It's only okay when MY favorite country does it.

(Not you OP, you = governments)
You want to block corporate social media sites as propaganda
I want to block corporate social media sites because they’re parasites on society.
We are not the same.
- Im actually quite upset that lawmakers havent used this to pass generalized privacy protection.
  They have an opportunity to end mass survailance, but thats OK if its US survailance
  
  Our tools of social connection vs their tools of propaganda.
  Now fill in the possessive pronouns with either country and change them depending on the specific tool used.
  
  Because the US government is more interested in picking who can spy on us for fun and profit, not whether anyone should.
- I want to block them because they are both
  
  I don't care what they are. I just think the internet in its current state sucks and I like the idea of there being less of it.
- What sucks is I've imagined a social media platform that was built with good intentions to actually better being people together and make their lives better. It's one of the worst missed opportunities in recent memory.

Ooh... i dont think the tankies will like this!
- Oh no anyway
- Its hilarious the instance the tankies most frequent is banned in china
- Tankies like a lot of evil shit, so I really don't care about what they like or don't like.

Don't forget China blocks tiktok too.
- IIRC China tried to stir up its internet users about the US blocking Tiktok and it fell flat because it's blocked for them too.
- China doesn't block Douyin
  
  But it does heavily restrict access for kids.
  
  I believe they use a different backend/storage. Different content shows up depending if you are searching from Tiktok or Douyin. Perhaps someone from Bytedance is curating select content from Tiktok for Douyin.
  Either way, if I put a video on Tiktok it does not mean Chinese users on Douyin will see it.
  https://chinasocialmedia.net/tiktok-and-douyin-are-not-the-same/

They're technically not banning tiktok, they're banning China from owning tiktok
- Which is somehow even worse : it's like only the USA is allowed to spy on everyone!
  
  They can still spy, but why would we make it easier for them?
  
  And it’s not like they can’t maintain use of the thing while not being owners. Come on. Like there’s some magic rule if a company’s not owned by China, it can’t be used as a Chinese intelligence source? Come on.
  If social media is in cahoots with foreign intelligence, there are better ways to handle it in my opinion.
  
  Every superpower spies on their citizens. Every single one.
- They're functionally forcing the sale of the company to a US Firm at fire sale prices.
  
  Yeah, you are right. They should do like they do in China, sell to a JV with a local company at fire sales price... Oh wait
- This is primarily intended as a hostile buyout of tiktok. It has literally nothing to do with China.
  
  Lmao, the USA doesn't operate the commercial sector outside of power, trains, rockets, and planes. It won't benefit from the sale in any way other than lowering Chinese involvement.
- They're not going to sell though. The US only makes up a single-digit % of their users.
  
  The USA is the biggest single market
  https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/tiktok-users-by-country
  
  Do you have a source for that?
  This seems to claim the most users are from the U.S.
  China doesn't use the same product. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1299807/number-of-monthly-unique-tiktok-users/
  
  "TikTok" is an American Company. Their owners, ByteDance, also own a nearly identical product in china called 抖音 (Douyin). The Chinese version is much more closely operated by the military, their offices are literally military owned buildings and lots.
  
  How much of their ad revenue comes from America though?

- Pooh_tapping_head.jpg
- Doesnt china have its own specific version?
  
  More like, tiktok is our specific version
  Douyin is what China has. That came first, then the parent company developed tiktok for release outside of china.
  Then they bought Musical.ly, merged it with tiktok, and that became the modern version of the app
- They blocked Douyin? That's news to me
  
  It's not the same platform. Douyin has a different, separate database of content. Even though they share the same idea of how the app should function, they are disjoint social media platforms.

china blocked tiktok first
- Not Douyin

I love these winnie pooh memes

I hate tiktok
but all these talks about keeping children off phones is restricting the flow of information to a point that it scares me. we have Enciclopedias in our pockets ffs.
if the bar kids from easily accessing the internet, they're effectively blocking 2mil people (14-17) from instant access to information. (I did some sleep deprived math, dont @me if its off)
- As far as I know, there’s no legislation being talked about to keep kids off their phones, or even social media. This is more of a concern about China having unfettered access to user data at the drop of a hat, which I can absolutely agree is an issue. Though I don’t know that current legislation is the solution.
  That said, kids absolutely do need to spend more time off their phone than they do. We’ve seen legitimate issues arise from perpetual phone use. The issue is… you can’t really legislate that. It’s parents that need to get their heads out of the sand and actually parent.
  
  If they actually cared about that, they would legislate data privacy laws that keep our data from being sold on the open market. As it is now, everyone from the FBI to your local cops, to the RNC to Chinese or Saudi companies can pay cash for user data. This legislation is largely protectionism for our own domestic surveillance capitalism industry.
- I'm thinking of downloading Wikipedia for my kids to use offline. Apparently it's around 300gb, so I'll probably do it on work's wifi one day.
  
  Lol yeah its far smaller without the pictures - I think closer to 50GB? Not sure though you'd have to check, but much better than 300GB.
- Well it should come as no surprise the dictionary is in one of the most recent pushes for book bans in Florida

Honestly the brain dead obvious political move outside of monied interests is strong legislation to protect peoples information.
But we won’t see that

Well, do you want to be like China in that regard?
- Yes clearly the way you know you are always doing the morally correct thing is to sink to the level of the everyone else.
  
  And by everyone else you mean one country known for authoritarian censorship
- USA is not banning tiktok, it's banning china's ownership of tiktok. If Chinese stake is sold to someone else, tiktok will remain.

Ah yes let's copy China. Progressive

The same could be said of the US. GAFAM works for the US just like TikTok works for China. I'd like to see the reaction of the US if the EU told Meta to sell the European branch so they "can't spy on EU citizens".
- There’s a difference here. Neither the US not the EU can just put their hands out and say “data pleeeeeaaase” and get what they want. There are legal and procedural protections in place for such things.
  Chinese companies on the other hand, are required to do whatever the CCP says, when they are told to.
  
  Yeah, right. Like Meta will say "fuck you" to the NSA.
- Oh no, won't somebody please think of Meta

My self hosted DNS does all of that banning too. But that's just my little quality of life thing (and whatever little that does fighting the global data overlords).
- The fine line between "I don't want to do the thing" and "I don't want you to be able to do the thing".
  
  Yes.
  But it's a blurred lines between having to do something or being pressured or heavily encouraged to do something (otherwise you are left out of an important social system).
  I'm totally agreeing with you, just adding that sometimes infrastructure matters (as it gives little choice to population) & can be especially bad if there is a single entity behind it with it's own agenda not aligned with users interests (eg for profit companies, or in this case I guess geopolitical stuff too).

A FORCED SALE IS NOT A BAN.
I've said this like a thousand times and I hate repitition, but the USA as a whole has never tried to ban TikTok. Trump claims he did, it isn't allowed for military servicemembers, but it has never been banned.
- Forced sale only works if your government has any control over the organizational structure of your company which the USA does not. What they are effectively doing is forcing the American arm of Tik Tok to sell without access to it's technology which China can absolutely deny. If the sale doesn't go through, the US will ban its use. If they do sell, it will be without the technology and a company will be Tik Tok in name only having to essentially build the service from the ground up. This is an effective ban of Tik Tok regardless of the outcome.
  
  What makes you think the proprietary rights held by the Chinese hold any sway in the USA? If they want to try suing they can, heck they can even take it to international courts, but they won't have much luck given the evidence that China was using it maliciously.
- Yeah, this way the US gets to control the algos and surveillance

Some background info:
Congress is cracking down on TikTok because CFIUS hasn't

China controls speech to Censor Genocide : boooo
America controls speech to Censor Genocide : yaaaay
The irony of America doing exactly the same censorship as China when the roles are reversed, and people are cheering it on as if it's some gocha
- What american genocide is being censored?
  
  They don't mean USA-made genocide, but Israel-made genocide that USA doesn't dare to pull its whole weight to stop.

TikTok is literally a weapon created and used to undermine the USA (among other democracies but mainly USA) and to brainwash its citizens. Anyone who doesn't see it is a useful idiot who bought into Chinese propaganda.
- I'd be happy with just a minor amendment to the Communication Decency Act that would make social media companies liable for content their algorithms recommend. It's fine for them to be shielded for liability for things posted by users on a site that's moderated to avoid the problems that act was designed to prevent. But as soon as a complex algorithm is recommending content to someone, it should be considered to be the same as traditional media publishing something.
  And the libertarian techbros should be happy with this because it's actually less regulation. Though somehow I think their libertarian ideals would melt away when a regulation that shields them from liability is removed.
- I literally watch cat videos and cooking videos on tiktok. Damn Chinese. Giving me cute cars and recipes.
- If you think this is only about TikTok, you bought into US propganda instead.

I don't know, but we can officially stop bragging about our "FrEeDoMs!"
- You’re already banned from buying Cuban rum, among thousands of other products (at least). This is just one more.
- You're free to do what your government tells you I guess, exactly like the chineese I guess...

Imagine blocking TikTok for being a competitor in a so called free market under the guise of national security and privacy
They didn't blink an eye when Facebook had to testify about blatantly abusing COPPA and doing the exact same thing.
And not even the platform itself, just the company so it can be liquidated or sold to an American megacorp so it can make money for the poor shareholders and let the NSA do their funny PRISM plugin.
- Americans are the most propagandized people on earth. They'll kick and scream about Chinese Censorship, then accuse a Singapore CEO of being a Chinese Communist and pass legislation to Censor an American company because it took money from Chinese investment group ages ago.
  
  Imo they should force a sale of twitter for taking saudi money as well, but I guess somehow the execution happy saudis are somehow better people?
- The company is allowed to operate under different ownership. It's pretty simple, and makes a lot of sense for the nation's interests given the amount of hostility from China.

But china doesnt claim to be a paragon of freedom unlike the united states. No one cares that china banned american social media becuase its expected. People care that america bans tiktok because its hypocritical.
Besides, tiktok isn't even "chinese", their government only has a 1% stake in the company while foreign investors(mostly american) hold 60% IIRC. Y'all can fact check me on that. This is an attempt by the American bourgeosie to force bytedance into being publicly traded so that Americans can have more sway over the companies decisions. This allows them to silence an alternative news source that often conflicts with their interests or make a shit ton of money if they give in and opem up to public trading.
The American bourgeosie is nervous about actually facing competition on the online market place. They've dominated it so long thanks to silicone valley and they got used to it.
- I wholly agree with you first paragraph.
  But the 1% stake the Chinese government has in ByteDance is a golden share.
  From The Economist:
  More stunning are the terms of these investments. ciif’s 1% stake in a ByteDance subsidiary gives it the power to appoint one of three board members in a unit that holds key licences for operating its domestic short-video business.
  To what extent the CCP will exert control or what ByteDance has agreed to is unclear. And who knows if any of that matters.
- The U.S. doesn’t claim to be a paragon of freedom for the CCP or Chinese-owned and operated enterprises lmao
  
  Ah yes, the famous "you're free as long as you obey me". Totally not imperialism.

yes, because its being done for different reasons with different results.

- No way, only China and Russia (THE BAD GUYS) spy while the US is innocent and unaware of even how to spy because it's the GOOD GUY.
- Huh, interesting. Thanks for that.
  ETA: I realized I was unclear. I'm thanking the user for giving me such a clear reason to block them. It's not always so cut and dry.

So by blocking apps we'll be more like China? Great point!
- It’s not being more like China. It’s treating them the way they treat us. Simple reciprocity. The same thing is often done when other countries level a tariff against our products.
  
  What kind of brainwashed supporter can you be to say such thing? This is about freedom of speach and right of property, the things supposedly sacred in the USA.
  USA is merely demonstrating its hypocrisy here.
  
  Except blocking an app is also a treatment of your own citizens.
  
  An eye for an eye leaves the world blind
  
  It’s not being more like China. It’s treating them the way they treat us.
  So..acting like China acts is not being like China?
  The same thing is often done
  Did nobody ever teach you that two wrongs don't make a right? Or about the Appeal To Tradition logical fallacy?
  when other countries level a tariff against our products.
  Which rock were you living under when Trump waged his stupid tariff war with China? Nothing good came from that bullshit, least of all for the working class people of both countries.

So China is fascist because it bans your tools. Now you ban china's tools. What do you think this means?
Yes, it means you're fascist too.
- Ah yes, the classic definition of fascism, the banning of tools.
  
  The expropriation of tools of communication, with the aim of controlling them...
- LoL. I am a fascist guy. I might kill you. But u are very peaceful guy. U should not attack me while defending yourself

Isn't TikTok owned and operated out of Singapore?
- So no different than any international corporation that offshores for best financial advantage?
  Where a business is incorporated or operated from has no bearing on where the ownership money comes from.

Oh look... the liberals are at it again.
Your whataboutism doesn't change the fact that the west's claims of valuing "press freedom" turning out to be completely false posits severe implications for your ideology, liberal - not anyone's living in China.
- You're not communicating your point very well. Do you mean like neoliberal liberal or like fox news liberals?
  
  He's on lemmy. He def means "non-tankies"
  
  neoliberal liberal or like fox news liberals?
  Is there a functional difference?
- China isn't a good country either. I don't get why your so excited to back people up who commit genocide.
  Also is banning TikTok really preventing freedom of the press? They are beholden to the Chinese government and used to suppress talk about the Uighyur cultural genocide.
  How about we instead replace it with something like Lemmy but for video?
  
  China isn’t a good country either.
  China never claimed to have a "free press."
  Also is banning TikTok really preventing freedom of the press?
  What (alleged) "freedom of the press"? This (supposed) "freedom of the press" is a cornerstone of liberal ideology - not whatever it is that China is doing.
  Again... the realization that liberal ideology is full of holes (and always have been) has implications for liberals - not people living in the PRC.