Tone down the conspiracy theory angle. It's lemmy, you can get more interaction by mentioning capitalism rather than censorship.
Comment on Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to Biden, who has already committed to signing it
lautan@lemmy.ca 2 months agoFrom what I know, certain special interests want TikTok under their control so they can censor certain topics. People keep saying this is happening because of CCP, etc. But I believe they want this platform “censored” before the elections. The other major players already play ball with censorship but TikTok caught them by surprise.
sincle354@kbin.social 2 months ago
Korkki@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s the only big non-US owned social media. They hate that because it’s much harder to control. It’s not even about the profits to be had, tiktok gets more eyeballs and especially it gets the young people’s attention and has more public thrusts than all of the MSM combined. It’s not much more complex than that. “Chinese spying on Americans” is just projection of what all the other platforms do.
Those who push this will not be happy no matter what Tiktok does or whatever concessions it makes. They already hold american data in American and EU data in the EU for example. Did that stop the “muh CCP influence” propaganda? Well, no… Their main goal would be to get Bytedance to sell the platform to Americans, atleast the american business. I guess they would rather let it get banned and sacrifice American or even all the western markets than to let that happen. It would be a loss to them either way.
alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The platform is already pretty censored, mentions of Palestine get fucked by the algo, I barely even see it from people I follow if I don’t look up their past videos.
But I could imagine that’s the impetus for congress, we Trump try the same thing after Tiktok was used to organize ~a milliojn people RSVPing free tickets to a trump rally, resulting in him doing his shtick infront of like 100 people in a stadium. He only stopped after a major donor asked him not to, and it was very unpopular. Now dems are in Trumps position after hearing the kids are using Tiktok to organize against them, of course they’d make the same calculation and try to ban it.
PhAzE@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Not sure what you know, but here’s the head of the FBIs statement about why.
lautan@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Not this guy again. In my opinion they tell us small truths like CCP bad, etc. Which isn’t wrong but they’re concealing the true motivation. Why ban it now? Not two years ago? It’s because TikTok needs to be under better control for the upcoming election and in the future. We already know big tech all work in concert to conceal topics for the US.
just_another_person@lemmy.world 2 months ago
😂
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Why would it have unanimous bi-partisan support in the Senate if the bill had weight on the election results?
bassomitron@lemmy.world 2 months ago
To be devil’s advocate: We already know China loves to be meddlin’ in Western elections, so both parties have a vested interest in getting them out of their pants.
That being said, China can easily meddle all over the place, so I don’t consider that the primary motivator. Like I said before, this is 98% about protectionism.
thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
TikTok is a massively powerful tool of influence and intelligence, in the hands of an adversary that is well understood to proactively meddle with democratic elections.
Yes, obviously the CCP will unabashedly pursue other interference vectors. That should be viewed as more reason to curtail TikTok, not less.
bassomitron@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You’re missing the point, though. China has sizable stakes in multiple social media platforms and popular videogames (like Fortnite). But the fact those are all primarily owned by US companies makes it okay.
TikTok is a threat to Meta and Co’s dominance and American companies can’t simply buy it out to make it go away or at least make it directly benefit them. Don’t mistake me in saying it isn’t a national security threat. What I’m saying is, if TikTok is a threat, then all of these corporate platforms are a threat. The government should targeting all of them! But they’re not, and the reason seems pretty obvious to me.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They have until January 19th to divest, with a 90-day extension if they are pursuing sale. They aren’t mandating that it be done by November’s election regardless of the outcome.
bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Seriously, going through these comments, it’s clear most people didn’t read the article or didn’t learn how calendars work in school (or are part of the Russian Internet Research Agency and trying to sow doubt in Biden).
Based on the timeline, it’s clear the intention wasn’t to protect against the 2024 election, since the potential ban would go in place after the election happens.