Close to half of American adults favor TikTok ban, Reuters/Ipsos poll shows::Close to half of American adults support a ban on the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos survey that also asked questions about national security concerns and China.
Hmm can someone tell me if I’m just in a “republicans are hysteric about it so it must not be that bad” mindset?
It’s obviously spyware to some degree, but this really seems more like a case of red-scare. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, though. Makes me think I might just be reacting to their reaction.
I guess, what exactly are they afraid that China is going to do with this data? It’s a missing puzzle piece that I’ve heard nothing coherent on besides “China gonna spy on muh datas”. Like, sure, maybe if you’re a government official, and I don’t think bans of tiktok on government devices are stupid, but I think the nationwide ban idea is pretty dumb and baseless. So I guess my actual question is, what are they afraid of happening, exactly?
I look at it as completely missing the root problem, which is companies have way too much power to harvest and hoard data. If there were strong data ownership and protection laws in the US TikTok would either follow those rules or be fined/banned for actual cause. Washington is just mad a company not in US jurisdiction is the one doing the harvesting for once.
I don’t disagree with that which is why I’m currently in the “this is red-scare” camp. If Washington (more specifically, the NSA and friends) hadn’t been buying our data to peruse via the lax privacy laws we currently have, maybe they’d have a leg to stand on with any of this…
Ask yourself if the American government had the ability to talk directly to the Russian populace with no interference from their government, what might they say/do/cause to happen.
That’s what Tiktok is, and that’s what a lot of the fear is about. It’s know that all Chinese companies have heavy connections to the government, so if they wanted to do something they could.
Not even saying Tiktok is that bad, mostly just saying Americans, especially the government is a bunch of fucking hypocrites about this shit.
Honestly, keep it to “If you don’t like it don’t use it” and leave it at that. The idea of the government picking what social network people are allowed on seems foolish, and I imagine many people will side load the app (At least on Android) if it’s officially banned.
Unfortunately I literally can’t imagine anything convincing coming out of the US’s mouth given that case. It’s not like we can Manchurian candidate sleeper cells in Russia using our influence, and I’d argue China also has similar limitations.
The worst I can imagine is “us bad” with a lot of easily disprovable half truths that only stand for idiots who believe whatever tiktok gives them. And if the politicians who support this ban are arguing that most Americans are like that, then they’d better be pushing for better education or else they are also nefarious (because why else would they want people to be susceptible to propaganda, but not XYZ’s propaganda?)
I guess maybe my issue now is that it almost seems that republicans are trying to do their own propaganda machine, but are incensed that China might be stealing morons who are, as another commenter put it, ripe for radicalization. But that doesn’t seem right because I’d be surprised if they didn’t also have a bunch of outreach shit through tiktok… Idk, this is already delving into conspiracy theory territory so I’m gonna just stop myself here.
But all in all, I totally agree with your last paragraph, especially “if you don’t like it, then don’t use it”.
They don’t need to be particularly convincing points, their targets are teenagers. They just need to be at a frequency that their viewer accepts them to be the ‘common’ point of view.
Facebook is paying for it
Well I mean, that does make sense. I still believe tiktok [https://youtu.be/Ti8v4eL8oIE](really is a bit of spyware) (sorry for the longish YouTube video) but that could definitely be a contributing factor to this case
I think it’s bad because of how addictive it is
I had it for two days and I spent over 36 hours on the app.
Im sure some people are less affected by it than I was, but from my perspective, it’s too dangerous to let live.
Also I like the idea of getting rid of dangerous things and I don’t believe in free speech absolutism; I think we take that idea too far
I can’t disagree with an opinion like that coupled with an anecdote like that.
I disagree that it’s the federal government who should be stepping in to limit screen time though.
In fact, tiktok is the only app I’ve seen that has a “why don’t you go touch grass” timer, so in that regard, it’s got less nefarious design patterns than, say, Facebook.
I don’t think I understand what you mean by dangerous in this context, honestly. When I think danger, I think of bodily harm. What does your definition of dangerous entail when it comes to social media apps that physically can’t cause harm? Is my understanding of danger too simplistic?
deleted by creator
They could just ban the manner of data collection that TikTok does, but that would affect all the US social media apps too.
This isn’t about China having the data…it’s about the US not being able to harvest the data.
I could care less if China knows about my kinks or what my favorite pizza is…but depending on how the wind blows over the next decade, I really do care if the US knows about my political leanings.
Hmm… I hadn’t thought about it like that, that actually makes it make sense in a roundabout way. I’ll keep that one in the back of my head for now…