I can’t believe this is the one thing this congress has actually managed to do. We just want healthcare
I want both.
Healthcare!?! Who needs healthcare when Congress is giving us our god given freedom of domestic surveillance capitalism, which is the freedomist freedom that ever freedomed, you filthy communist!
So anyway, I started violating civil liberties… PEW PEW
You’ll take your overpriced medicine from your out of network pharmacy and you’ll like it. At the fake markup price. And good luck getting that ultrasound, they’re going to code the billing wrong so instead of it being $40 it’s $1000. That’s freedom talking.
And good luck getting that ultrasound, they’re going to code the billing wrong so instead of it being $40 it’s $1000.
🎶 Ain’t that America! Home of the free baby! 🎶
Bald eagle screeches
You pick up what Uncle Sam is throwing down!
I wonder how many of these lawmakers will be invested in the company that swoops in and saves the American public?
For real. You know Pelosi is already investing.
If she’s investing at the same time you’re getting the information, she missed the best time to buy. She might have hedged her bets and bought early
Fun fact: Congresspeople can legally inside trade, but the rest of us cannot.
Politicians should be banned from stock market. Total conflict of interest.
Eight Democrat Senators agree with you, and cosponsored a bill in September that died at introduction.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/2773/all-actions-without-amendments
if we keep electing people trying to maintain the status quo, then it’ll never happen
It’s a catch-22. To get elected, you need to learn to manipulate within the system. Once elected, you know how to leverage the system, so why would you change it?
The best chance we’ll have for systemic change will come when boomers die off. That shouldn’t discourage efforts today, but impart some hope for the future.
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
What does that mean?
It wasn’t put to a vote after being read aloud on two separate introductions. It was then forwarded to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee where it went to die.
Good Work just recently put out a video on this very topic. Informative and hilarious as usual!
Thanks! I never heard of this show.
I’d be fine if they were allowed to invest in things like mutual funds so that they could take advantage of the market without being able to do insider trading of a specific stock.
that would be better, but they could still invest in specific sectors or industries.
Yep, and maybe that’s somewhat acceptable, but we could also confine it to diversified mutual funds meeting specific criteria.
Edit: confine, not congratulations
That’s not true. It’s still illegal even though they get away with it. You’re thinking of
briberylobbying.According to the STOCK Act of 2012, they could be brought up on charges for a trade performed after gaining knowledge of a pending change in legislation that would affect the value of a stock, prior to the legislation being publicly enacted. The SEC just hasn’t charged them.
What they do is not legal, they just live above the law.
Just to clarify. Insider trading is illegal but it is not illegal for politicians in Congress to use the information they obtain from their jobs (such as through classified meetings) to engage in stock market trades.
It’s not a failure of the law. It’s a failure of the SEC for not enforcing it.
MYTH: Members of Congress are exempt from insider trading laws.
FACT: Both a Congressional Research Service Report and House Administration Committee memo indicates that Members of Congress are subject to the same insider trading rules as the general public.
That’s simply not true. They have no exemption to insider trading laws. It simply comes down to trade timing.
The way the law is written, they could be brought up on charges for a trade performed after gaining knowledge of a pending change in legislation that would affect the value of a stock prior to the legislation being publicly enacted. The SEC just hasn’t charged them.
What they do is not legal, they just live above the law.
If everyone doing it gets away with it, then is it actually illegal?
Yes. It is. They just need to be arrested and prosecuted. I agree that it should be taken more seriously, considering that it’s against the law.
No one has ever been prosecuted in the decade and change that it has been illegal, despite frequent violations.
Martha. Stewart.
Fun fact: Everyone with hundreds of millions+ in holdings either trades with insider information or pays others to do it, because our metrics and enforcement for insider trading are a gallows joke.
For sure they’re already in way before general public
Pathetic watching ancient, feeble rich people about to return to the dust from whence they came still frantically positioning to boost their ego scores.
It’s as if they believe their preferred invisible sky mommy/daddy will accept a bribe of earthly currency.
I would rather chill in my basement.
it’s an addiction
Don’t worry everyone, it’s just pelosi’s 3rd cousin doing the investing so that makes everything totally cool and totally legal.
Congressional Representatives and Senators are shielded from most insider trading laws. She could literately buy in, flip the SEC the bird, and go on her merry way.
Well, as it is what her husband did for a living his entire very successful life, but sure the Lady you don’t like is wrong for him doing his job well.
A. Her husband is not a lawmaker. B. I’m sure her position helps C. Don’t simp for politicians. They DGAF about you.
A: which is why him having a ton of money he made more with isn’t a relevant condemnation of the woman.
B: his having a shit ton of money already helps a hell of a lot more so fuck off with your unsubstantiated claim.
C: at no point did I remotely suggest she did so fuck off with your attempt to imagine things to argue about since you’ve not a leg to stand upon.
I’m pretty sure I could be incredibly successful at trading stocks as well if I was married to a Senator who could give me inside information, lmao.
As she didn’t join Politics until '87, guess they invented communicating to with their past selves, lmao. If you’ve got any proof, kindly advise the FBI. Where as you’ve none, head on back to peddle that shit to fux nooz.
Christ, am I supposed to memory hole that Pelosi’s husband making a shit ton of money off stocks THREE YEARS AGO is what led to a round of antitrust bills getting introduced? Is there literally any criticism of these rich fucks you can hear without immediately shrieking about conservatives?
Well, you are shit holing that he made a shit ton of money before her first Campaign. So perhaps instead of doubling down upon your unsubstantiated right wing bull shit propaganda, actually check what happened. But you won’t Instead you’ll go on pretending you didn’t know that folks with a shit ton of money go on to make more shit tons of money so you can maintain your delusional belief in fux newbs’ distraction.
Mnuchin (fmr Trump Treasury Sec) is already setting up a group to try and buy it apparently.
The company behind tik tok said they will not sell they America is only 20% of their global market. They have refused to give their source code.
So guess app just won’t work in US. Dumb ass lawmakers only people this hurt are the US citizens that are using it to make money.
So guess app just won’t work in US
The good ending
Except you can just…VPN to almost any country on the planet
Nobody is gonna use a VPN to get their TikTok fix. They’ll use Facebook Reels or YouTube shorts, since most content creators cross-post their stuff there anyway.
Which is the actual intent of attacking a single point of the problem instead of the actual problem of the abuse of end users by all the corpo’s social media and other apps., free or otherwise is no longer important.
People on TikTok are already discussing using VPNs, so it will happen if not sold.
And either way, it’s almost like congress doesn’t care about addictive social media, seeing as it’s fine if domestic companies create addictive algorithms. They’ll even let foreign governments manipulate the populous via domestic companies, so long as they get a cut of the cash.
I will probably do it. Out of spite. Might even show my Congressional rep at the next town hall meeting.
You need more than a handful of brain cells for that, so it’s not exactly the easily manipulated target audience of TikTok.
Passing a law to give the executive branch overreaching censorship authority over the internet while simultaneously campaigning that the other option in the next election wants to use the power of that office to overthrow democracy. This is the “good ending”.
All the folks quoting what a small part of their audience the US is, never mention what percentage of their gross the US is. CCP won’t pay for eyeballs in Azerbaijan.
In the U.S., we have given our third-party Trusted Technology Provider access to the code that drives the content you see - the For You feed - and we are on a path to allowing an unprecedented amount of third-party access to verify our source code and systems, something no other peer company has done.
https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/ensuring-a-safe-authentic-space-during-times-of-conflict
The company behind tik tok said
China. It’s China that “said”.
I don’t see how anyone is hurt by losing access to Tiktok. The only sad part about this is that all social media isn’t banned.
You are literally posting this to social media right now. Do you think it would be cool to ban or force a sale of Lemmy to a US corp?
Is Lemmy using a predatory algorithm designed to enrich itself at the expense of the well being of its users and utilize its platform to influence US policy against its own interests? If that answer was yes, then absolutely. With Lemmy being of service to its users without making us its cattle, I’ll advocate for it as opposed to against it.
Does congress care about data collection and predatory algorithms, though? If so, why did they just waste their time crafting a targeted bill rather than actually making those practices illegal?
If congress suddenly decided that they didn’t like a company for whatever reason, they’ll craft another targeted bill like this one. Trump could win this year, do you really want this precedent set right before that?
Luckily, Lemmy is much more difficult due to it’s decentralized nature. However, since congress is clearly more than willing to craft targeted bills, it’s not out of the question.
Dude, the bill has nothing to do with anything you said. You’re criticizing capitalism and the lack of regulations on social media corporations.
My understanding is this bill is about forcing the sale of a company owned by a “foreign adversary” which is vague as shit just like the patriot act, which took (some of) the public 20+ years to realize was probably not a good idea.
Is Lemmy using a predatory algorithm designed to enrich itself at the expense of the well being of its users and utilize its platform to influence US policy against its own interests?
You mean like Facebook? Which isn’t being banned?
I love posting how we should ban Facebook, I even post on Facebook about banning Facebook…from the website of course.
Is Lemmy using a predatory algorithm designed to enrich itself at the expense of the well being of its users and utilize its platform to influence US policy against its own interests?
Straight up yes, I’m gonna explain this hot take right now so buckle up.
Lemmy operates on the same basic set of principles that Reddit does. Upvotes send a post up, downvotes send a post down, moderation abilities and succession is controlled by the select few who create a popular channel, and also administrators. Pretty easy, pretty simple so far.
Algorithms don’t refer only to implicit incentive structures, but explicit ones, as well. How many posts have you seen on lemmy that are just really stupid propaganda memes? That’s what the platform explicitly incentivizes with it’s system of upvotes and downvotes. Low rent, low effort posts that vibe with a large majority of the audience are what’s going to get more attention and more engagement, and that’s going to push a post up, in a kind of feedback loop that hopefully tries to separate the wheat from the chaff. Really, all it does is separate the low rent dopamine content from everything else. I would say the incentivization of low rent behavior by these explicit mechanisms is somewhat predatory, yes.
As to how lemmy is enriched by this process, lemmy gets more attention. so lemmy gets more power inside of the sphere of internet attention, culture, and propaganda. Lemmy as a whole, obviously, which probably ends up meaning the developers. The whole thing being more open source and federated obviously puts this much more into contention than Reddit, sure, but that doesn’t really eliminate the basic problems that come about at the very conception of this platform, these problems of echo chambers. You can even see that forming now in a bunch of different instances. You can see that bias in hexbear, ml, world being plagued by a bunch of brainlet neolibs. It’s pretty obvious that the system confines everyone to their bubbles.
This is all to basically equivocate any interaction having been had online as being predatory in some way, and as enriching some party. Any mechanism which you use to organize the slew of information coming at you is going to have an inherent set of biases, pros and cons, and is inherently going to prey on some of those biases compared to others. So if we’ve equivocated all social media with basically all form of social interaction online, then the internet itself was probably a mistake.
Tl;dr IRC is a form of social media. Real life is a form of social media.
You are on social media. You can leave any time, that was always allowed.
I see nothing wrong with posting to social media to advocate against it, I’ll feel free to stay.
Does your posting history bear out that that’s why you’re here, though? 🤷♂️ I’m not asking for you to justify it to me, it’s just silly to pretend you’re not participating in something you say should be banned.
My posting history bears out extensive shitposting and calling things as they’re seen. I don’t take any issue with Lemmy/Fediverse due to how they’re decentralized and orchestrated. I’m against predatory algorithms and user manipulation. I believe that the Fediverse itself will be a good thing until it becomes the villain, much like how our utopian social experiments usually go.
You joke but this has a chilling effect on all sm platforms based outside of the US. They just took a massive shit on the 1st amendment.
They just took a massive shit on the 1st amendment.
Oh, so the 1A protects Social Media activity again? When did it change?
It always has, at least from US government. Have you not read the constitution?
It always has, at least from US government. Have you not read the constitution?
Oh, so we can agree that the US Government “asking” Twitter and other media outlets to interfere with the coverage of certain stories is also a 1A violation? Excellent!
I do need to ask your opinion on this Supreme Court case though…
Yes, I would argue it was. Not quite as brazenly but yes.
They just took a massive shit on the 1st amendment.
lol
1st amendment protects citizens, not foreigners.
So everyone on TikTok is a foreigner now?
Banning TikTok, a foreign controlled company, does not infringe on the 1st amendment. Freedom of speech isn’t impaired because of some dipshit social media app that actively fucks everyone except the Chinese government over.
I didn’t say the bill did.
Either way, TikTok is not the only avenue for the Chinese government to use to fuck us. They’ll just find another way, one that isn’t so visible and easily regulated. This doesn’t really solve much; it’s just going to piss people off by taking away their choice and push breaches of personal privacy into the shadows where the US has no jurisdiction.
Except this ban is doing the exact opposite. It’s only affecting US citizens. Foreigners are not affected
Healthcare? Nah, let’s fight about it for decades and never give people anything meaningful. Education? Nah, let’s make our people go neck deep into debt and still fight about it for decades. Ban TikTok? Hold my bribery, you got it. Gimme 24 hours and you got it, boss.
We can’t solve real issues because then we couldn’t keep the American populace overworked, sick, and unable to fight back.
You don’t want healthcare. Because we said so.
Its all to get around passing a real privacy law with teeth.
lmao, they don’t want a real privacy law, they want to have a monopoly in spying on Americans.
Not only that, they want to have a monopoly on on what kind of media content gets delivered to americans.
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Why do bots! Love exclamation marks! So much!
No! You have to interspace the exclamation marks. Otherwise you look crazy!
Why do bots
Suddenly appear? 🐦
CCPA (in California) is a good first step. Ideally something similar should be enacted for the entire country.
Just as a reminder, we have been ‘fighting for 15’ since 2012. But when it comes to leveraging foreign companies with bans to force them to sell to US oligarchs we can move at blazing speed through the least functional congrss in recent history. There are two very different Americas depending on how much money you have.
Least functional Congress in
recenthistory
Too bad we can’t ban Meta, Twitter, and Snapchat while we’re at it.
won’t happen
Where do you think the FBI gets their domestic terrorist intel from 😂
TikTok will cut a deal to send your dick picks to Greenbelt.
Truth social
Fuck IKR, call the cops because someone side swiped your car and you’ll get no response. Get on FB or Twitter and talk about how you’re planning a bombing and federal agents will show up at your house.
This is not a ban and it was never meant to be. They just force tiktok to sell the US market to a US company. Said US company will continue the platform just like it is at the moment, just with a bit more of that sweet American propaganda mixed into it. Tiktok won’t be gone, all that data will just go to the NSA instead of the CCP, that’s all they wanted.
China says they’re not selling TikTok, which makes it a ban, which is excellent news, actually.
Seriously! Ban everything that is bad for people! That has never backfired ever
I mean, remember when we banned all those really bad and dangerous horror comics and nearly collapsed a whole industry of artists, publishers, and distributors for an entire generation so we could feel morally superior about our own hypercritical actions and interests?
We’re really making things great again now!
^^/s
Even though i dont think banning tiktok is a good idea purely because of the concept, those boards are funny. “Tiktok changed my life for the better”
They’re also all printed, and with the same font. I’m assuming it’s a stock photo, but if that’s from a real protest I don’t trust those protestors.who the hell gets a protest sign printed?
Its because the company literally paid shills to stump for them in person, call Congress, etc.
They paid for lobbyists!?! Holy shit hold the presses!
literally paid shills
No *one outside of some influencers were paid lmao. People contacted Congress but they weren’t paid, and a quick Google search brought up zero result of people being paid *outside of the influencers. So I’d love to see where you’re sourcing this from.
Edit: Correction - about 30 influencers were paid to visit events for Tik Tok. I’ll rescind saying that literally no one was paid: that’s point is wrong. My main point was that average users weren’t paid to call into Congress. And the vast majority that called in or have talked out against the ban did so of their own volition rather than being paid as implied by OP’s comment
let me duckduckgo that for you
Literally the first result on ddg: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-rally-washington-chew-testimony/
Other reports from different sources:
Its because the company literally paid shills to stump for them in person, call Congress, etc.
The way it was presented was that they paid average users to call Congress which is disingenuous. I’ll admit I was wrong when I came to the influencers being paid for in person events, but that’s only a smaller group of people and events. The vast majority were not paid and did so of their own volition.
Edit: Didn’t realize OP and the replier were different people. That’s also on me.
What are you downvoting me for? I didn’t write that post lol…
BTW, you might want to update your correction: According to https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-rally-washington-chew-testimony/
While some influencers report paying their own airfare to Washington, everyone we talked to took the free hotel. It’s unclear precisely what folks were offered as part of the trip to Washington, but seemingly everyone got one perk or another. Beyond the more than 30 influencers in attendance, along with their travel buddies, WIRED counted 10 other people who were, in one way or another, at the Capitol on behalf of TikTok.
30 influencers and their plus ones and 10 other people are paid. These are only people that wired has talked to, so there might be more people being paid one way or another.
And “everyone we talked to took the free hotel”: everyone wired has talked to has received some benefit from tiktok.
I don’t really know the scale of the rally, but seeing the rally photo from different sources: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dc+tiktok+protest&iax=images&ia=images , it seem like most cameras are pointing towards the same 15 people, all with signs distributed by tiktok.
I don’t think I will be as confident as you about the size of the protest. Even if there were 100 people there, that still means over 50% of the protesters received direct compensation from TikTok specifically for this protest.
Lots of protests actually. It’s not hard.
A lot of people started their businesses on Tiktok. The Tiktok algorithm is actually way better than that of Instagram to reach your target niche. A lot content creators and marketing exes do realize this.
I don’t understand the mentality of users, of course of obviously older generation here, that realize Tiktok did in fact change a lot of people’s lives. It’s not just an app for dancing.
Let’s not forget the Tiktok Shop section.
Imagine licking the boots of any corporate like this LOL.
I believe they are talking about a specific community that has formed over TikTok, a very anticapitalist and cosmopolitan one, and not about the platform itself.
If your algorithm is favoring that content, your short videos will be full of people talking about all things wrong in our global state of affairs; alternatives and temporal solutions (that happen to harm corporations, ironically because the information is becoming popular thanks to one, so I guess it’s the ladder to get to the rooftop); global situations that are not talked or barely talked on regular news (like Congo, Palestine, etc.); the truth behind Western propaganda and lies, especially the ones against populations and ideologies (e.g., “this country doesn’t prosper because they’re [whatever]” vs “we exploited and condemn this country to scarcity for decades and lied about it”); etcetera. In my time there, I’ve learnt a couple things.
I know that these content creators will find another platform if TikTok goes down. Lemmy has shown me that social media can be free of corporations, but that’s something many people are not aware of yet, especially since the techy people that could explain it on TikTok are not there.
So… yeah, TikTok has some interesting sides content-wise. There’s even the rumor that this is one of the reasons they want it banned in the U.S.
Do Facebook and Twitter next.
I mean, it isn’t a ban. It requires they be owned by Americans. Those others are already compliant, unfortunately.
Twitter is owned by Musk, he’s from South Africa, so we can force him to sell no?
I don’t think it’s where you came from but whether you’re a citizen and most importantly if the government can apply regulations and or investigate(and maybe somewhat control) your company. I think Elon qualifies there, though he seems to break rules all the time so I really wish they would.
Right, again, this feels more like control by the us gov, and less about protecting its people
Yes please
Youtube, amazon & ebay then or am I just greedy?
Most of these would be far better off being broken up.
Yes, eBay and TikTok are the same.
“The Chinese oligarchs are taking over!” - US oligarchs probably
US oligarchs most definitely
can we ban or move YouTube shorts elsewhere while we are at it?
Just block them vua Adblock.
Why? Just don’t watch them.
They’re noise in the search results. If there was a “no shorts” filter, I would have used it long ago.
Revanced and FreeTube.
exactly, i just want videos not noise. i wish Google would make a different app and website focused on shorts
They should call it… Gine.
This comment section is astounding.
If you think it’s good that congress passed a ban of a social media platform tied to a bill funding two foreign wars you’re either a fed or delusional.
If social media apps exist to slurp up as much user info as possible, and they do, then it makes sense to be concerned about the government that they’re subject to.
Why is it okay for domestic companies to collect the same data and sell it to China, then?
This shouldn’t just affect foreign companies if it’s about data collection. It should have been an actual privacy bill. US citizens’ privacy will be no better after this.
It’s not ok.
But the fact is that China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia are adversaries of the United States, and the US government is justified in its concern.
They didn’t seem to care much when Cambridge Analytica happened, and that was a foreign adversary. So what’s different here?
The United Kingdom is not an adversary of the United States. In fact it’s one of our closest allies. But, if anything, that suggests this law isn’t enough, not that it’s too much.
I meant that the data they collected was breached by a foreign adversary, thought that was pretty clear but guess not.
And the fact that a foreign adversary obtained this information was very bad, agreed? Clearly, it makes sense to take steps to keep that kind of information out of adversarial hands.
Yes, my point was this only affects one of them. It doesn’t fix the root of the problem, because that’s not the bill’s target.
In fact, if TikTok remains, and does get banned, it just makes it so they no longer have to listen to the US government for anything.
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A foreign adversary was responsible for the theft of the data that Cambridge shouldn’t have had. That was what I meant.
I saw that farther down in the chain which is why I came back and deleted my comment.
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With the sort of detailed personal profile a social media app has on you, they could target your specific beliefs, religious convictions, sexual preferences, political affiliation, fears, interests, desires, etc. to manipulate your opinion in their interests. Doing this on a population-wide scale is what social media platforms are all about (i.e. targeted advertising). It’s wise to be concerned about an adversary having such a tool at its disposal. And this is true for all countries, not just the US.
I probably shouldnt be celebrating this but I am. I fucking despise Tiktok with a passion, I hate its users, its creators, I hate the short form content trend it started and its algorithm based content delivery systems that every other app copied but worse, I hate the sexualisation of minors and peddling that content to pedos, I hate the clout chasing in general, I hate tiktok trends and “challenged”. and I hate the general brainrot it has caused.
What are you celebrating, exactly? TikTok isn’t going away, it’s just going to be sold to American investors.
At the very least they will have to split tiktok since I doubt the CCP will let them sell the whole thing, nor will they want to.
Best case scenario they pull out of the US entirely and then maybe some other western countries also ban it.
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If they comply.
Some bills don’t have teeth. It sounds like this one does. What do you think would happen if ByteDance doesn’t comply?
It would be ineffectually banned in the US and Bytedance would continue to rake in money worldwide from not-the-US?
The US population represents ~4% of the world.
Yes, the U.S. population represents 4% of the world, but what about in the economic world?
You’re saying people in the US would keep using it if it were banned in the US but still available in the rest of the world? How? It wouldn’t be available on app stores, and the website would be blocked by American DNS servers. Most TikTok users aren’t tech savvy enough to get around bans.
Just removing it from the Apple App Store world crush its popularity in the US, since iPhones have much more market share here than globally.
Some users might figure out how to view the site with a web browser, but that’s where the other types of blocks come into play.
Lol, I don’t agree with what the parent poster said, but your interpretation is way off!
No, he’s saying that if ByteDance loses the American market, it won’t matter much (it does, in my opinion.)
Lol, I don’t agree with what the parent poster said, but your interpretation is way off!
Which part? How do you see things differently?
Google > tiktok APK > install
Most of TikTok’s user base is either on iOS or not tech savvy enough to figure that out.
Yeah but that’s just on YouTube and Facebook now. Nobody is going to regulate them in the slightest.
It is a slap in the face if they want to say it is too influential to have an adversarial state control it, at the same time leaving it fine for local billionaires to do the exact same things.
I hate the short form content trend it started
always has been, with vine.
its algorithm based content delivery systems that every other app copied but worse
always has been, with twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat, youtube, uhhhhh… vine, yeah, just mentioned that one. discord, tinder. literally everything.
I hate the sexualisation of minors and peddling that content to pedos
Look at what the great adpocalypse of youtube was ostensibly about, then look at what it was really about. In any case, always has been.
I hate the clout chasing in general
Always has been.
I hate tiktok trends and “challenged”
Assuming you mean “challenge”, you could check out the harlem shake, the ice bucket challenge, god, there’s a lot of them honestly. Gangnam style. I think probably this is just like, meme culture more broadly, which, say it with me now: always has been.
I hate the general brainrot it has caused.
And finally, always has been.
Also that damned Disco music!
I hate its users, its creators, I hate the short form content trend it started and its algorithm based content delivery systems that every other app copied but worse
I mean… eh? TikTok is hardly the first platform to embrace short-form video. I think the dislike for the app is overblown.
The style is reflective of the medium. No point in making big budget audio/visual multi-hour immersive experiences for a cell phone screen with some headphones. The media has to be short because its for an audience that’s stealing time in the middle of a commute or during a break at school or the office. The continuous-feed style is something we just managed to achieve with high speed mobile internet (TikTok would have been impossible on a dial-up device).
Its a young medium. People are still learning what works and what doesn’t. And its as prone to getting enshittified as every other venue, thanks to the endless need for higher profits.
But as someone who grew up watching Albino Blacksheep and YTMND meme-tier content and owns a DVD of Super Bowl Commercials, I gotta say that we’ve had a lot worse.
I hate the general brainrot it has caused
People say this shit about every medium. And there’s definitely awful pieces of individual content.
But a lot of it just comes down to the hyper-sensationalist marketing. And its common to every conceivable media, from Comic Book style front page of print to the “Bwooooong!” they put in every new movie trailer.
If TikToks suck, its largely because they’re aping the worst aspects of all the other established media forms.
The media has to be short because its for an audience that’s stealing time in the middle of a commute or during a break at school or the offic
Except most people you speak to will tell you they spend hours in bed scrolling. Short form took off because it drives higher engagement.
And its as prone to getting enshittified as every other venue, thanks to the endless need for higher profits.
Except its never not been shitty. I wa son it back when it was musical.ly it has much of the same problems.
Albino Blacksheep and YTMND meme-tier content
Which are far more creative than doing whatever the current trend is, or a thirst trap or click bait.
People say this shit about every medium. And there’s definitely awful pieces of individual content.
But with tiktok you can feel it. I hate short form but still end up scrolling mindlessly through YT shorts or IG reels. And it really does measurably affect your attention span. And it’s so noticeable that the user base openly acknowledges the brain rot.
most people you speak to will tell you they spend hours in bed scrolling
This seems like an exaggeration on a number of fronts. But even if you can find folks doing this, what’s the counterfactual? Would these same people be out hitting the gym or gardening or curing cancer? Or would they just be watching TV or reading a book, instead?
Short form took off because it drives higher engagement.
There are folks binging seasons worth of Netflix who would argue otherwise.
Which are far more creative than doing whatever the current trend is
They’re absolutely not. Go back through the dredges of the '00s-era content mill and you’ll find plenty of low-effort crap. Hell, YTMND was the pinacle of low effort crap. It was shit you could crank out in ten minutes with MS Paint and a collection of mp3 snippets.
And it’s so noticeable that the user base openly acknowledges the brain rot.
You’d have heard from folks reading tabloid news or watching reality TV decades ago.
Would these same people be out hitting the gym or gardening or curing cancer? Or would they just be watching TV or reading a book, instead?
I mean ive personally just zoned out scrolling short form and missed my chance to go to the gym before. obviously might not be the case for everyone but is certainly plausible.
There are folks binging seasons worth of Netflix who would argue otherwise.
That doesnt disprove what I said at all.
They’re absolutely not. Go back through the dredges of the '00s-era content mill and you’ll find plenty of low-effort crap.
Creativity != effort and even then most tiktok stuff is as low effort as it gets.
I mean ive personally just zoned out scrolling short form and missed my chance to go to the gym before.
I’ve seen people scrolling in between reps at the gym. But, again, would this not have been a problem if you’d been blogging instead of TikToking? Or Netflix binging?
That doesnt disprove what I said at all.
Multi-hour tv series are not short form.
Creativity != effort
A picture of a celebrity attached to a quote from a movie played on a loop is neither.
I’ve seen people scrolling in between reps at the gym. But, again, would this not have been a problem if you’d been blogging instead of TikToking? Or Netflix binging?
The point is short form content enables that behaviour more than other things. Its taken off specifically because its addicting and makes you think “its only a short/reel/tiktok just one more… okay one more…etc” that you dont get with hour long netflix episodes.
Multi-hour tv series are not short form.
No one is arguing otherwise and long form content just existing doesnt disprove that short form drives higher engagement. Its like saying “Taylor swift songs are the most popular” and replying “but ACDC exists?” That doesnt disprove the original statement.
A picture of a celebrity attached to a quote from a movie played on a loop is neither.
ok
The point is short form content enables that behaviour more than other things. Its taken off specifically because its addicting and makes you think “its only a short/reel/tiktok just one more… okay one more…etc” that you dont get with hour long netflix episodes.
I simply haven’t seen anything to support this claim.
No one is arguing otherwise and long form content just existing doesnt disprove that short form drives higher engagement
You haven’t established anything to disprove. You’ve just asserted it with some personal anecdote about missing a gym appointment.
Its like saying “Taylor swift songs are the most popular” and replying “but ACDC exists?”
It’s like saying Taylor Swift isn’t inside the top 10 of the Billboard Top 100 so why do you keep insisting that her overwhelming popularity is corrupting America’s fragile young egos?
The people that create TikTok content are still going to exist even if TikTok goes away. They’ll just move to another platform.
Me too. I see no issue with banning it. I’ve said this before, but people are only outraged because they’re addicted to it and may possibly lose it. Fuck tik tock. Among your examples, I will add the misinformation pounding left tok with things like autism and other mental disabilities. Plus, the way people are self diagnosing themselves and acting like it’s a fashion statement is outrageous. And then you have the outrage bait videos that explicitly cherry pick information for viewers while holding back the full context of things, which is a tactic there’s already far too much of in this country.
pounding left tok with things like autism and other mental disabilities. Plus, the way people are self diagnosing themselves and acting like it’s a fashion statement is outrageous
[Respectfully] fuck off.
Anyone the bemoans “self diagnosis” is just a classist dickhead.
Get the fuck over it. The self diagnosing bullshit on tick tok does more harm than good, so no, I don’t think I’ll “fuck off”. Couldn’t help but notice you glazed over the sentence I wrote and willfully ignored the misinformation part in an effort to make it look like i have an issue with disabled users. Classic. News flash, but as someone with 2 autistic children who were medically diagnosed, seeing this “put a finger up for x, if you have more than 3 fingers you are autistic” fad is absolutely bullshit self diagnosis being flaunted like its “cool” when they dont even have a medical diagnosis. I have nothing further to say to you. Have a nice day!
Get the fuck over yourself mate.
It’s really nice you have the money to get your kids diagnosed. But I really need you to pull your head out of your arse and realise that poor people exist and gasp they can be autistic too.
It would cost me a month and half of wages to get an autism diagnosis, then another month and half of wages if I wanted and ADHD one as well.
So can you maybe see why people sleep diagnose and don’t just get an “official” diagnosis?
I mean you probably don’t given how much a conceited reprobate you are being over this.
Willing to bet you’re one of these autism speaks parents as well.
Yeah bud, so anyway self diagnosing as a fashionable accessory is bullshit, and you can fuck off. It’s called insurance. It costs nothing to get diagnosed, and it’s not that hard to get state assistance, which I did, for their diagnosis, after fighting tooth and nail for 2 and a half years to get my children the help they needed. You clearly have no idea how this works, and I’m not going to go out of my way to explain it to you. Seeing people pretending to have autism (and some who straight up lied about having it-google it, I’m not doing it for you) when I fought so hard to get my kids their diagnosis simply infuriates me, and your spineless melodramatic bullshit isn’t helping . Since you’re going to sling insults at me because you don’t like my opinion, don’t expect me to respect you. Grow the fuck up, get off your ass, stop scrolling tik tok, and actually fight for your diagnosis instead of whining about how you can’t do it. I’m done wasting my time on you.
t’s called insurance. It costs nothing to get diagnosed
Like I knew you were a dumbass and a piece of shit already but my god you just keep getting dumber. Do you think everyone has insurance, can afford insurance, has insurance that covers these kinds of diagnosis, can afford their deductible?
2 and a half years to get my children the help they needed.
Why did they need help? They werent diagnosed at the time right? So they werent actually autistic right? Or did you diagnose them yourself by observing their behaviour?
Also, why did you have to fight so hard if its soooo easy to get a diagnosis? Or are you just bullshitting?
You clearly have no idea how this works,
Imma blow your mind here chief, so you have the USA right? Well theres actually things that exist outside of the USA. (crazy I know) entire countries in fact that have different ways of doing things like autism diagnosis. Im from one of those countries.
nd I’m not going to go out of my way to explain it to you
Well thats good since you clearly dont know wtf youre talking about anyway “iTs CalLeD iNsUrAnCe”
. Seeing people pretending to have autism (and some who straight up lied about having it-google it, I’m not doing it for you) when I fought so hard to get my kids their diagnosis simply infuriates me
So im going to ask you to rub your two braincells together and try to have a coherent thought for once. What do you think is worse? Entitled whiny babies like you being mildly annoyed by people you think are faking it? Or people that genuinely have autism getting harassed by losers like you and not being able to get the care they need.
Like lets make it about you, since thats all people like you actually care about: It took you 2 years for you to get your kids diagnosed, even when you were “fighting tooth and nail” for it on their behalf. And in that time, they were still actually autistic and not getting the help they needed right? How would you feel about someone insisting theyre not actually autistic, and just pretending to get attention and trying to stop them from getting help until you jumped through all those hops? pretty shitty right? So can you imagine that it might be harder for an adult to make that fight on their own? especially when theyre battling with their own Autism or ADHD? So it might take them even longer than 2 years to get a diagnosis?
ince you’re going to sling insults at me because you don’t like my opinion,
Im not slinging insults at you because I dont like your opinion. Im slinging insults at you because you’re a fucking disgraceful excuse for a human being with no compassion for anyone outside of your own life. And im fucking dismayed that you’re going to raise so kids to be exactly as vile of cunt as you are. Those kids deserve better than that. and I would have put my arguments in a nicer way to actually try and convince so, since I do know insulting someone makes them resist change harder, but it was apparent from your first comment that you have your head so far up your own arse that would never listen to a reasonable argument, so I might as well tell you how much a fucking piece of shit you are.
Grow the fuck up, get off your ass, stop scrolling tik tok, and actually fight for your diagnosis instead of whining about how you can’t do it. I’m done wasting my time on you.
Again, not like you care because you very very clearly only think about yourself and have a low key disdain for the poor and neurodivergent, but I have a full time job which is difficult for me (because you know ADHD and autism) and takes up pretty much all of my time and energy and leaves me with very little disposable income, yet I do actually save what I can and a formal diagnosis is one of the things im saving for, but putting together over 3 months salary for it is a tall order that will actually take me at least 3-4 years, and thats assuming prices dont rise further and I dont incur any other big expenses like a car breakdown.
Im sure thats a foreign concept to a classist piece of shit like you, but its the reality the millions upon millions of neurodivergent people face. And if you had literally a SIGNLE IOTA of empathy or compassion in you heart, you would be able to acknowledge it.
Not reading that lol. Since you won’t shut the fuck up, I’m gonna just block you.
Will there be a TikTok dance on TikTok that covers this event?
The Tiktok dance to end all Tiktok dances. Literally.
Nooooo only I should collect data of the entire world!
They never got over Snowden.
