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I dont really understand this. Does tiktok have a group call feature now? Or are they equating short form videos of strangers to “hanging out”?
Yeah I would consider Discord as more of a space people can “hang out” in.
I use discord but I didn’t realize how much others used it till I got new roommates. They basically have it perpetually open on the side, a perpetual portal to their friend network
It’s one of the easiest ways of calling and texting friends without exposing your phone number.
I rarely open discord on my PC, but I have it as an app on my phone which is always connected.
Yeah I open discord every morning before I open slack for work. I manage two 2k+ communities and am an active member of dozens of other niche communities… Two of which involves members meeting up regularly IRL. It’s the best tool for direct social engagement on the Internet.
Yeah I was on board until the tik tok part
I wonder how much of the internet outrage about the bill is just astroturfing by tiktok.
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Here… On Lemmy?
Fuck Tik Tok, ban all social media for all I care, the internet was much better with old forums and IRC.
ban all social media for all I care
Exactly. My problem with the bill isn’t banning Tiktok. It’s that it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Make all social media companies turn off algorithms in their feed, or make them make those algorithms open source so we can see how they’re manipulating us.
As far as I understand it’s the media’s portrayal of the bill that’s wrong, it’s not aimed at TT directly but puts rules in place that TT can’t respect as long as it’s owned by a Chinese company.
Correct me if I’m wrong, that’s what they were saying in Canadian media.
The bill very specifically names TikTok and its owner, Bytedance, in its text.
Sure, but it’s broader than that, any social media platform with ties to enemy countries could be banned.
No, that’s totally correct and what most media outlets are saying. It’s the memes that are calling it a ban.
However, my problem is that any platform has this level of influence, not just that it’s under Chinese influence.
I don’t believe people are astroturfing on Lemmy yet
Probably not, but this meme didn’t originate here. It was put here by someone who either legitimately agreed with it or just wanted content to post, but that doesn’t mean the original was legitimate.
Bingo. That and people upset about losing money but honestly if it’s gone for everyone the market will fill the void on Instagram. See: Reddit vs Lemmy
I wonder how much of the internet support for the bill is just astroturfing by facebook/twitter/insta.
It’s less about hanging out and more about occupying the time I guess. Teens hang out in a third space being social because it burns free time and releases dopamine. When you can achieve that by sitting in your room, getting dopamine by watching tiktok and sending them to your friends wordlessly, the need for the third space drops
I kind of get what the Twitter post was trying to get at its just written poorly. Anything that’s not them participating in the economy is considered bad.
The death of the third place predates tiktok.
TikTok live does have a multistream actually
Tiktok has DMs and livestreams, which can kind of shake out to be about the same.
Are kids disallowed from hanging out in parks, school clubs, or others’ homes now? What’s changed?
Nothing, it’s a ridiculous argument as a rationalization for arguing against the tiktok ban. I’ve seen a number of posts today trying to paint it as some attach on democracy or youth culture. The fact is that tiktok captures a giant amount of data and is directly accessible by a hostile foreign government. The ban makes sense.
The ban makes sense because companies in the US tried and failed horribly to gain traction in their youths. And it was critical of western governments being complicit in war crimes in Palestine.
Tell me, before tiktok, how many war crimes US commited were conveniently swept under the rug without consequences?
Can’t have public be aware of that, can we now?
But US wants to shape the narratives for the rest of the world with facebook, instagram and twitter and others. Failing to do that in their own country, they want to ban it as a last ditch resort. Can’t have narratives that don’t align with their propaganda and be critical of their military industrial complexes.
But you do you. I have no horse in the race but I love the outrage when people are on the receiving end of “foreign influence in social media”. Not like social media companies in the US were surveilling rest of the world for the last decade.
And it’s not like US hasn’t done this to Japan when it was going to become a better economy before.
Cope.
Wow, what a bunch of crap. Are you really, really holding up tiktok as a bastion of truth? Are you not aware of the many was crimes that US soldiers have been involved with that have sparked global outage, way before tiktok existed, because there really is a free press?
The US doesn’t have soldiers in Gaza, it’s not commiting war crimes there. You can make a good case that the arms were providing to an ally are being used to commit a genocide, which is plenty bad enough, but don’t weaken the term “war crime” by using it inappropriately. And it’s not like people are only finding out about it through tiktok. Go read NPR and you’ll see quite a lot about it. Read AP. Read Reuters.
But sure, go trust a site whose algorithms are controlled by the Chinese government and think that you aren’t being manipulated. You do you.
Exactly… if you want news - go to the sources of news. If you want funny dances and horribly acted skits - go to social media
Parks are miserable, school clubs are worse, and it seemed like when I was a kid everyone was too embarrassed to have someone at their house.
Why are parks miserable?
Back in the day parks were well maintained by people who cared because they were a primary place many folks went to hang out.
Nowadays Xbox and the internet exist. So parks are much more poorly funded, poorly cleaned, and can be dangerous due to lack of oversight or supervision.
It depends a lot on where you are and where you go though. I went to a very nice park just last year that was clearly well maintained, and I’ve gone to some severely sketchy looking parks for the better part of a decade before that. As with all things, nothing is a monolith. But some parks are truly miserable now.
Can you elaborate on the effect of Xboxes on the parks budget? You kinda postulate that there is a connection without ever substantiating that.
People have things they can do inside for fun now, ergo less people (especially less kids and teens) are visiting parks. Nobody visiting the park means nobody has a vested interest in working or paying to upkeep it, and nobody is complaining about its lack of upkeep.
People couldn’t have fun inside before xboxes? Come on now.
You know as well as I do that people are sitting at home on the couch far more in the modern day than ever before in human history.
I don’t know man, even in my grandparent’s youth, 19 teens to the 1930s, they complained that city parks were dangerous, full of trash, and often homeless camps. The only ones that weren’t were parks that were in areas rich people spent a lot of time in. This seems to be the same today.
Ever been a teenager at a park? All that’s there is grass and maybe some picnic tables. What’re you gonna do? Smoke weed and sit? Throw a ball? The shit is boring and comes with weather.
And somehow there’s more stuff to do standing outside a storefront?
I used to go into Walmart to play Rock Band because we couldn’t afford to buy it.
Yet somehow the garbage dispensary known as tictok is preferable? Fuck off.
Parks are not miserable. It sounds like you’re the miserable one.
Sounds to me like you were born old. I didn’t say shit about tiktok. I don’t use it. You’re here to whine about others looking something you don’t like.
parks
A bunch of teenagers hanging out in a park will probably have the cops called on them
school clubs
The budgets for clubs have been cut. Also, there’s no school in the summer
others’ homes
If you don’t drive there’s no way to get there.
Glad to see someone pointing this out.
There are so many beautiful parks that are within walking distance or a short bike/bus ride.
How about libraries or all of the game shops that host free events for everyone to join?
Get your head out of your phone and see the life around you!
I think it’s very regional. Libraries and parks are going to get the first cuts when local government tightens its belts, they’re often save havens for the unhoused or those otherwise let down by society, and together that means in many areas they’re seen as maybe not unsafe, but not places overprotective parents want their kids going.
Absolutely. In fact, I have found that areas with the most disposable income also get the best city funding. So the people who can afford to pay for third spaces (restaurants, clubs, golfing) also have the nicest local parks and public spaces.
In my city, the low-income area local parks are literally paved with concrete and next to train tracks, busy streets and/or factories. It’s utterly bullshit
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My man, you are completely Reddit brained. What are you even saying?
Tiktok spun up the Chinese disinformation bots
TikTok suggested that its users should petition politicians and the public to prevent its punitive purchase. It’s just kids with degenerating attention spans.
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Simply different people expressing their opinion when they’re the ones concerned with the change happening at the moment.
…ooooooor TikTok propaganda through social media works… Never on me though!
I still hate it for that, but I also hate that the US government only cares if our privacy is violated by foreign actors and not a bunch of Silicon Valley dweebs.
Honestly, while it’s obvious why Tiktok is getting singled out, I hope it can be used as a precedent for cracking down on other data collecting companies.
It won’t, though, particularly because it’s specifically not required for TikTok to allow users to download their data if they’re divested to an American company before the deadline. Had anyone really cared, this would be a case for data privacy laws. But that’s not what it’s really about.
I know the details of the ban, but it will still bring the conversation to the general public more then not doing anyway at all.
I don’t feel confident about that. The bill has two elements of wide appeal: 1) General distrust of China and 2) General dislike of TikTok. At least from what I’ve seen, very little attention has been paid to the privacy/data collection part of the bill outside of tech-saavy circles. I feel like GDPR would’ve been the much larger push for data privacy, but it has lost its novelty and nothing has changed on this side of the pond. Hell, even Cambridge Analytica hardly sparked any lasting changes.
1.I don’t trust China.
- I don’t trust Tiktok or like ultra short form media.
So cool, cool.
I really don’t have a horse in this race. Politics is a spectators sport and I’m just coasting until climate change makes this all moot.
My point wasn’t really that you shouldn’t care about those things, just that I don’t think this bill will make any difference when it comes to increasing data privacy protections. In the “best case” (by government standards), TikTok will still be around. It’ll just be operated by a US company, and those have not exactly been known to be responsible with user data.
The biggest concern even for people who hate TikTok is the broad wording of the bill that possibly restricts using a VPN to access said banned sites. It’s a very dangerous precedent to set and is a much bigger part of the opposition than any particular love of TikTok.
Yeah I think no one stops to ask who those silicon valley jerks sell our data to. The answer is anyone. Including big brother who otherwise cannot legally collect it - but it’s legal now because a company did it and we bought it!
Exactly. It’s like it’s only bad if China gets all our data and influences us without Zuck and Musk getting their cut. But as long as they have to buy data and ads from them it’s fine.
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Except that China can just buy it from American companies, mostly because our government won’t do anything to protect our privacy.
it’s even worse if it’s GCHQ gathering it and then just handing it over to the CIA, where the cia gathering it themselves would be illegal, but they use treaties and diplomacy as loopholes to subvert our actual legal protections.
I still hate TikTok and am glad for the ban if it makes you feel better. Basically, what the other person said. It’s spyware trash that uses the way it controls opinions to control opinions on this topic too
coughs
Biggest online ad company is an American. Their job is to create and manipulate general public opinion for companies
Ok you win this round. Let’s agree to compromise - can we break up, ban, or regulate all of them?
Absolutely, now how do we go about that?
Violence
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Astroturfing
Jesus Christ not everything is fake, it’s one of thy most popular apps in the world of course there are people like it.
You really need to try and get back in touch with reality
Because tiktok is the only social platform that exists. Because libraries don’t exist. Because teens never go to the movie theater like their parents did.
My sibling in Christ you posted this on a social platform used by minors that is not under threat by the government
Some people just want to be angry.
Because teens never go to the movie theater like their parents did.
From OP:
if they’re spending money
Movie theathers are also stupid expensive. Not something the average teen can do on a regular basis
For real. It’s one of about a dozen social media apps. It also happens to be one of the biggest pieces of spyware and is legit controlled by the Chinese State. Like, people…just because it’s full of candy, puppies, and people dancing, doesn’t mean it has good intentions.
…and going to a park, the beach, hiking, swimming…
A bunch of teenagers hanging out in a park are definitely going to have the cops called on them, no matter what they’re doing.
Where is this the case? Unimaginable here in Canada.
Clearly it’s a US-only thing, but even back in the 90s when me and my nerdy friends decided to brave the sunshine and hang out in a park we’d have the cops pull up and ask us to leave.
All of the parks in my area cater to parents of kids under 10, so anyone who’s not there with a child of that age is immediately suspicious, especially to nosy Karens. Hell, I’d get nasty looks from moms when I would take my own kids to the park.
In which land, north korea?
What if I told you that having absolutely no community third spaces is a result of car dependency?
Ever heard people complain that it’s impossible to just meet new people in real life because everyone everywhere is busy? It’s because we don’t have third spaces anymore, and one really big reason for that is car dependency. People really don’t like to drive, for the most part, and they’re generally not going to go drive to hang out somewhere; it becomes both dangerous and a special pain in the ass if alcohol enters the equation, as it does for many (but not all) third spaces. In short, if people go to a third space, it’s usually going to be one inside their own hyper local community or they won’t bother. These are all generalities, of course; miss me with anecdotal exceptions. Well, we keep our cities badly zoned and low density so that you don’t really have hyper local third spaces, you just get weird, semi-local, sanitized big box “third spaces” (massive sarcasm quotes) like Chili’s or Starbucks that don’t actually fill that role. They just want you to spend money and get out, there’s no actual tie to the community.
Having an outdoors that’s so utterly lifeless and hostile to anything that’s not a car that kids “hang out” on social media is neither normal nor desirable, unless you’re a tech exec, I guess.
What if I told you that having absolutely no community third spaces is a result of car dependency?
Then I’d suggest that if your only tool is a hammer, then every problem is going to look like a nail.
Like, I get it, fuck cars, but North American culture has been car dependant while having history of having the some of the highest third space membership, even in my own lifetime. While I accept it as a factor of the erosion, it’s unlikely to even be the primary factor.
Yeah a big part of third space culture where I grew up was things like “let’s go to x” followed by six people getting in a car with two seatbelts because the nearest “x” was like 20 miles away. And the car itself could be a meeting place if someone who barely interacts with your group hears about a trip and asks to jump in the car too
Yeah that works great assuming you have an already-established friend group within walking distance and parents that either have the time and will to chauffeur you around everywhere, or friend’s parents willing to do so with your own parents giving you the “freedom” to be driven around by people that are more than likely near-to-complete strangers to them. Which, in the age of helicopter parents, is a dying breed, and the first option almost completely excludes children of young, single, low-income, and otherwise struggling parents.
The decline in religion is more responsible for lack of third spaces than car centric cities.
That can be more or less true depending on the community. I imagine in the central and southeastern US, the decline of religion has been especially devastating in that regard. However you don’t see that pattern replicated in much more secular western Europe. In fact, they’re doing just fine for third spaces.
You must be an alcoholic.
I actually love to drive and wish I had a car to get to the games shop in a reasonable fashion for D&D or MTG where I’m only really expected to spend money for tournament entry because kicking ass isn’t free.
Barely touch the stuff myself, but I do consider myself practical. A lot of people like to drink in social settings, that’s neither endorsement nor criticism, but reality. I prefer taking my bike or walking so much more than driving, and it regularly bothers me that anywhere I could want to go is out of range or impractical/unsafe to reach by bike or pedestrian infrastructure. I don’t like driving, I find it expensive, a general pita, dangerous, ecologically damaging (not just CO2, driving just one kilometer can produce up to a trillion microplastic particles in the form of tire dust), and just really not that fun. But hey, to each their own. I just kinda wish we hadn’t built our urban environments to the exclusion of everyone but drivers.
We didn’t built our environments to exclude specifically non-drivers. We are all competing and driving is simply a massive advantage. It also means that places generally don’t have to be super close together to have business traffic and therefore benefit more from cheaper real estate.
yes that is why our suburbs are condensing into chains and big box stores and can barely support themselves, because driving is such a massive advantage to all businesses everywhere.
All sarcasm aside, please just watch this video: Not Just Bikes - How Suburban Development Makes American Cities Poorer [STO2]
If that interests you at all, I highly recommend watching the rest of the strong town series of videos from not just bikes
Nah. Because car transportation is massively subsidised and the automotive industry is so influential, modern cities were built for cars instead of people.
Sure, we weren’t “targeting non drivers”, but we were exclusively building for cars.
We’re now reaping what we sowed - cities are now hostile to pedestrians.
What a fucking braindead take.
This is fucking braindamaged, 3rd spaces are dying because of social media not some conspiracy to destroy them in order to make kids work.
Jesus christ, you really can tell when someone just hasn’t suffered enough in their lifetime.
While money and car centric infrastructure plays a role, people being addicted to their phones robs them of the desire to overcome the car and being poor in order to spend time with their friends!
In the town where I grew up, there was a tiny park downtown where all the weird kids hung out. It was a funky little park which had a lot of character. Then they renovated it and I never see anyone there anymore when I go back.
Of course, they took out all the benches and they took out the trees and walls that gave a modicum of privacy.
There were always paranoid kids who thought the cops were watching the park from other buildings such as one of the bars across the street (college town) but getting rid of everything that made the park theirs and taking way any feeling of privacy killed it.
My daughter is 13 now. We’re in another town. There is so little for kids to do. She spends most of the time talking to her friends on Discord.
Boomers:
Kids don’t do anything anymore. They just sit on their phones inside all day.
Also boomers:
Hello, police? Yes, there is a group of teens at the park. I think they have drugs or sex stuff.
Does no one remember what being a kid was like? Most people, especially teens, don’t care enough about you to be plotting against you. Let people live their lives.
I forgot to say that the cops raided the park one day. The whole town was outraged, but it definitely didn’t help matters.
I don’t think that’s what a meme is.
As much as I don’t like TikTok, I don’t like the idea of the government censoring arbitrary apps under vague notions of “national security”.
It would be one thing if they were passing legislation about surveillance in apps, but it’s clearly not about that or 99% of American apps would be under the chopping block (they’re selling data to arbitrary buyers, so the data can be obtained by “foreign adversaries” anyway). Instead, they’re just handing the executive power to strongarm any app into American control, or lose the huge American market.
I feel like proponents of this are getting too distracted by their hatred of TikTok, and this nonsense about third spaces isn’t helping. TikTok is just the beginning, and a convenient one because it’s such a hot topic right now.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/congress-should-give-unconstitutional-tiktok-bans
It’s because it actually is a security risk with the Chinese government having the ability to do who knows what with a frightening amount of data. There is also the option of selling the company to one that isn’t related to the Communist Party government, but no one seems to be talking about that option.
The only slippery slope is more apps owned by a foreign government that is not exactly our friend.
If the app was owned by North Korea, would you be cool with it too?They aren’t banning Instagram and Facebook.
If they were regulating Instagram and Facebook, I’d actually be happier about it. It’s not like the US is some bastion of digital privacy, and TikTok is bad because the data use is unregulated. Our own wholesome homegrown data brokers spy on us just as much, and they too do who knows what with the data.
American data brokers are no better, and are happy to sell data to foreign powers. Biden had to make an executive order about it recently. Blatant privacy invasion has become a standard practice in the tech industry, and there are a million different companies trading your information around. That’s the real issue at play here, and TikTok is just one of many fish in the sea. My data might even be more valuable to American companies than Chinese ones, because the American ones stand to exploit me for more profit. Or they’ll sell it to government (s), which… Yeah.
And of course TikTok could be sold. That’s exactly what I was talking about with strongarming—sell your platform to a corporation in our jurisdiction, or else we cut you off from a huge part of your userbase. It’s not really an option, it’s an ultimatum. It’d be one thing if we regulated the use of that data, but we don’t really—we don’t have meaningful data privacy laws here, at least not that apply in this circumstance. We’re being spied on just as badly. Forcing them to move here would just mean American agencies and companies would have more control over the platform, and more access to the data it generates, neither of which they’ve built much trust in their ability to do ethically.
Capitalist society is socially isolating by design. To take back our autonomy we have to collectively organize in our local communities
Everything out there for teens to do costs money… except the public library, which often has teen services.
Yet another reason to support your local public library.
Which is the fourth type of alienation Marx talked about.
The theoretical basis of alienation is that a worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of themselves as the director of their own actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define relationships with other people; and to own those items of value from goods and services, produced by their own labour.
For all the non-clickers
This is true.
It’s not like Tik Tok is doing things out of the kindness of their hearts, kids. They’re making money off of you. I bet if there was a meatspace location that tracked all your conversations and pushed ads to you they’d let you hang out there for free, too.
mmmmm…meat space.
One of the things the USA desperately needs is benches.
We eliminated all our benches in an attempt to get homeless people to disappear, but lo an behold they still exist.
It’s time to bring back public benches.
I grew up in a time where you couldn’t loiter, I had no money to spend, and social media didn’t exist. I still managed to have a lot of fun. Why are people acting like TikTok is some kind of life necessity that they’ll die without?
And I’m certain that if TikTok is banned, an American-based competitor will pop right up.
Why are people acting like TikTok is some kind of life necessity that they’ll die without?
Some of them are paid to act that way, the others are just following the trend. It’s how marketing works now, especially if you have zero ethics.
Nothing about this is true what the heck? Kids aren’t just banned from ever being anywhere, my friends and I hung out in parks and at restaurants and at eachothers’ houses all the time. And anyone who’s been on social media and thinks it’s an appropriate place for kids is very sus or naive. Even the most squeaky clean of sites are cesspools of bullying and grooming and right wing propaganda, and any use beyond looking at memes and catching up with irl friends should be supervised to some extent.
This post acts like we live in a dystopia where kids aren’t aren’t allowed to do anything and need social media to have any friends, which is only the case in really shitty circumstances where a kid is super lonely irl or somehow lives somewhere with no park or library or other good hangout spots. The banning of one specific app (which you can just get around with a vpn) isn’t going to disenfranchise all zoomers overnight, it’ll be a minor inconvenience people get over when they get a vpn or go to a different site. I just wish the people pushing to ban tik tok would apply the same pressure to American companies also pushing propaganda and doing shady stuff with your data
Also the new law is not taking tiktok away it’s just forcing the app to be sold to an american company
I can’t help but feel like all the “tiktok ban” discussion is straight up disinformation trying to scare kids
