Summary
Donald Trump submitted a Supreme Court filing opposing a TikTok ban, citing his “dealmaking expertise” and promising to resolve national security concerns.
The brief advocates delaying the case to allow Trump to address it politically.
Legal experts criticized the filing for being overly self-promotional and unprecedented, with some mistaking it for satire.
Critics noted its unusual tone and highlighted the involvement of Trump’s potential solicitor general pick, D. John Sauer, in drafting the document.
The case concerns TikTok’s alleged violations of privacy laws and ties to China.
All the while in China TikTok is forbidden. They have a Chinese version called Douyin, and it limits the content to educational instead of entertainment and the time spent to maximum 2 hours for people under 18.
What does it tell you that the Chinese government itself wants to protect their people from the influence of TikTok?
It’s simply a propaganda tool to influence people and it keeps them addicted using an algorithm. It’s a highly specialized psy ops tool. It makes the world dumber and uses the same addictiveness to educate the Chinese at the same time.
Absolutely nothing?
This is a country that has incredibly authoritarian laws on the books regarding the internet because it doesn’t want it’s people reading “”“”“western propaganda”“”", why would we assume it’s reason for continuing that behaviour isn’t the same as it’s always been: bullshit
It tells me that TikTok is used to brainwash people and that they don’t want their own weapon used against them.
And I agree other social media does the same. Maybe a little less obvious. The Chinese authoritarian government can obviously protect their own from this much more effectively.
In America blocking an app like TikTok is considered taking away the freedom of people to choose and express themselves. Especially after getting a large part of the population addicted to the crappy content.
China is using the freedom of the west against them.
We used to put you people in asylums, modern countries out you people in psych wards.
Great argument, well substantiated.
What argument can be made against actual schizophrenic ramblings with absolutely no basis in reality? How can one start to address the finer points of an argument made during a psychotic break?
What part of the argument has no basis in reality?
These are the facts:
My conclusion is that it’s not unlikely TikTok is used at least to some degree, by the Chinese as a tool for spying, and to spread propaganda to further their own agenda.
While the Chinese version is somewhat educational, in the west it spreads misinformation, it has people waste time doing dumb ass dances and playback songs. It effectively makes people stupid.
Now please enlighten me and show me my logical fallacy.
If that’s sufficient for a ban, then most or all the rest of social and mass media would qualify as well.
I accept your terms.
Tell me what other social media use separate versions and time limits between countries?
But I agree that other social media should be regarded critically as well. It’s just that china takes a very obvious approach trying to shield their own people from the obviously effective propaganda machine they created.
I don’t know about time limits, but social media does get censored on a per-country basis depending on the government of each country. Also, each person has their own tailored content based on the algorithm that it might as well be considered a different version.
We could just as easily mandate restrictions on data or require timers for children on social media instead of doing a full ban. Note that the US was fine with keeping tiktok if they sold to an American company. Something tells me the brain rot would not be lessened and no special timer would be implemented by the new ownership if it were to have gone through.
I think part of the argument here is the very asymmetric nature of Chinese social media that makes their intentions rather obvious. They banned almost every foreign website/app or heavily restricted them like almost no other country did. They aren’t even allowing their own apps when they’re not primarily made for domestic use. It’s a tool to control people and that’s how the Chinese government uses it. It’s not just another corporation trying to turn a profit by wasting our time with nonsense and only destroying democracy as a byproduct like Facebook. Destroying Democracy is the point of TikTok as we’re seeing all around the world where it aggressively pushes anti-democratic content.
Just a reminder, Tiktok isn’t a Chinese app nor is it a Chinese company. You racist conservatives need to come back to reality. Or go back to the fox news comment section.
Ah yes the racist conservatives that populate the Lemmyverse. You tankies need new material.
Oh, then who does own TikTok? Any sources for your assertions?
Whatabout!!
That sounds WAY too nanny state restrictive to me and I’m SCANDINAVIAN!
Good one 😆
Same has been truthfully said about Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The behavior of Meta and Musk aren’t any better and your data isn’t any more safe from ending up in the hands of hostile and/or totalitarian governments such as those of India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or Israel.
The REAL reason why politician want to ban Tiktok is that it’s the only serious competitor to the other radicalization machines whose parent companies and key people “just happen to” donate a lot more money to those same politicians than ByteDance does. The official reasons are just a smoke screen.
I’d be fine with it if they were actually honest about it and banned the aforementioned American competitors too, though. Short of that, banning Tiktok doesn’t really solve any problems without exacerbating others.
Oh, and for all its censorship on behalf of the Chinese government, Tiktok is also the only major social media platform that doesn’t heavily censor legitimate protest against the fascist apartheid regime of Israel.
I’m sure that the push has NOTHING to do with the fact that most if not all of the politicians in favor are taking a ton of blood money from AIPAC and other de facto Israeli government entities badly disguised as American nonprofits either! 🙄
Douyin content is very similar to TikTok content. There are many popular douyin creators whose content gets copied to TikTok. There’s loads of makeup, cosplay, cooking, skit, DIY, etc. Mukbang style content is very popular there as well. Their makeup and fashion content, like on TikTok, is sponsored by huge international brands like Mac and Gucci and others along those lines. Also super popular is pet content, like people who run cat shelters and dog walkers and stuff. There is also no age verification to use the app unless you want to post or comment yourself, and there is no time limit to use it. Some TikTok creators get reposted to douyin as well, but the overwhelming majority of people in china do not speak English, and to post on it, you need to be a citizen of China. Not that there aren’t ways around it, but it’s harder than it’s worth.
I get that you’re paranoid about Chinese international political interference, rightfully so in some ways. But this is just blatant lies and fear mongering. I’ve used the app extensively myself to follow some makeup content creators from China. It’s functionally identical to TikTok. Censorship does exist, but it’s based around specific events, mostly from what i can tell. I don’t use to find political content, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they censored content based on stuff like the Honk Kong protests. Propaganda is also on there, most likely, but I never encounter it in my feed.
How often is that true the other way around?
Pretty uncommonly, since you need a valid Chinese phone number to make a douyin account. A few english speakers living outside china get posted there, but English isn’t a super common language in mainland China. It’s there of course but not widespread enough for it to be much of a market for it. Not to mention America and China are culturally quite a ways apart and I’d imagine western content wouldn’t see widespread popularity there.
I’m amazed you do not see the issue with this not being a reciprocal situation. What you’re doing is making poor excuses for what is very clearly a two-tiered system, one for people in China where the content can be easily controlled, and one for people outside of China where it can’t… but where it can absolutely still be used for propaganda. By, for example, letting “many popular Douyin creators” have their content reposted on TikTok.
And before you start in with me about it, I could not give less of a shit whether or not it’s banned. I’m just under no illusions about what the situation is here.
I just don’t see this in particular as a two tiered system. Chinese citizens don’t use TikTok content is copied over from that platform by other people. Douyin connects with a bunch of the other social media systems created in China, it’s exclusively in Chinese and is made for Chinese citizens. TikTok is usable, essentially anywhere else in the world. Douyin is usable in China specifically. You can use it outside of China you just cannot comment or post.
I don’t know I’m just under no particularly obsessive illusions about China. Yeah they definitely censor their citizens in intrusive and oppressive ways and that’s wrong and bad. So does nearly every single nation on earth. Why would my beef with China specifically, as opposed to American social media which spans the globe and is constantly flooded with western neoliberal propaganda?
Like it’s just silly and frustrating the way so much fear and discussions is directed towards China specifically. Like to a wild extent like anything done by China anything Chinese must be nefarious in some way. Fear mongering around TikTok is just. Weird. The same reaction doesn’t exist towards reels even though reels censors even more subjects than TikTok does.
And like that’s what my initial comment was about right I saw someone say something I know wasn’t true because I’ve used the app myself.
And you know me too, we’ve talked many times we’re definitely not strangers haha. We’ve been on the same and on opposite sides of at least a dozen discussions on Lemmy before. You can have some small measure of faith that I’m not a tankie here to act like authoritarian oppression is good actually.
It’s a two-tiered system because there are literally two tiers. There’s one where people can use TikTok outside China and one where people can use Douyin inside China. And content only goes one way. I’m not sure how more clear this can be made to you.
Also, stop making this about you. It isn’t about you. I never made any claims about you apart from you making poor excuses for a two-tiered system. And I stand by that claim.
I’m not making anything about me I’m just responding to this general skepticism about the intention of my statements. If I read your comment incorrectly then I’m sorry. I’m also not in the business of acting like this is a discussion that matters to anyone beyond you and me, this isn’t groundbreaking political commentary that people are anxiously watching play out. Acknowledging the fact that we’ve spoken many times before is I think worthwhile within that context.
Tiers implies one is above the other somehow. But they aren’t they’re two distinct systems. I’m going to loop back to what I initially commented about which was the app itself and how it doesn’t function the way the commenter I responded to described it. Why would someone lie about how an app functions? Why specifically douyin, why specifically a Chinese social media app? It’s worth examining that decision and the ideas that it fosters about China.
I have said nothing about your intentions. I have no idea why you are suggesting I am. I told you what I said about you and I still stand by it. You are poorly defending a two-tiered system.
Why you are defending it is not something I care to speculate on.
And one is above the other if content only goes one way. Because only one group can see content from both platforms. The other can’t. This is some basic logic…