Wow that sounds like a fun way to bankrupt another company
Trump says TikTok should be tweaked to become “100% MAGA”
Submitted 1 day ago by tonytins@pawb.social to technology@lemmy.world
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/09/trump-says-tiktok-should-be-tweaked-to-become-100-maga/
Comments
Formfiller@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 hour ago
He bankrupted a casino, he knows what he’s doing.
I suppose that’s why the people paying for his campaign chose him, to bankrupt a nation you need someone this talented.
Why do they need said nation bankrupt I don’t know, maybe to make it fail while the failure will still be not too gigantic to recover from, and maybe for yet another pump-and-dump scheme, except this time with a country and not an industry. Depends on how optimistic you are about their motives.
4am@lemmy.zip 24 minutes ago
Trump has wanted to destroy the United States since we captured Epstein in 2011 and shut down the best of his trafficking ring. It was never the same after that and that’s why he was suddenly so outspoken about Obama.
Take away a narcissist’s toys and they’ll just vow revenge at all costs. He doesn’t care that he’s destroying millions of lives - we took away his favorite thing; underaged “playmates”.
The rest of them are just assholes who think they can get rich and in some cases, have.
Formfiller@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Russia wanted the us bankrupt and as corrupt as them.
WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
We actually live in a world now in which the President of the United States explicitly states his intent to overtly violate the first amendment and the media just repeats it as if nothing of any note is going on.
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
the media just repeats it
The media reports on it, attempting to do so from a neutral point of view.
I actually appreciate that the professional media is still attempting to stick to a neutral point of view. If they abandon that, you get media like MSNBC and Fox News where every single news story is discussed from a certain political point of view. That just sorts people into camps that listen to the news source that agrees with their perceived notions, which then radicalizes them even more.
If people can’t agree on a basic set of facts, then there’s no point to having a democracy. A media that covers the facts with as little bias as possible is essential to that working.
That isn’t to say that I think the media is doing a great job. The big media companies that are owned by the oligarchs are doing especially badly. When Trump does something like this, responsible media that’s attempting to be unbiased should at least connect historical dots, like other times that presidents have threatened the media, and what the results of that have been.
Valmond@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well the media is owned by them so…
mrmanager@lemmy.today 11 hours ago
I think we actually get to understand now how Hitler came to power. I remember in school, I was mystified how such an hateful man could become a leader of a country. Now I understand.
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 7 hours ago
Every 80 years, some country has to repeat this shit. Sucks it’s on our watch. But best to make the most of it. #NaziPunkFuckOff.
Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
Watching it unfold before me and still I’m baffled. This all still doesn’t make any sense.
pika@lemmy.today 20 hours ago
and the media just repeats it as if nothing of any note is going on.
Mainstream media at least. Thankfully, Arstechnica and The Verge have been shouting from the rooftops at how unconstitutional and fascist the trump regime is being.
dickalan@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
I also heard Vogue magazine is actually not afraid to criticize as well
clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Your first amendment only applies to congress and legislative bodies at state and municipal levels. Private citizens and corporations technically can do whatever they want.
WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca 12 hours ago
Because the public, apart from maybe one kid in Utah, is just sitting there allowing it.
LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
The open corruption, clear as day illegal and unconstitutional moves, and his overall smugness is embarrassing.
The GOP has gone insane to allow this man to continue like this. They are all sick with power and are hoping to “get theirs” next from daddy trump.
They are ALL traitors and should be charged for allowing the crimes to continue.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
“Jesus this”
You voted for Trump
“Free market that”
You voted for Trump
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
But they don’t have the fucking power. They’re letting Trump do whatever he wants, and eroding their own authority in the process.
LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
“I don’t want real power, because with real power comes real responsibility, and I don’t want any of that shit. I just want the money. And the illusion of power. And puss.”
art@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Had to leave Twitter when it became a Nazi site, I can leave TikTok to I guess.
midtsveen@lemmy.wtf 4 hours ago
You know, given how exploitative and harmful TikTok has been from the start, it might have been better never to use it at all, I’m guilty of being on TikTok too, mainly used to keep up with a few artists I listen to, but at the end of the day, the platform is just another exploitative data-harvesting machine.
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I uhhh never used it
Blackmist@feddit.uk 7 hours ago
I never used either. Never really understood the culture of gormlessly scrolling through mind-numbing content.
But then I also gave up broadcast TV before even Netflix was popular. Just spent a small fortune on bargain bin DVDs instead.
Bruhh@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
me nervously doom-scrolling on lemmy via voyager 👀
nieminen@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
There’s a great deal of real news that goes through the app. It’s the majority of the content I see.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Never really understood the culture of gormlessly scrolling through mind-numbing content.
It was less a “cultural thing” and more a functional drift. From the RSS feed to Web2.0 timelines to feed by preference to The Algorithm of ad-promoted content.
Like with email, it wasn’t always just a fountain of spam. Our systems have been deliberately and predatorially enshittified.
BanMe@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I’ve been averse to trends like this, but I did get on Facebook and Insta this summer at the urging of some friends (I run a nonprofit so it’s useful to network). By last week I had both apps on my phone and was just numbscrolling through Insta videos. Realized my mental health had gone to absolute shit in weeks. Deleted the apps andI’m feeling myself again.
It really is dangerous what they’ve created, if I didn’t have ambition, I would be right there zombified.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
It’s mainly the kids and low information adults who are on Tiktok, that’s why it’s popular.
network_switch@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
…wikipedia.org/…/Protecting_Americans_from_Foreig…
I knew this shit would be abused eventually. A year and a half and this publicly though. With how bipartisan support for this there was in congress and publicly, an instance of leaopards eating their face for those certain that safeguards would work/future bills would pass to improve the safeguards (how often does that ever happen? Post-9/11?)
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 10 hours ago
In other words, trump says “Stop looking for the Epstein files!”.
xc2215x@lemmy.world 1 day ago
So like X.
zephiriz@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
I’ll just leave this here.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels
laalaa500@kbin.earth 1 hour ago
Man, I just thought about the AI deep fakes. I never had a Tiktok (and left any remaining social media a long time ago) and I applaud anybody who is jumping ship right now. But the brain drain is extremely dangerous with the AI stuff.
Juice@midwest.social 4 hours ago
Maga should totally mess around with social media censorship, worked out great in Indonesia
the_wise_wolf@feddit.org 14 hours ago
MangioneDontMiss@feddit.nl 12 hours ago
Goddamn this is dark. Just when can i expect people to ever start actually fighting back in any sort of tangibly productive manner? We are so fucked.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 9 hours ago
Just when can i expect people to ever start actually fighting back in any sort of tangibly productive manner?
Never. Fighting takes strength and the typical american is chronically burned out.
NoodlePoint@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Makes me rage that millions died defeating that megalomaniac, only now several of his ilk have sprung up with viciousness in the last two decades.
AshCircuit@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
If that’s what it takes for people to stop using that stupid a** social media, I’m all for it.
maxxadrenaline@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
glad you bend over so easily. Saves whoever the cost of lube even.
slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org 4 hours ago
Bend over for what? We need to fight for the braindead app for idiots.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 1 day ago
Trump says TikTok should be tweaked to become “100%
Me says posts that start with “Trump says” should be tweaked to become 100% invisible.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away, though
fluxion@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
It would if they didn’t own all the media companies and got undue attention for their insane lies
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 14 hours ago
Someone should time travel back to the early 20th century and tell the labor organizers that settled for the New Deal this fact.
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 23 hours ago
The moment Trump says any sort of number the event should just end, return to your regularly scheduled programming, no need for any further attention because you know for a fact that everything he says past that point is complete fiction without a shred of usefulness to anybody.
No one’s going to convince me that an accurate numerical figure has ever passed through that man’s lips, and if it did, it was a cosmic accident.
shiroininja@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m glad I never installed that shitty app
NormalOnNSFW@lemmynsfw.com 3 hours ago
I used it for the first and last time after Charlie Kirk, because it was one of the few places where the memes were more or less unmoderated. They’re going to have a fun time trying to crack down on that I guess.
dickalan@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
I used to be like you I used to think it was just full of young kids doing silly dances, turns out a lot of information doesn’t really need more than two or three minutes to explain it and everything else is fluff so yeah, it’s a great place. I don’t know where this hate comes from.
shiroininja@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Short form video is the single best propaganda machine there is. You don’t get context, so it’s easy to manipulate events. Also, for some reason, people really fall for the “authority” of since rando talking into a camera like they know what the hell they’re talking about.
Every time somebody shows me a TikTok video as a reference or to make a point, the information is either fake or completely incorrect.
Not to mention, The algorithm feeds you more of these talking heads and makes you think it’s the general consensus
Lfrith@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
For me its general dislike for influencers and platforms where people are encouraged to put a face behind content, go viral, and make money off of tend to attract those type of content made by those who end up coming off like aspiring infomercial hosts. Like labubu I didn’t even know about until South Park, so it was like kind of awe inspiring what a huge hive mind of mass reach it can be for those part of it.
But then again I don’t like twitch and most big YouTube content creators either for a similar reason, so might be just an anomaly.
I’ve like more the social media where people interact for the sake of interacting, since the foundation for potential monetary pay off or fame just is really poor for that. So more message board type stuff like lemmy, reddit, and old school forums.
zwerg@feddit.org 14 hours ago
Then why not write a blog? I hate videos. If Im looking for information, give me something I can scan and digest properly.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 14 hours ago
Mobile web or bust.
And man have some websites gone bust…
plyth@feddit.org 10 hours ago
What can be done to let loops.video profit from this even more than mastodon profited from the end of Twitter?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Tiktok was China’s soft propaganda because they suppressed unfavorable content rather then promote favorable content. Trump going full MAGA with it would kill the platform because people use tiktok to stop thinking about distressing things. Not be exposed to more of it.
littletranspunk@lemmus.org 21 hours ago
Sure, it’ll just kill the app in the US because fascists lack any creativity so it’ll become a stale echo chamber before people just leave
betanumerus@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
He isn’t even trying to be an American president. Only to his lie-loving MAGA.
Tigeroovy@lemmy.ca 21 hours ago
Oh sure, but it’s the lefties who are in their echo chambers.
queueBenSis@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
and that is what we call another piece of their propaganda machine
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
TikTok was never good. Have at it.
Though, he is always free to start his own MAGA-themed video service, much like he did with Truth Social. I think the problem is — and if he doesn’t know it, he’s been advised, with crayons and hand puppets — that running a server serving video is orders of magnitude more expensive than running a server hosting a text-based social network.
MangioneDontMiss@feddit.nl 12 hours ago
i really think you are minimizing how bad this is. This is the government weaponizing social media, much like elon musk weaponized twitter. Only this time, the social media is directly own by a fascist government regime. This is a massive massive conflict of interest which is going to 100% turn tik tok into a propaganda machine.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
TikTok was run by a fascist regime: China. It’s just, most Americans are not of much interest to Beijing. Their intelligence probably wants to know what is trendy in America so it can better appeal to us and influence our elections to serve their interests, but Beijing is probably not concerned at all with you or I as individuals. But if they can get us to vote for a candidate they support by showing us the parts of that candidate that we agree with, we can be used as a tool by Beijing. Now Washington wants that power.
I don’t like it either way.
3abas@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
TikTok and Instagram were never good, but they provided a platform for people on the streets to provide real time updates on current events that countered the state narrative/propaganda on main stream media.
TikTok and Instagram exposed the truth about the American empire to a significant portion of the population. They want to make sure it’s all controlled state approved content, they want to eliminate our ability to reach eyes and ears.
So sure, have at the Chinese propaganda platform, but not without an alternative that allows us to reach wide audiences… And we don’t have an alternative… Not enough people are on the fediverse and the learning curve is pretty massive.
MangioneDontMiss@feddit.nl 12 hours ago
they’ve made protest illegal by classifying antifa as terrorist, now they’re coming after social media to make sure there is no outlet for protest online either. I don’t think people are making a big enough deal about this. This is extremely bad.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
Eh, I’ll “have at” TikTok for being shit because historically, it has been. It’s driven by memes and trash.
That said, over the past couple years I’ve heard lots of good things. “BookTok” and other -Tok’s being communities within the service — I admit I don’t know how it is because I’ve never used it — but also, the rapid decline of YouTube has made me seriously consider getting on TikTok just to have something different. My resolve to be anti-TikTok has greatly reduced over the last couple years, as an “old guy” who does not like “social media”.
So yeah, credit where it’s due.
I’d love for the Fediverse to have a strong alternative, but again, the costs of running a video server that is anywhere close to being “widely used”…
ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Gen Z is so dumb that they’re all going to be Nazis is 6 months.
Romkslrqusz@lemmy.zip 23 hours ago
Most of Gen Z are in their twenties and capable of thinking for themselves. Generally speaking, they’ve grown up accustomed to and accepting of neurodivergence, gender fluidity, and the spectrum of sexualities.
It’s the younger and older generations I’m more worried about.
mycodesucks@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
They’re also MUCH more susceptible to misinformation and propaganda than the “in-between” generations. They aren’t as affected by traditional media, sure, but their new media sources are heavily propagandized, with visibility manipulated by the worst people in the world. They might HEAR about the dangers of misinformation or propaganda in the periphery, but with their primary interface being a handful of apps on a mobile device, there’s not much they can do about it without extensive education they aren’t getting.
scintilla@crust.piefed.social 22 hours ago
You see that you’re doing the generations thing right? Like you are doing the “lazy millennials” thing but just at a different generation. You’re falling for their propaganda.
Soup@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Only 54% of Gen Z voted for Harris and Gen Z males have a pretty big far-right problem. It’s not random nonsense about eating dirt or being on their phones, they’re actually being pretty fucking awful at way too high a rate for people that young.
echodot@feddit.uk 21 hours ago
How does even decide when the various generation start and stop it seems so random.
Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 1 day ago
I scoff at your statement, O' Lizard!
ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I wonder if gen Z has media literacy. I am expecting approximately 0% to discontinue TicTok as result of the acquisition.
egrets@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Psst… O, not O’ - it’s the vocative particle, not a contraction of of or on.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 14 hours ago
Its the billionaires against the working class, not generations fighting generations.
lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
As an older Gen Z, this generation is very split. The Gen Z in their twenties are extremely progressive and left-leaning, whereas younger Gen Z are deep in the alt-right pipeline. Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone, but Gen Z really is two generations smooshed into one.
regedit@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
It’s the incel/red-/black-pill bullshit. I am an older millennial, turned 41 yesterday, in fact, and I have noticed the split in the gen-Z generation. At some point a lot stopped trying to grow as a person and started blaming women and minorities for why they were single and unfavorable to their preferred mates/society. Accountability and integrity just sort of stopped mattering to them when it became easier and more socially acceptable to be a shitty person and still gain fans/clout/etc.
Then comes along all these ‘bros’ who sell them this idea that their problem is just not being a big enough dick and being rich, loud, and large, Eden if you have to fake it until you make it. They promote the debunked study of alpha males and champion the grind, self-made mentality while pinning the blame for their future failures on outside factors like immigration and higher ed.
I had high hopes that we could unfuck the world together, with the leadership of gen-Z, but I didn’t think republican enough about how far the backslide would be. Now, I just expect to see the world crumble as the younger gen are lambs to the slaughter for the wars, sports, and land grabs of the ultra-rich.
al_Kaholic@lemmynsfw.com 17 hours ago
Looks around everything is still fucked on earth and climate change is gonna kill us all, did it even fucking matter we didn’t become Nazis -mostly S . Seriously I want to leave.
blattrules@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
I never used it because of the Chinese government affiliation. I’d feel even less inclined to use it with maga affiliation.
dickalan@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
It being outside of the United States and outside of United States control was an absolute benefit for me, What was your reason for hating it while it was under Chinese control?
blattrules@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
There are multiple reasons for me. First and foremost is the data collection that they’ve been accused of; I know American companies do the same thing, but there’s something more nefarious about a state run data collection scheme than a public company collecting data to sell you ads, which I’m also trying to avoid as much as possible. Next, I don’t support their labor practices - using child, slave (Uyghurs) and cheaper labor is a big deterrent. I realize that some level of that is unavoidable with the way our society is based, but I don’t really need another social media outlet in my life anyway, so it’s a really easy cut for me.
Zannsolo@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Trump creams in his pants thinking about having the control the Chinese government has.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Well, this is one way to kill tiktok
slaacaa@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
It didn’t kill twitter. It might be shit, but still used by hundreds of millions, and is a popular public communications outlet
tehn00bi@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
As with all social media, as soon as grandma and grandpa get on, it all goes down hill.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
hope he does it and it’s the thing that kills tiktok.
Siegehammer85@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
MAGA youth recruitment and education platform
neuromorph@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
So desperate to propagandize the youth.
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
So, Trump effectively nationalized TikTok, valued at $300b. He sells it to friendly oligarchs for $15b. So far, this is basically the post-USSR playbook, and how Roman Abravmovich, Alisher Usmanov, Vladimir Lisin, etc. got so rich.
But it might piss off his oligarch buddies if he drives all the users off TikTok making what seemed like a steal into something worthless instead.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 hour ago
In ex-USSR that happened as something destructive, but in USA honestly it’s normal, using institutional pressure to help friendly businesses. Trump is unusual only in how grotesque he is in his position, but history saw Talleyrand.
And US sanctioned Japan just because some of its businesses couldn’t compete, which didn’t kill Japanese car industry, but hurt Japanese computer industry, and sent Japan into recession from which it didn’t quite recover.
About driving users off - that doesn’t really happen unless you intentionally break everything. VKontakte be the experiment showing this, except TG was later made based on VK makers’ experience with social stuff, and was very successful, and is now basically the most convenient messaging\social platform. When something FOSS manages to reproduce the experience of TG, then FOSS messaging and social systems stand a chance. So - some of the life moved from VK to TG, but it’s more of VK’s experience stagnating and being too complex and overloading, not of people fleeing it.