this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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China blocks a lot, lot more than just Facebook, so to try and conflate the two is disingenuous at best and trolling at worst. I'm also very skeptical of this idea that TikTok is the only platform where organization can occur. Maybe this pushes them to the Fediverse, or to more established methods like Telegram, but it's not going to be this great silencing of young voices.
I'd also like to point out that many of the media sources that are picking up on this as a horrible ban are owned by people who like to sow division like Murdoch, or are affiliated with ByteDance. Checking for unbiased sources is pretty big on a topic like this, and I would absolutely ignore anything posted on TikTok at a minimum.
We are heading towards a world where Americans are prevented from accessing a social media that the rest of the world can access. This is undeniable. It's disingenuous to suggest that this is not like the Chinese ban on foreign social media's.
It's worrying that people such as yourself are willing to take on the same playbook as a government you supposedly hate.
It's worth noting I am not American, I will not be affected by this ban. I just see America slipping into a bad place. You aren't immune to propaganda, and you aren't questioning this stuff enough. Next time, it'll be for something you don't guttrally hate, and no one will be supporting you then.
Maybe I just don't want a platform controlled by a country actively committing a genocide to be able to shape the narrative around another genocide? Maybe I don't want to offer a country that kidnaps and retrains dissidents access to data they can use to target foreign dissidents? Maybe I think that a power that actively targets American institutions with cyberattacks on a regular basis shouldn't also have access to the minds of millions of Americans via an algorithm that is seriously, dangerously addictive?
Like in what world are people seriously coming to the defense of China? What, we suddenly trust a dictatorship that openly and brazenly wants to destabilize Western nations? We trust that ByteDance is very independent and totally cool and doesn't have to support the CCP at gunpoint at all?
I think people are massively understating the power that control over these platforms offers, and massively overstating the impact they have. Massive protests were successfully organized way before TikTok, they will continue to be organized after it is gone. This isn't the herald of the end of social media in the U.S. If anything, perhaps a Fediverse alternative could spring up to fill the gap, which is by far the best platform for organizing.
The amount of sanity thats suddenly shown up in this thread is throwing me for a loop. Am i still on Lemmy here?!
More seriously, Chinese propaganda on here is all over the place in 3 forms,
The shit ur calling out: "ccp good, murica bad. Western media all propaganda, consume more state media from "leftist" regimes."
The pre-deflection, "idk why ppl say russian/chinese propaganda is on lemmy, theres none to be found." Quickly then backed up with another 1 or 2 echoing, "yeah, ive seen nothing of this nature here at all."
And then the most difficult to convince the bystanders of, "if u think im parroting chinese/russian talking points, ur just a dirty neolib who hates true leftism!" Followed immediately by 15 more comments just underneath circlejerking over how leftist opinions are oppressed, all true leftists get called tankies but also tankies dont exist, and pretty much muddying the waters of what leftist theory is typically about (e.x. having a currency, market, and or billionaires is not antithetical to communism).
No one's defending China. Everyone is calling out America's hypocrisy and the slide into doing the same shit that China does. If anything, we're trying to warn that America is becoming a China to fight China.