly active users, nearly half the US population) but also its algorithm and features that enable collaborative, asynchronous discussion. Unlike YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels, where content is mostly one-off entertainment with fleeting comment sections, TikTok fosters actual conversations. Features like stitching allow users to directly respond to others, creating an evolving discourse where users can trace context. At times, entire feeds become dominated by discussion of a single topic—sometimes celebrity gossip, but often major events like October 7 or the United Healthcare CEO killing. This level of organic, large-scale discourse doesn’t happen the same way on other platforms. A great example of this dynamic was when TikTok users collectively decided to migrate to the actually Chinese app XiaoHongShu specifically to spite the US government. That didn’t just happen—it was discussed and coordinated.
In my view, TikTok is a national security threat not because of unproven claims about data leaks or state-authored propaganda, but because it provides an already restless and dissatisfied population with a real platform to discuss issues and organize. If a decentralized, open-source alternative existed at scale, TikTok itself wouldn’t be necessary. I acknowledge that TikTok—like any centralized platform—has real issues, particularly around privacy and censorship. But until such a decentralized alternative gains traction, TikTok remains important. And even then, I doubt the US government would be any more comfortable with a decentralized version, since it still wouldn’t give them control over what discussions take place.
I’ve never even looked at it. Vine was pretty cool but then it died, Periscope was neat, but I dunno, something about Tiktok feels predatory, how addictive it is (from what I’ve seen of others using it).
Plus while they’re all as bad as each other, I still trust China less than Microsoft with my stuff, so yeah. I’m just not interested in it and don’t really see the appeal for myself. But I see why it’s popular and it’s not like, terrible, as a concept.
I’m bothered that the app is 2gb.
why?
Spyware takes up space, comrade.
Everyone can live their lives without TikTok, YouTube…
I was an adult before YT and I don’t want to go back to a time before it existed. It’s just too damn useful as a self education tool. Need to learn how to DIY a plumbing problem? Youtube. Need to learn how to subnet a network? Youtube. Interested in the History of Moldova? Youtube.
I finished my basement by watching youtube videos and learning how to do everything from framing to electrical to drywall to finishing work. There isn’t anywhere else you can freely get the same breadth of knowledge on-demand.
Wait until you learn about “libraries.”
They’re what we used before everyone had the worlds store of knowledge in their pocket.
Yeah, lemme just put on a coat and walk an hour and a half in winter weather to my local library to find a book to tell me how to replace my car’s starter motor.
Can’t get ahold of your friend in Europe and you’re from the US? Just wait until you learn about “handwriting a letter and waiting weeks/months for it to get to them and having to wait even longer for a reply”
It’s what we used to do before everyone found a much faster and more convenient way of doing something through modern technology.
And I’m not sure the instant communication has been a benefit for us.
edit: especially when it becomes more and more misinformation and AI slop day by day
Libraries are good, and a great community resource that should be treasured. However, no library can have the sheer volume of information available that YouTube and the Internet do. There is also the benefit of having more kinds of content, plus the ease of putting information out there.
For example, say I want to learn about the specifics of the defense economics of the war in Ukraine. Sure, I could wait 15 years for books to be published about it, hope my local library buys it, and then go and read it. Or I could log on to YouTube right now and go watch the latest Perun video on it which is also more entertaining. This also is an example of speed of new information being available on current events.
Both of these things have their strengths and weaknesses but it is simply a fact that YouTube has changed the availability of information to quite a high degree.
Do it. Let the US be a closed censored state like it desperately wants to be.
They’ll even put the hashtag #freespeach when they deliver their ban.
Free speech means the government will let citizens criticise them or communicate other political opinions without sanctions. It does not mean they can’t ban one channel of communication when they are worried foreign actors use it to take advantage of the citizens. There are plenty other channels through which the citizens can communicate their opinions.
“Worried foreign actors use it to take advantage if the citizens” you mean like Cambridge analytica and facebook? Yet all the government did to them is go after their competitors and give them more power. How strange.
Yall are so thirsty for the boot because its currently stepping on the evil boogeyman our government has trained us to hate
Especially now that trumps coming into power its shocking so much people on here are excited for the government to shut down an app. What makes yall think they wont target lemmy/mastadon/etc once theyre the apps being used show people the genocides being commited by the US and israel
those were not foreign. that is where the US government and law drew the line.
Yeah which is just xenophobic and dumb and doesnt protect Americans. We need comprehensive data protection laws and transparent algorithms not laws that help monopolies gain even more power to manipulate us
It’s a .ml tankie, they only care because it’s a Chinese company, guaranteed if it was like a UK company or something they wouldn’t say a word about it lmao
How many western apps are banned in west Taiwan, anyway?
Do it. Let the hate flow through you.
noooo not the cringe app!! everything but the cringe app
🧊 🍑
Should Facebook be banned in China?
Already is, but should we compare US and China in terms of censorship?
Don’t tell me, a .ml user came here to complain about whataboutism.
Dumn liberals, only tankies get to do concern trolling and whataboutism.
Lol, I’ve no idea what .ml user even means. I chose an instance with no second thought. They just had a Stardew Valley community I liked.
Any social media that you isn’t open and self hostable (Lemmy, Mastodon, etc) should not be used. That includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, and more.
Most social media has, IMHO, been a net-negative for society and I am in the generation that grew up with it in its infancy.
I second this opinion. The federated applications and communities aren’t perfect, but it’s less toxic and better to use in general due to the lack of an all-encompassing algorithm that guides your usage to increase views for ad revenue.
My one wish for Fediverse would be federated identities. So I don’t have to have baronvonj@<platform> for ever single one of them.
@baronvonj
What do you mean? I’m posting from a #Friendica account to #mastodon, #lemmy and #pixelfed - One account. no worries
@chronicledmonocle @technologyLemmy sits a bit apart from the rest in that it doesn’t quite work for direct person-to-person interaction. Following Lemmy discussions on Mastodon is possible but clunky and Lemmy doesn’t quite know how to quiet all the @ mentions and things in comments made from Mastodon so they look really loud/busy. I can see Lemmy communities from Firefish but I don’t see any of the posts/comments (maybe I have to follow one first?). I’ve never tried following Lemmy from Pixelfed.
But each of those platforms has a different UI. The experience and features posting media on Pixelfed is much different. But I still have to setup a separate Pixelfed instance account if I want to make use of them. And my data will thus be spread across those instances. And people will need to follow both the Mastodon and Pixelfed accounts if they want to see both sets of posts. I’d love to just hat the one identity to manage with my content from all platforms associated with it.
@baronvonj
Use #Friendica - #lemmy works well there for me - you also got to realise there is a lot of playing around with UIs in different client apps - #Fedilab #racoon plus so many more
@technology
You can use mastodon from Lemmy? I don’t have it so I don’t know how that works.
@SynopsisTantilize
Well Im not entirely sure what will happen using a lemmy account byt try - Grab your Lemmy account and login a client like #Fedilab - Find a Mastodon user and comment or follow them and watch what happens.
You’re describing what Tim Berners-Lee is tryna build with Solid.
I see a GitHub and Xitter linked on there. Any clue if they have a Mastodon or something similar that I could follow?
On the plus side, it’s nice that you don’t need a new ID for every Lemmy instance.
Lol good luck getting the masses on board
I don’t want the masses. They can stay in the containment shart shead.
I could care less about “the masses”. Most of the world are morons.
couldn’t care less**
That would go beyond the ban’s requirement for app stores to stop offering downloads of the app, but not immediately halt use of it.
Before the tankies get mad about the “censorship” of the US while failing to mention the LONG list of things you can get straight up arrested for in China
Or have a “tea drinking” session:
When I was able to speak to Ms. Wu about the “tea drinking” session (euphemism for police harassment), she sharply conveyed her sense of vulnerability due to the lack of interest in her stepping away from her popular Twitter account, stating,
Literally the only thing that was keeping me online for the past few years was they were worried it would make China look bad if they cracked down on me. Now that they know that I could be dead in a ditch tomorrow and no one would give a shit or say a word I’m 1000x less safe here.
[…]
Wu added,
After years of doing this without anyone saying anything, on June 30th, out of the blue, they send plainclothes thugs to my house. Surprise! They were real cops.
Why? because she’s LGBTQ+, has a Uyghur partner, and has some friends in Western nations.
reference: https://www.hackingbutlegal.com/p/naomi-wu-and-the-silence-that-speaks-volumes
You shut down one app, ten other apps get more popular
Yes but diversity is good 👍
Why let the Chinese get all the eyeballs for propaganda? Surely we should give other nations a chance?
IMHO they should shut down every app that is both popular and has an exceedingly difficult to penetrate monopoly. Let the competitors rush in and do a it again when the same situation occurs!
Good! Hopefully one of those other apps is federated and free from any hostile interests.
/c/upliftingnews
Get this Reddit shit out of here
Is Loops ready for wide scale adoption and federation yet? We kinda need a replacement for tiktok, otherwise the addicts will jump to yet another Chinese platform.
Is Loops ready for wide scale adoption and federation yet
Nowhere near imo. Download the app and see for yourself. It needs WORK.
Link to download? I checked the Play store and there’s a billion apps called Loops
Edit: I found it
People are already moving to rednote.
Sadly it needs a lot of work, I went on it the other day and the app itself crashed at least seven times in the 15 minutes that I was using it
Doesn’t look like it to me. I tried to sign up yesterday and haven’t received the validation email.
Edit: and the UI was very barren and minimal on the video I watched.
There’s a ton of domestic TikTok clones already, like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.
otherwise the addicts will jump to yet another Chinese platform.
Gen z better prep for 'em withdrawls… They love telling how they don’t drink or do drugs haha
Let’s see how they will cope.
Some app is about to explode
Rednote started exploding 3 days ago, it’s been #1 on android and apple stores since.
Gonna take us government few years to ban it haha
Honestly it’s probably more likely that China bans the US users first. RedNote is openly CCP incorporated and has very strict community rules and heavy censorship. Cleavage is censored, I was cracking up because people’s profile pics got denied and they couldn’t understand the Mandarin to know why.
No, it’ll probably take weeks to days; with the new law the president can unilaterally ban any foreign-owned app with 1 million users.
Watch Biden ban it on Jan 19th as a final fuck you.
Bye bye.
Great!
I’m honestly surprised more content creators on TikTok haven’t raised a stink about this from what I’ve seen. Agree with it or not, for some people this is their livelihood.
IIRC TikTok is rather top heavy in terms of income and this highest tier of influencers is diversified across all media channels anyway.
Regular folk have better luck making money on YouTube and Instagram so TikTok creators are unusual bunch. In my experience (which is very likely shaped by the algorithm) they are a mix of talent show performers, odd personalities and no longer relevant one hit wonders that got lucky. They’re mostly sad about losing that space because it’s so different to alternatives. I don’t think anyone that doesn’t have much money feels in power anymore so what are they going to do?
Yeah, but those affiliate links made people bank, especially during the holidays.
I actually got like half my ideas and my daughters from the tiktok shop. (Then went and bought it on Aliexpress)
Fantastic cant wait!
