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TikTok reportedly plans ‘immediate’ Sunday shutdown in the US if it’s banned


in reply to misk

Do it. Let the US be a closed censored state like it desperately wants to be.

They'll even put the hashtag #freespeach when they deliver their ban.

in reply to themurphy

Free speech means the government will let citizens criticise them or communicate other political opinions without sanctions. It does not mean they can't ban one channel of communication when they are worried foreign actors use it to take advantage of the citizens. There are plenty other channels through which the citizens can communicate their opinions.
in reply to lurch (he/him)

It's a .ml tankie, they only care because it's a Chinese company, guaranteed if it was like a UK company or something they wouldn't say a word about it lmao
in reply to misk

You shut down one app, ten other apps get more popular
in reply to small44

Yes but diversity is good 👍

Why let the Chinese get all the eyeballs for propaganda? Surely we should give other nations a chance?

IMHO they should shut down every app that is both popular and has an exceedingly difficult to penetrate monopoly. Let the competitors rush in and do a it again when the same situation occurs!

in reply to small44

I have my doubts that any app will collect the user base back together ever again. I may be wrong, but once TikTok is gone, people will splinter to different apps that are nowhere near as popular.
This entry was edited (8 hours ago)
in reply to small44

Good! Hopefully one of those other apps is federated and free from any hostile interests.
in reply to misk

Any social media that you isn't open and self hostable (Lemmy, Mastodon, etc) should not be used. That includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, and more.

Most social media has, IMHO, been a net-negative for society and I am in the generation that grew up with it in its infancy.

in reply to chronicledmonocle

I second this opinion. The federated applications and communities aren't perfect, but it's less toxic and better to use in general due to the lack of an all-encompassing algorithm that guides your usage to increase views for ad revenue.
in reply to chronicledmonocle

My one wish for Fediverse would be federated identities. So I don't have to have baronvonj@ for ever single one of them.
in reply to Baron Von J

On the plus side, it's nice that you don't need a new ID for every Lemmy instance.
in reply to abeorch

Lemmy sits a bit apart from the rest in that it doesn't quite work for direct person-to-person interaction. Following Lemmy discussions on Mastodon is possible but clunky and Lemmy doesn't quite know how to quiet all the @ mentions and things in comments made from Mastodon so they look really loud/busy. I can see Lemmy communities from Firefish but I don't see any of the posts/comments (maybe I have to follow one first?). I've never tried following Lemmy from Pixelfed.

But each of those platforms has a different UI. The experience and features posting media on Pixelfed is much different. But I still have to setup a separate Pixelfed instance account if I want to make use of them. And my data will thus be spread across those instances. And people will need to follow both the Mastodon and Pixelfed accounts if they want to see both sets of posts. I'd love to just hat the one identity to manage with my content from all platforms associated with it.

in reply to Baron Von J

@Baron Von J
Use #Friendica - #lemmy works well there for me - you also got to realise there is a lot of playing around with UIs in different client apps - #Fedilab #racoon plus so many more
@Technology

Technology reshared this.

in reply to yokonzo

I could care less about "the masses". Most of the world are morons.
in reply to yokonzo

I don't want the masses. They can stay in the containment shart shead.
This entry was edited (6 hours ago)
in reply to misk

That would go beyond the ban’s requirement for app stores to stop offering downloads of the app, but not immediately halt use of it.


Before the tankies get mad about the "censorship" of the US while failing to mention the LONG list of things you can get straight up arrested for in China

in reply to cm0002

Or have a "tea drinking" session:

When I was able to speak to Ms. Wu about the "tea drinking" session (euphemism for police harassment), she sharply conveyed her sense of vulnerability due to the lack of interest in her stepping away from her popular Twitter account, stating,
Literally the only thing that was keeping me online for the past few years was they were worried it would make China look bad if they cracked down on me. Now that they know that I could be dead in a ditch tomorrow and no one would give a shit or say a word I’m 1000x less safe here.

[...]

Wu added,

After years of doing this without anyone saying anything, on June 30th, out of the blue, they send plainclothes thugs to my house. Surprise! They were real cops.



Why? because she's LGBTQ+, has a Uyghur partner, and has some friends in Western nations.

reference: hackingbutlegal.com/p/naomi-wu…

Image/photo

https://x.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1177145458503737344

This entry was edited (9 hours ago)
in reply to misk

Reminder: TikTok is not actually important. Everyone can live their lives without TikTok, YouTube, etc. There's an infinite amount of ways to entertain ourselves and there's a lot of competing apps.

This isn't the government abusing its power to shut down some small business/upstart. It's shutting down a serious national security threat and a monopoly. TikTok has abused their position many times in many ways, refused to cooperate, and has reached the, "find out" phase.

in reply to Riskable

There is a false dichotomy on Lemmy, that the government should shut down Meta due to security threats too because of this. They can both be bad.
in reply to NineMileTower

Yeah, they should shut down both. Honestly, X should be on the chopping block even faster that Meta, but Zuck seems committed to racing Musk to the bottom.
in reply to djsoren19

I finally drew the line last week and deleted my Meta accounts.
in reply to Riskable

Reminder: there’s an ongoing trade war between US and China and this is likely just a part of it.
This entry was edited (8 hours ago)
in reply to Riskable

I've never even looked at it. Vine was pretty cool but then it died, Periscope was neat, but I dunno, something about Tiktok feels predatory, how addictive it is (from what I've seen of others using it).

Plus while they're all as bad as each other, I still trust China less than Microsoft with my stuff, so yeah. I'm just not interested in it and don't really see the appeal for myself. But I see why it's popular and it's not like, terrible, as a concept.

in reply to Nusm

Why can't more of that be patched out via ReVanced or similar? Or is it so integral to the platform itself?
in reply to Riskable

Everyone can live their lives without TikTok, YouTube...


I was an adult before YT and I don't want to go back to a time before it existed. It's just too damn useful as a self education tool. Need to learn how to DIY a plumbing problem? Youtube. Need to learn how to subnet a network? Youtube. Interested in the History of Moldova? Youtube.

I finished my basement by watching youtube videos and learning how to do everything from framing to electrical to drywall to finishing work. There isn't anywhere else you can freely get the same breadth of knowledge on-demand.

in reply to Riskable

I don’t entirely agree. TikTok isn’t just silly dances, thirst traps, and trends—it has played a significant role in community organizing and coalition-building across social movements. Consider the university Pro-Palestine encampments or mainstream news reporting on social media reaction to the United Healthcare CEO’s killing. Neither is solely attributable to TikTok, but the scale and nature of discussion on the platform have demonstrably influenced real-world conversation and activism. Another example is Keith Lee’s viral restaurant reviews transforming the viability of small mom and pop businesses overnight.

What sets TikTok apart isn’t just its massive reach (150 million monthly active users, nearly half the US population) but also its algorithm and features that enable collaborative, asynchronous discussion. Unlike YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels, where content is mostly one-off entertainment with fleeting comment sections, TikTok fosters actual conversations. Features like stitching allow users to directly respond to others, creating an evolving discourse where users can trace context. At times, entire feeds become dominated by discussion of a single topic—sometimes celebrity gossip, but often major events like October 7 or the United Healthcare CEO killing. This level of organic, large-scale discourse doesn’t happen the same way on other platforms. A great example of this dynamic was when TikTok users collectively decided to migrate to the actually Chinese app XiaoHongShu specifically to spite the US government. That didn’t just happen—it was discussed and coordinated.

In my view, TikTok is a national security threat not because of unproven claims about data leaks or state-authored propaganda, but because it provides an already restless and dissatisfied population with a real platform to discuss issues and organize. If a decentralized, open-source alternative existed at scale, TikTok itself wouldn’t be necessary. I acknowledge that TikTok—like any centralized platform—has real issues, particularly around privacy and censorship. But until such a decentralized alternative gains traction, TikTok remains important. And even then, I doubt the US government would be any more comfortable with a decentralized version, since it still wouldn’t give them control over what discussions take place.

in reply to misk

"you can't fire me, i quit" well, alright, that was always and option, lol
in reply to misk

Gen z better prep for 'em withdrawls... They love telling how they don't drink or do drugs haha

Let's see how they will cope.

Some app is about to explode

in reply to sunzu2

Rednote started exploding 3 days ago, it's been #1 on android and apple stores since.
in reply to sunzu2

Honestly it's probably more likely that China bans the US users first. RedNote is openly CCP incorporated and has very strict community rules and heavy censorship. Cleavage is censored, I was cracking up because people's profile pics got denied and they couldn't understand the Mandarin to know why.
in reply to sunzu2

No, it'll probably take weeks to days; with the new law the president can unilaterally ban any foreign-owned app with 1 million users.

Watch Biden ban it on Jan 19th as a final fuck you.

in reply to misk

I'm honestly surprised more content creators on TikTok haven't raised a stink about this from what I've seen. Agree with it or not, for some people this is their livelihood.
in reply to TommySoda

IIRC TikTok is rather top heavy in terms of income and this highest tier of influencers is diversified across all media channels anyway.

Regular folk have better luck making money on YouTube and Instagram so TikTok creators are unusual bunch. In my experience (which is very likely shaped by the algorithm) they are a mix of talent show performers, odd personalities and no longer relevant one hit wonders that got lucky. They’re mostly sad about losing that space because it’s so different to alternatives. I don’t think anyone that doesn’t have much money feels in power anymore so what are they going to do?

in reply to misk

Yeah, but those affiliate links made people bank, especially during the holidays.

I actually got like half my ideas and my daughters from the tiktok shop. (Then went and bought it on Aliexpress)

in reply to TommySoda

Most content creators that I know have either openly stated that they prefer it shutting down because it's such a royal pain in the ass to use TikTok since it's audience is so different than their other platforms, or have said they stopped using it without showing a position, the only reason they used it in the first place is because that's where the audience is but they would much prefer other alternatives
This entry was edited (3 minutes ago)
in reply to recreationalcatheter

Or hello TikTok? I'm stoked to see a popular social network app without the US!
in reply to Cycle0861

funny, that not one has been euro/asian/african centric so far, that has gained enough momentum or content to peak your interest yet, lol
in reply to shoulderoforion

If you know of an English speaking socisl network with those characteristics, do let me know
in reply to misk

Is Loops ready for wide scale adoption and federation yet? We kinda need a replacement for tiktok, otherwise the addicts will jump to yet another Chinese platform.
in reply to shininghero

There's a ton of domestic TikTok clones already, like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.

otherwise the addicts will jump to yet another Chinese platform.


They already have.

in reply to shininghero

Doesn't look like it to me. I tried to sign up yesterday and haven't received the validation email.

Edit: and the UI was very barren and minimal on the video I watched.

This entry was edited (8 hours ago)
in reply to shininghero

Is Loops ready for wide scale adoption and federation yet


Nowhere near imo. Download the app and see for yourself. It needs WORK.

in reply to NineMileTower

Link to download? I checked the Play store and there's a billion apps called Loops
in reply to misk

Just fucking get it over with already! I'm tired of hearing about this shit every single day.
in reply to misk

TikTok might start being not shit after this, but I'm not risking exposure until I have confirmation
This entry was edited (6 hours ago)
in reply to misk

If you have $50 Billion, you can buy Tiktok.

I read that Elon Musk might buy it. But the CEO of Tiktok stated that, it isn't true.

Why would he even need another social media? Besides, dictating what he wants on that site...and make it worse?

I like when Jack Dorsey ran Twitter. It is a crap hole now on there.

As for Tiktok, it won't matter to me since I am not on there.

in reply to misk

Ok.

(I bet tiktok doesn’t shut down, but if it does I can’t wait for my kids to tell me about all the meltdowns at middle school over tiktok shutting down. Too many parents let their kids have unfettered internet access. No, mine don’t have tiktok.)

in reply to misk

A lot of people are saying that the US government banned TikTok, but from what I'm understanding, that's not really what happened and what's happening. Or have I misinterpreted things? From what I understand, they were told they had to divest and sell, but they fought that and now are opting to shutdown rather than comply. Is that not the case?

Either way, I'm gonna go all "I walked to school uphill both ways barefoot in a meter of snow" on this and say that my very little experience with TikTok users seems to suggest that its not much more than pure, unadulterated brain rot. So regardless of the fact(s) (i.e. shutdown / banned / etc), there's maybe the tiniest sliver of a net positive here. Or not. It doesn't affect me one way or the other and given where this country is politically (as well as where it is headed), I don't give a rat poopoo.

in reply to misk

There will just be a new (US based) TikTok copycat that springs up, or many. Banning one social media cancer doesn't stop the others
in reply to misk

“They” say they are banning it over national security concerns I think it’s deeper then that. They can’t have a socialist like platform having an audience. Which in my opinion is why they wanted to force a sell or just ban Tiktok.

I don’t think, that they will go after Rednote if it doesn’t gain popularity the way that Tiktok did.