Banned from TikTok for the LazyTown US Community

[chuft]

There is a big difference between a totalitarian government like China using corporations to facilitate cyberattacks and gathering data on US citizens for cyber warfare purposes, and US companies which are gathering data to try to sell you ads. As I said China already banned US social media - Twitter and Facebook were banned in 2009, and Google left. Why shouldn't the US ban Chinese social media, especially when the Chinese government is totalitarian and has access and control to everything its companies do? How is it hypocritical to do the same thing to China as they did first?

Again this has nothing to do with the EU. The US is protecting US citizens. The EU can protect EU citizens. China banned US social media over a decade ago and tightly controls, censors, and monitors its internet. China is looking after its own interests. Why shouldn't the US prevent them from their cyber infiltrations of the US? T-Link routers are being banned for the same reason, and Huawei networking equipment was also banned and excluded from the 5G network for the same reason.

Last time I checked the US is not using social media to infiltrate EU infrastructure, power and water utilities, gathering blackmail material on EU citizens, planting malware and backdoor hardware on networking equipment, and stealing corporate secrets and technology in the EU.

China is a bad actor.

[Play_z]

Bruh of course the US couldn’t survive without TikTok for 12 hours 💀

TikTok is apparently getting unbanned because of a statement from Donald trump. It says it over on their twitter page.

Btw I don’t use any form of twitter or TikTok I get this information all from the Pubity news account over on Insta or searching news article on the web

[chuft]

Trump doesn't have the authority to do that, the law is already in effect, and he's not even in office yet. But that has never stopped him before.

[LazyPooky]

There is a big difference between a totalitarian government like China

China is a bad actor.

I know that. I was only talking about social platforms taking our personal data for who knows what.

China is looking after its own interests. Why shouldn't the US prevent them from their cyber infiltrations of the US?

So like, "if I can't spy on you, you can't spy on us"
Sound hypocritical to me. Not on the same scale perhaps, but still.

[chuft]

Hypocrisy means to say one thing and do another, and not believing what you say. Like a church priest who preaches virtue but sins in private. I don't see any hypocrisy in the US acting to prevent China from infiltrating US data networks and collecting information on citizens that will be used for nefarious ends (not ads). What is hypocritical about the US protecting itself from China?

If the EU (which I still think is irrelevant to this) wants to ban US social media, it is free to do so. Just like China did.

I don't use Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or any other modern social media (and no I don't count web forums). I think they're all garbage, filled with bots, and bring out the worst in people, and are used for spreading disinformation. So I don't care about them very much. I do care about the menace that is China and I was careful not to buy a router made there.

The ban was not automatic, TikTok could have (and maybe still can, if Trump is allowed to circumvent the law yet again) avoided it by selling ownership to an entity outside of China. They refused and would rather lose 170,000,000 US users and gigantic amounts of money. What does that tell you? What business wants to take their money and light it on fire? The Chinese government is calling the shots for them obviously. TikTok is not an ordinary business. No Chinese business is.

[chuft]

Shark Tank’s’ Kevin O’Leary and billionaire Frank McCourt want to buy TikTok. One problem: It’s not for sale

[LazyPooky]

Hypocrisy means to say one thing and do another, and not believing what you say. Like a church priest who preaches virtue but sins in private. I don't see any hypocrisy in the US acting to prevent China from infiltrating US data networks and collecting information on citizens that will be used for nefarious ends (not ads). What is hypocritical about the US protecting itself from China?

Perhaps it has more meanings. I didn't look it up.
Here the meaning is, you criticize someone else while doing the same thing or "to put the norms and values into practice yourself, when criticizing others"

You can't spy on us! (while doing it yourself).

[chuft]

In this case, China is spying on us and banned our social media some time ago. So if anything it is China that would be hypocritical under your definition, not the US.

In terms of word meaning, what you say could be true under certain contexts. For example if you say "No one should carry a gun, so you can't have one" and then carry one yourself, yes that means you say one thing and do another. However if a policeman or soldier says "You are not authorized to carry a gun, so you can't have one" and they carry one themselves, that is not hypocrisy, because they are not in the same position as you. The same with a parent telling a child they can't go outside after 8 PM while the parent does. No one would consider that hypocrisy.

In the field of international relations, it is not considered hypocrisy for nations to try to get an advantage over other nations, just as in business. This is not hypocrisy either. If Germany bombs Britain (like in WW2) then Britain will bomb Germany. Same with use of chemical weapons. Germany used them against the Entente so the Entente used them back. The UN Security Council (all nations with nuclear weapons) have placed sanctions on Iran to discourage them from developing nuclear weapons. While you might call that hypocrisy, it is generally recognized that Iran is a country with a bad government and nobody wants to see them have nuclear weapons. Sanctions were not placed on other countries like India and Pakistan that developed nuclear weapons.

And this is the context here. China is a bad country. They oppress their own citizens, assist the Russians with their war of aggression in Ukraine, and steal secrets from other countries among other things such as trying to infiltrate their critical infrastructure. The US is not banning social media from France or Britain or The Netherlands. They are banning it from China because China, like Iran, is a bad actor. It is like a policeman vs a criminal. It is not hypocrisy for the policeman to try to stop the criminal and arrest them. They are not arresting everyone just the bad person.

[BRBFBI]

Even this forum is part of social media.

I would rather not look at it that way

I don't use Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or any other modern social media (and no I don't count web forums).

I don't know the technical definition of social media, but in my own definition it become social media when the results of tens of millions of dollars of psychological research are employed to manipulate users into spending more time on the platform; infinite scroll, bogus notifications, non-chronological post ordering, algorithmic recommendations, those are just the obvious ones. There is a phenomenon observable in gambling wherein if a gambler always wins they lose interest, but if losses are mixed in it increases their desire to keep searching for that next win. The optimal win/loss ratio to retain attention is a subject of study, the results of which are incorporated into social media algorithms. I am tempted to call it evil, but it's not. Social media corporations have a prime directive, and that's to make as much money as possible. The health of their users only matters inasmuch as it effects their earnings. And as chuft pointed out not only are the platforms trying to make money off you, but they're filled with bots and bad actors with their own motivations to scam/influence/promote. In that sense I agree with Play_z209 that Youtube is social media, although if you use it as a simple video hosting platform and don't engage with the Home page/personalized recommendations then I think you could also argue it's not.

To me this forum isn't social media. It's a utility for communicating with other people over the internet, like an email.

I should have added this ages ago but you can’t use a vpn for both tiktok and capcut because of something in the SIM card doesn’t allow it or something idk.

I could access tiktok through a VPN on desktop.

[chuft]

The broad definition of social media is anything where people can interact in some kind of group setting like a forum (web 2.0) as compared to email, text messages etc. But the more common definition (what people usually mean) and what is used in these new laws regulating age requirements is things that have an algorithmic feed. That is the real difference between things like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit etc and things like this forum.

Many forums let you "subscribe" to posts by a particular user ("follow" somebody) and reach a wide audience (public forums where anyone can go, google searchable etc.) but the really unique feature of the "bad" social media is the algorithmic feed.

I grimace every time BJ posts a video and says "Another video that was in the recommended list."

[BRBFBI]

The broad definition of social media is anything where people can interact in some kind of group setting like a forum (web 2.0) as compared to email, text messages etc. But the more common definition (what people usually mean) and what is used in these new laws regulating age requirements is things that have an algorithmic feed. That is the real difference between things like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit etc and things like this forum.

Seems like a case of language not having caught up to reality. We need more accurate words to encapsulate these nuances.

I grimace every time BJ posts a video and says "Another video that was in the recommended list."

Hah. Alright, where do you find online content then?

[chuft]

Hah. Alright, where do you find online content then?

What do you mean by "find online content" ?

I belong to certain specialized forums like this one. I look at Google News to see what's going on since it aggregates news items. The New York Times sends news updates to my phone, with links to articles.

I only use YouTube when I am looking for something in particular, usually a specific song or soundtrack (like the Age of Wonders 2 soundtrack I snagged the other day) but sometimes something more vague ("40K lore Tyanids" for example). But 99% of my YouTube consumption is a particular song I know of and wanted to hear again so I search for it, or if there is something from an artist whose stuff I like but I haven't heard yet. I tend to buy CD's to support artists, but being able to preview is nice in case it is mediocre. I do not have a YouTube account nor a Google account.

The only bad site (with a feed) that I use is Reddit, and that's because it's a collection of semi-forums on particular topics and often the only place to discuss certain things, or at least the only one with a sizeable audience and/or official presence by a company, and it is more convenient to use it then join a specialized forum for something I don't use very often but want to be alerted to current events in that area. Examples are things like the Fallen London browser game and Pokemon Go phone game (which both have real time special events with details it is good to know). It is handy for things like the pest control subreddit or the home improvement subreddit or the subreddit for your car (mine has an open recall) when you have an issue come up and want to read the experiences of others or ask a question. Your Reddit account lets you post a question without having to go register at a specialty forum just for that one question on that one occasion.

It is possible to doomscroll on Reddit - looking at things like r/badtattoos (pictures) or r/MildlyBadDrivers (dashcam footage) and at times when I am really tired or something I have done that, but I generally avoid it. When I realized I had started doing it as a habit I closed the Reddit tab on my browser and now only go there if I am looking for some particular information. It can be useful but it can suck you into wasting a lot of time on trivia and nonsense, arguing with people who often are actually bots.

I have noticed a lot of posts in the feed appear to be made to generate traffic and are fake. For example "Am I Overreacting" or "Am I The Asshole" type subs where I see variations of the same story come up again and again. One common one is a series of screencaps of text messages somebody finds on their romantic partner's phone that appear to indicate cheating. The most common one is some variation on "I have been happily married for 17 years, I just found out my wife was cheating on me when we were dating, by the way our son was born very shortly after we were married" and people doing the math and saying "That's not your son!" The story has varying details but the basic elements are always about cheating discovered much later, usually with a pregnancy occurring around the time of the cheating with a rushed marriage pushed by the woman, and usually everybody else knows she was cheating but didn't tell the poster. Every time, these stories gets thousands of responses - many of which are themselves likely bots. It's just garbage.

Reddit also has the worst ageism I have ever seen online.

[BRBFBI]

That answers my question.

I used Reddit for about six months around 2021 (late to the train, as ever), realized I was spending more time than I wanted on it (usually also when I was tired), deleted the app and never looked back. You make a good justification for maintaining an account.

Other than to thwart my tendency to infinitely scroll, the other reason I got off of Reddit was that I came to really dislike Reddit "culture." Much like your "Am I Overreacting" anecdote, after viewing enough posts they started to seemed cyclical to me. The same sorts of posts always seemed popular, and therefore likely to appear on the homepage. I became ever more suspicious of the motivations of poster. Are users being genuine and the best posts rise to the top, or are posters affected by the desire to be popular and writing posts in a specific style they think will be well received? Every high karma post and comment was suspect, and given that the whole idea of Reddit is that you're supposed to only see the highest rated posts and comments it kind of ruined the site for me.

I would be curious to hear about the ageism.

[possessor]

I hate to interrupt and sound like a whiny moron .

What does any of this have to do with Australians? Or Australian LazyTown releases or events? Or the Australian members on this community..?

[BRBFBI]

BREAKING: AMERICAN FORCES INVADE AUSTRALIA.

I was thinking that myself. Sorry for hijacking your area. SEND IT TO THE CONTAINMENT THREAD. 😂

[possessor]

NOOOOO DON'T TAKE BACK THE KMARTS