Banned from TikTok for the LazyTown US Community

[BRBFBI]

Speaking of TikTok and propaganda....


Anti-Trump Searches Appear Hidden on TikTok After App Comes Back Online: 'TikTok is Now Trump's Propaganda'

I like the pop-up that says "check your sources before sharing." Seems particularly Orwellian. Another reason to stay off social media.

[boredjedi]

China panicked about American users corrupting their youth via TikTok alternative RedNote

Chinese-owned video-sharing app RedNote is reportedly considering quarantining American users over concerns they are a poor influence on China’s own young people.

Ahead of TikTok being banned and “going dark” on Sunday — which only lasted 14 hours after newly inaugurated President Trump intervened — millions of Americans downloaded the alternative Chinese-owned video-sharing platform, sending it to the No. 1 spot on the US App Store.

Three million Americans joined RedNote in just a single day last week, some calling themselves “TikTok refugees” — and instantly caused a culture clash.

https://nypost.com/2025/01/22/us-new...h-via-rednote/

[chuft]

Their demographic crisis is so bad, we'd be doing them a favor if we got their young people more interested in sex. "Corrupting the youth" indeed. They need babies badly. The average age now there for a mother having her first child is 27.4. They're going to continue to shrink in population and have a higher and higher proportion of retired people to workers. The US would be in the same boat if it wasn't for immigration making up the difference and then some. And China, like Japan, can't conceive of letting a bunch of foreigners come in and settle there, due to their racism. So they age and shrink. A slow moving train wreck of a situation.



But yeah, now that Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Musk (Twitter) are both making sweet with Trump, people are realizing the inherent problem with their use of social media for political discussion. It's owned by the people they want to criticize. Now the TikTokers are as well. My girlfriend's brother in law was suspended from Twitter a week or so ago for saying something bad about Musk. All that free speech stuff from him was always just posturing.



I always find it interesting to see how different media outlets describe something in their headlines. Google News, as an aggregator, will have headlines for the same event side by side from Murdoch-owned right wing media like Fox News, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, or Sky News Australia, or Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller, next to mainstream liberal media like CNN, Washington Post or New York Times. Reading the headlines you would not think they are even talking about the same event.



One recent story is the recent announcement by Trump with Sam Altman - who drove Musk out of OpenAI back at the start and is considered a rival of Musk - of a 500 billion dollar project they are calling "Stargate". A lot of articles emphasize it is about "AI". However there is another aspect to the story that the MAGA base has sniffed out, and that is that one of the main goals of the project is to have AI analyze the blood of a cancer patient and design and manufacture a custom mRNA vaccine for that person in 48 hours that will be used to cure the disease. The anti-vaxxers are absolutely livid, naturally. Trump is pouring half a trillion dollars into a cure for cancer and it's going to be an mRNA vaccine? They are frothing at the mouth. It's like Operation Warp Speed (the 2020 sprint to an mRNA covid vaccine) which is the one thing they are mad at Trump about, but even worse. They have a superstitious dread of mRNA for some reason. Well the reason is disinformation of course. Propaganda.

Looking at some headlines you will see stuff about "mRNA" and "cure for cancer" while others just emphasize "AI" and "on American soil" or "500 billion". Even the text of the articles can differ significantly in whether they mention the mRNA part. Of course Trump is not actually putting up the money, it is supposed to be coming from entities like SoftBank (Japan), OpenAI, Oracle, and the United Arab Emirates.

Musk, apparently irritated to see Altman standing with Trump at a press conference, has since made remarks to the effect that they don't actually have the money for a project of this size. I doubt that will go over well with Trump, who is notorious for wanting absolute loyalty. Musk meanwhile drove Ramaswamy out of that DOGE thing on Monday before Trump was even sworn in. That has to be some kind of a record - Ramaswamy didn't even make it a day into the administration. Reminds me of 2017. You could play Bingo with who was coming and going from the administration each week. I am curious to see how long Musk can last, given his ego and apparent inability to keep his mouth shut. Belittling one of Trump's projects publicly is not a great start.

Musk, like Trump, was at one time a large Democratic Party donor. One might wonder what happened. Was reading an article today about what radicalized him. I found it interesting. He is apparently becoming a victim of his own platform's algorithm.

Another reason to stay off social media.

Indeed.

[chuft]

The social media wars have begun.

More than 100 Reddit communities have banned users from posting links to X

[possessor]

Stay off Reddit, off RedNote, off Twitter, off FaceBook, off Tiktok and your life will be peaceful.