this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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[–] SuperZutsuki@hexbear.net 95 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Some congressperson is going to be assassinated by a Gen Z terrorist cell and I'll be like squidward-chill

[–] frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml 53 points 7 months ago

I'll honestly celebrate.

[–] SteamedHamberder@hexbear.net 36 points 7 months ago

Putting the Zs in Leon Czolgosz

[–] Yor@hexbear.net 31 points 7 months ago

Multiple would be great!

[–] neroiscariot@hexbear.net 31 points 7 months ago

We're quickly going to learn if gizmos and doohickeys are protected by the 2nd amendment

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 11 points 7 months ago

I disagree with adventurism usually but that would be worth it just because it would be funny.

[–] BeamBrain@hexbear.net 92 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I hope China calls the bluff and lets TikTok be banned, leading to the Gen Z Uprising

[–] Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Just gunna be a bunch of VPN users. Great move USA

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[–] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 80 points 7 months ago (3 children)

They're not even trying to hide the fact they just want TikTok to be Westoid-owned.

Purely just a question of capital flow, they don't care about surveillance.

[–] InevitableSwing@hexbear.net 62 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The context is a chef's kiss.

The US isn't just reauthorizing its surveillance laws - it's vastly expanding them | Caitlin Vogus | The Guardian

The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies’ warrantless surveillance of Americans’ emails, text messages and phone calls.

The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as “terrifying”, the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on free speech.

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[–] knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They care about surveillance alright. They just need to be the ones surveilling and reality inventing.

[–] Rod_Blagojevic@hexbear.net 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I'm wondering is if the driving interest is to ensure American companies own most of the social media that Americans use because they don't want to lose the means to surveil large portions of the population. They very much act like there's a threat to state power, and this is the only angle that makes sense.

The alternative is that the state is now dominated by racist boomers that actually believe the red scare propaganda their predecessors made up.

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[–] Pentacat@hexbear.net 22 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Nobody has ever explained to me why any person in the US should care about a government with no jurisdiction over them might conduct surveillance on them. The government that worries me is the one that has power over me. Maybe I’m stupid, though.

[–] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 16 points 7 months ago

One reason could be because that other government may not be bound to rules regarding surveillance on people who are not citizens of their country, thus can't be held accountable, and then that government could share that information with anyone they want including that government where the person is a citizen.

But then I'm just describing Five Eyes and US surveillance again anyway.

[–] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 68 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I can see TikTok calling their bluff and then Gen Z just using VPNs to get around it so now all the ad dollars flow exclusively to Chinese companies instead of American ones

[–] SacredExcrement@hexbear.net 50 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That is what will happen

over 1.7 billion users as of 2023

TikTok has 150 million active monthly users in the United States.

I'm guessing that 1.7 billion number is prolly off due to bots and defunct accounts, but still, you don't sell your platform for 10% of your market lmao. I'm not sure if the US thought they would honestly back down just because they're America, if they wanted to ban it because they honestly think it's spying on Americans, or what exactly the play here was, but the obvious one (force them to sell to Americans) was laughably stupid and unlikely to happen for obvious reasons.

[–] AcidLeaves@hexbear.net 32 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

tbh that 10% of the market probably contributes about ~30-40% of the revenue

Western users typical contribute >10x more revenue than all other users for adtech platforms, and just ~20-30% of users will contribute to 90% of the revenue (my source is my employers' internal analytics dashboard)

Here is Google's (note that rest of world includes all other developed countries too like Canada, Europe, Oceania, East Asia)

[–] SacredExcrement@hexbear.net 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't look like it

79% of revenue comes from China

8% of revenue comes from the US

Article is more current than the last one too, and that seems to track with what other sources say

[–] AcidLeaves@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago (4 children)

That's ByteDance's revenues (the parent company). TikTok is its own subsidiary that can't operate in China

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[–] flan@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There's also a better than zero chance US vassals will follow.

[–] AcidLeaves@hexbear.net 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I actually don't see this tbh. Unlike India and US, no other Western-aligned country has a domestic industry in this area to protect and the EU really loves to fine tech giants for free money, so TikTok is overall good for them

[–] flan@hexbear.net 22 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't think 'good for them' is the thing that matters here though. The EU is a massive market for Instagram and we've seen first hand in recent years where EU leadership's loyalties lie.

It's possible they won't follow the US lead but I wouldn't be too surprised if they do.

[–] AcidLeaves@hexbear.net 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Good point... I'd imagine the list of countries that would follow is probably similar to the list of countries that banned Huawei

https://www.reuters.com/technology/european-countries-who-put-curbs-huawei-5g-equipment-2023-09-28/

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[–] CthulhusIntern@hexbear.net 36 points 7 months ago

If VPN providers are smart, they'll start advertising that you can use TikTok on them.

[–] EmoThugInMyPhase@hexbear.net 19 points 7 months ago

ByteDance should start selling VPNs as a side business

[–] sempersigh@hexbear.net 65 points 7 months ago (4 children)

ByteDance should simply take TikTok down and replace it a few days later with a new app called “Tik tok 2”

[–] Greenleaf@hexbear.net 38 points 7 months ago

Pretty similar to what US corporations do to shed pension liabilities…

[–] g_g@hexbear.net 26 points 7 months ago

good-morning Tic Tac Too?

[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 22 points 7 months ago
[–] Rod_Blagojevic@hexbear.net 19 points 7 months ago

More tankie tik tok

[–] Guamer@hexbear.net 60 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The "aid" is to Israel/Ukraine isn't it

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 64 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] someone@hexbear.net 37 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've always found it darkly comical that United States government policymakers, masters of the art of soft power in the first cold war, is now staffed with people who can't conceive why anyone would use soft power and always leaped to military options. They can't imagine the government of China continuing economic soft-power control over Taiwan for long-term reintegration purposes. Because US policymakers would never do such a thing themselves.

[–] jack@hexbear.net 27 points 7 months ago (3 children)

All the time I'm talking about the decay of imperial competency.

[–] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Can you talk more about it here? It's a fascinating concept really. It always seems to happen in the decline of empires without fail.

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[–] frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml 43 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You know it is, our 'leaders' are genocidal ghouls on the brink of going feral and dumping the silos.

[–] 0x0520@hexbear.net 34 points 7 months ago

It's not often the US expresses its whole value system in one bill.

[–] Hestia@hexbear.net 59 points 7 months ago

Banning tiktok dean-neutral

Banning tiktok AND supporting genocide dean-malice

[–] Hestia@hexbear.net 35 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

I'm gonna download tiktok out of principle. And probably never use it.

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[–] sgtlion@hexbear.net 29 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's like nationalisation except for private companies

[–] knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 7 months ago

Large private companies are effectively the state, so the term nationalisation isn't so far from the truth.

[–] anaesidemus@hexbear.net 25 points 7 months ago

they attached it to the bill??? like in Simpsons???

[–] lorty@lemmy.ml 20 points 7 months ago

Considering this includes an aid bill with it, would it pass the US senate?

[–] SerLava@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago

Yanis Varoufakis was recently saying some interesting stuff about TikTok. Basically TikTok is a way for a Chinese company to generate data capital in a way that cant be taxed or restricted in ports, and that drives US capital crazy.

He also connected it with the Huawei ban- basically the US is terrified of China's free universal digital banking, because it could threaten to unseat the dollar as the international trade currency.

[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 14 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Don’t think China will allow it to happen. Someone on here once explained why that’s the case but I can’t remember the details

[–] MaoShanDong@hexbear.net 20 points 7 months ago

There are a couple of points to consider the biggest one being that Americans as a user base are but a fraction of the global base,less than 10% iirc, and one of the hardest to monetize. Outside of financial considerations it's worth more to keep tiktok just for the global soft power it exerts on the other parts of the world and to send a message as well.

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[–] Zuberi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Still only going to be banned under trump. They extended it to 9-12 months specifically to keep it alive through the election to hurt genojoe

[–] whatup@hexbear.net 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Part of me wants the parent company to cut their losses and immediately dissolve TikTok US just to spite Brandon and the tech ghouls.

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