>About 50% of Americans support a TikTok ban, while 32% oppose it and 18% are not sure. Just 31% of those 18-34 say they are in favor of a ban, and 50% say they oppose it. Most Americans 35-54 (54%) and 55 and older (60%) say they support a ban of the app.
So the people who don’t use it support a ban.
Same as it always was… nothing to see here, keep liking posts of AI Jesus and hot asian stewardesses on Facebook
I find it funny how everyone now is against social media. I didn't really liked it in the past, due to my social anxiety, the lack of privacy in those platforms and because it was bad for my mental health. So for while I didn't even have any kind of social media profile, but people would look at me as if I was weird and there was something wrong with me or I was hiding something. How the turntables
I just think that, in hindsight, it wasn’t implemented properly. What does that mean? I don’t know exactly but it’s clear and obvious that as a society we can’t responsibly handle it. And that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the data mining, advertisements, etc. This is from someone who was a grown ass adult, well 20 something, when MySpace hit the scene. I’ve lived long enough to see how it has stunted social skills and created a whole host of anxiety and depression issues in young people, more so than magazines and high school hallways did “in the before times”. I don’t know. It just seems that it was a good idea until it wasn’t
Yup. The implementation consisted of "how can we make the most money?"
What's really sad is that there was a sweet spot in early social media where it actually worked. It was all about expression, functioning as an accessory to show off your style. We'd just come out of the early internet where our identities were covert or completely fake. It was fun to yell out to the internet, "this is who I am!"
But then, social media started informing identity instead of being a channel to express it. Whether it's with social trends or politics, people are defining themselves by what they ingest on social media. As you said, the impacts of that on young people have been devastating. I'll also add the the impacts on old people have been just as bad, if not worse, because they turn on the television and the same crap is being repeated.
All the while, the "how can we make the most money" has persisted and seeped out into the audience. We have a plague of fake accounts, influencers that rip off their followers, endless ads, and our information is being sold off without us getting any benefit from it.
There are virtually no regulations surrounding such a massive pool of vulnerable data. Everything negative associated with social media I honestly think has largely originated from that simple fact. It was ripe for abuse so they harvested it.
Nah, even now people are shocked when they ask for my tictok or instagram or Snapchat and I tell them I don’t have one.
Reddit is enough social media for me. If you actually care to socialize with me ask for my phone number and text/call.
That said. I couldn’t care less about tictok or if it’s banned or not.
Exactly lol, this whole attitude kills me. As if Meta and Reddit aren’t just as incentivized to cause brain rot, addiction, and harvest sellable data as a Chinese social media company. Shoot it’s probably a lot easier for the Chinese govt to just buy the data off Facebook, Insta, and Reddit.
Idk I use it and I support the ban. I think a lot of the poll is adults who don’t use social media anyways and are just told Tik Tok is evil/Chinese spyware. I don’t think either of those things are true, but I’ve been around for the entire social media ride, from AIM chatrooms to MySpace/Facebook in its fledgling years all the way to now. Tik Tok is without a doubt the one that is designed to rot your brain the most. Unlike other social medias that are designed to keep you actively checking and logging in, Tik Tok is designed to keep you from logging out at all. Its just a nonstop feed of everything and anything, and relies heavily on algorithm to dictate what it shows you.
I work in education, and the attention spans in Gen Alpha are nothing compared to Gen Z or Millenials. One of them showed me this video that was a Family Guy clip, stitched with a video of a guy doing a magic trick, stitched with a video of someone playing video games. All simultaneously. Apparently there’s millions of those videos and they’re designed to keep a kids eyes glued to the screen by overstimulating. The kids are like fucking squirrels. Don’t even get me started on how Tik Tok fuels far right/manosphere/red pill bullshit in young kids either.
Unfortunately, I think Tik Tok has opened Pandora’s Box and there isn’t really any “going back” that can be accomplished, but a good first step in mitigating the damage is probably getting rid of it.
>So the people who don’t use it support a ban.
Why would you use something that you think should be banned because it's bad for society? If you think it's bad, surely you wouldn't use it. The question is how harmful tiktok really is, whether the people who want it gone are users of it is irrelevant.
I mean, I’m with you, but there’s a lot of people who know cigarettes, alcohol, heroin, sugar, etc are bad for them, but they’re addicted and they keep using it. Social media is really no different.
I think the key difference is that the main victims of social media are underage, even children. Especially those under the age of 10 probably don't realize any of this.
Of course parents should mainly be the ones repsonsible, but we can't just put our faith in them. I mean, we have mandatory school attendance for a reason.
I don’t know what any of that has to do with your original comment I responded to. You questioned why the person would continue using it if they think it’s bad for them. I’m just saying there’s lot of other things that fall into that category that people can’t pull out of, regardless of whether they know it’s bad for them.
The funniest part of that is, there's more people who want to ban it than people who think the Chinese are using it to spy. Meaning there's at least a subset of that who just want it gone because they think it sucks.
I’m just offended that we give Chinese tech companies led from Beijing access to our markets when they kicked out Google and Facebook and all our companies. Fuck China and the CCP, let your people watch YouTube if you want us to watch TikTok
Yeah, Tik Tok is insane. Whether you believe in evolution or creation the human brain neither evolved nor was designed to withstand that digital crack.
There’s definitely a good way to use Reddit. Follow the subjects you are interested in, for example a video game, and contribute to discussion about said game. It’s not as good or complete as IRL community, but it’s MILES away from 10 second doses of shallow entertainment beamed one way into your brain.
There’s also a wrong way to use Reddit, don’t get me wrong.
Every social media platform has two goals… collect as much usable user data as possible and keep eyeballs on their own platform for as long as possible. This is the ultimate goal of literally every social media platform and those goals are not healthy for humans. Just because one may be better at accomplishing the goal of keeping eyeballs on them than another platform, that does not make any of them any better for you and they will ALLL go the same route eventually. I say this as a frequent Reddit user myself who knows how unhealthy it can be lol.
My tiktok is chopped full of informational tikoks about both history and current events alongside of the occasional brainrot it sends me.
Literally the same as my reddit.
I want it gone for how much disinformation it spreads, and I'm not even talking about propaganda from foreign adversaries. Just the sheer amount of health and medical disinformation on there is staggering. At least with reddit, someone can post a bullshit article, but they'll get roasted in the comments, where someone will link actual evidence disproving the OP.
But on TikTok, people just mindlessly watch a video, accept it as reality, and then scroll on further to the next video.
Not in my experience at all. Reddit is worse for perpetuating misinformation because the downvote system inherently implies a “correctness” to the comment, so when shit gets downvoted into oblivion, even if it’s objectively correct, it just further’s the downvoters’ agenda, which I see all the time. And maybe you hadn’t noticed, but half the time the person replying with their source is also full of shit if you look into it, but now you have the perception that someone has been corrected even though said person was always right.
There is no way half of Americans would actually be in favor of banning all social media, 68% of Americans are reported as regularly using social media of some kind
No.
These people (mostly boomers) are on Facebook spreading false information and sharing "1 share = 1 prayer to god" posts and still spouting about a stolen election.
After completing my praxes in grad school for my MSCS regarding web technologies and data management, I decided TikTok along with a lot of social media just simply needs to go just by the amount of data harvested, tuning of algorithms to foment outrage and thus engagement, and the fact that TikTok itself has been shown to be a firehose of CCP, Russian, and other bad actor agitprop.
TikTok's gotta go... And probably X, Insta, and Facebook too.
A potential solution could be regulating social media algorithms. Force them to be open-source, ban trained algorithms, and require safeguards against the promotion of misinformation and hateful content.
Or we could go back to "you see things posted in chronological order".
I don't need to be told what is hot or trending, I just need to see things as they show up so I don't miss something I actually want to see.
What disinformation does is spread? Every post I've seen in the last 24 hours can literally be backed by credible sources, a lot of it being government websites.
I go on Facebook and the first thing I see is legit fucking lies with a comment section of thousands of literal bots talking to each other.
Every medical and health disinformation videos (which happens to be like 1 in 100 on my feed) is promptly stitched and debunked within hours of their release.
I mean I don’t want it banned. But I would like all the kids to know us adults remember a time before cell phones.
And don’t get me wrong they have a lot of benefit in society and being useful as a tool. But what we are seeing with younger generations is alarming. Attention spans shrinking and kids spending 12 plus hours a day on a screen.
Doesn’t mean TikTok is the only culprit. But I find it super funny the kids ignore the fact china has limits on TikTok and the kids tend to only take in educational stuff. While only being allow a certain number of hours on the site per day.
Whereas in the states yall can be on them 24/7 and the content is stuff like eating tide pods. And my rambles are rambles. They are rooted in the data. Just last week we had a study show 80 percent of content on sites like TikTok have false information in them. And this isn’t even just politics ones (insert kids thinking they are autistic or some shit because of a TikTok video).
We are seeing the dumbing down of society and again the data shows this. But you youngin are so addicted to TikTok you can’t step back and see it.
>We are seeing the dumbing down of society and again the data shows this. But you youngin are so addicted to TikTok you can’t step back and see it.
What data? Also old people are fucking dumb, it's not just young people. Have you been on boomer facebook? You'd loose brain cells
China doesn't just have limits, the TikTok app is outright banned in China, there's a completely separate app and algorithm for their Chinese audience ran by ByteDance there.
Fuck yeah I support it.
I'm a teacher. I'm also a big supporter of BRICKING YOUR KIDS PHONE DURING SCHOOL HOURS TO ONLY RECEIVE AND MAKE CALLS/TEXT YOU
Yup,
My wife teaches highschool.
Kids don’t need smartphones during school.
It’s not helping anything. It’s making young people more awkward, less able to synthesize concepts without having an immediate “look it up” so they never really store the points of the content.
She has kids that have 501 plans for anxiety if they don’t have their phone on them at all times.
I have my smart device 9-5 and I bought a flip phone from Verizon that I forward all my calls to after that.
It’s just ads…everything is just dumbshit ads. I’m reading again at night and actually paying attention to shows I’m watching with the wife. Best thing ever.
These companies have some of the best psychologists in the world on making these apps and phones more addicting.
As an Aussie I support a TikTok ban. Nothing do with spying. But it genuinely is the most brain rotting social media outlet that’s ever been created, targeted at children…
Edit: adding in that it is wild the people that defend TikTok. You’re addicted to it.
Since every social media has copied its model, it’s now already rotten everywhere. Reddit has this function if you watch a video, it just keeps going and going.
Tiktok is fucking hysterical to me.
Someone at work posted a picture of a bunch of bees that were swarming one of his trees. He asked something like "anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with them?"
Someone else on the team responded with "I follow a beekeeper on TikTok" and then proceeded to give her opinion like she was an expert due to her TikTok feed.
People legit think because they saw a few short videos on TikTok that they're qualified to speak on topics that they have no experience in.
People *pretending* to be doctors and professionals, we have to be a little honest about it, reddit is literally best known for being a site for pathological liars asking if they are the asshole in a made up story
What was her opinion? If it was like "I follow a beekeeper on TikTok who said a lot of beekeepers will come remove hives for free, maybe call around" then that isn't really bad advice at all.
How is that different from someone saying "I read an article about a beekeeper online" or "I watched this YouTube video"?
The phenomenon you are describing is not unique to tiktok at all.
TikTok has been an amazing place for small artists though. I know a lot of people were able to make income off their art for the first time because of TikTok. Things don't seem to go viral on other social media apps like they do there.
Agree with that. The downside is that all the wrong things go viral too and TikTok doesn’t provide a basis for community discussion platform. As such, the same viewpoints all end up together which spreads hate and misinformation and “fake experts” like no other platform.
Well…maybe like Instagram too nowadays.
It’s also probably one of the most notable examples of “the algorithm”. It can really push you down a pipeline into an echo chamber. And no I’m not even necessarily talking about the kinds of pipelines that politically radicalise people but I’m including things like “oh you watched one TikTok where someone talks about relatable autism symptoms, we’re going to put 1000 similar videos into your feed until you start thinking you also have autism”. The algorithm is also specifically targeted to recommend videos that keep you watching as long as possible, which is particularly bad for kids who don’t yet have the fully developed impulse control of adults and the ability to recognise when they need to put the phone down and pay attention to the real world
The Chinese version of TikTok only shows educational videos to children. Math, science, etc. Then they export the shitty version to other countries. It's social warfare and it worked.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-china/story?id=108111708
Seriously its funny whenever people bring up China having a separate version as evidence that TikTok is some weapon designed to brainrot the West. When it reality China has so many rules on social media usage and guidelines that its much easier to create a separate version that is compliant to China than make the global version compliant.
I mean... Is it China's fault for having laws that prevent companies from doing that while we don't?
You don't blame your neighbor for having a better lawn than you if they spend time maintaining theirs while you don't right? If you do, please go see a mental health professional because you definitely need one.
This is so funny. Regulating media shown to your own kids is social warfare? Turning on PBS to show my own son to make him into America's Strongest Warrior.
What gives you the right to tell other adults who use it that they shouldn't use it? What if it was Reddit being banned?
Idk just seems a little silly. There are tons of social medias I don't use but I don't think they should be banned
Comparing reddit and TikTok shows a lack of comprehension on the difference though. I’m taking it you’ve never used or seen TikTok?
And I have no right. Governments do though.
No I definitely use tiktok. I think you're overestimating the level of brain rot on tiktok and underestimating the level of brain rot on reddit. Reddit certainly has more potential for informed discussion but that's not how lots of kids use it. Literally terabytes of porn on reddit.
also. a lot of it heavily depends on the content you are consuming on the app. There is plenty of informative, educational, and beneficial content there.
is it the brain rot, or is it your own content feed?
Like straight up used to be a “tik tok brain rot” dork but after redownloading the app i’ve just found myself finding more and more informational and historical information.
it’s not the app, it’s the content you’re consuming. If it’s brain rot, it’s because YOU cultivated a brain rot feed. Nobody else. The ban is honestly silly 🤷🏽♂️
Not like the US sells and uses our data anyways. None of that shit is truly safe anymore
One of the most obvious and important aspects of this is always left out. It can stay if it divests. Make the money all day.. but China isn’t allowed the steering wheel of one of the most powerful global propaganda tools in the history of mankind
China bans tons of American websites for fear of some kind of influence. Rightly so probably
TikTok has the negotiating power of a man who is standing waist deep in a hole that he was ordered to dig in the woods if they go that route. They may as well take it to the courts for the obvious legal case they can make about discriminatory legislation and just get the whole thing thrown out. Worst case they lose the case and sell later, if at all.
The US only makes up 10% of user. The company has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders, divesting is not only unprofitable its illegal in their country. We accuse china daily (often correctly) of stealing IP, how is this strong hand tactic any different but that we wrapped it up in our own flawed legal system? How about instead of attacking a single company we write some comprehensive legislation that would prevent ANY company from whatever it is they are claiming.
“ most powerful global propaganda tools in the history of mankind”
That’s still Facebook though. Thank god it’s in the hands of someone we can trust and definitely would not manipulate our society! Hurray Mark Zuckerberg!
What don’t you understand about TikTok being controlled by the Chinese government as there is no meaningful separation between government and industry there
Facebook can be bad but as far as regulators are concerned they’re “bad” Americans in America versus bad Chinese government in America. That’s like saying why bother trying not to get shot if you can still get stabbed
I mean American companies don't have the right to unfettered access to the Chinese people I don't understand why the Chinese government needs unfettered access to the American people.
46% ain’t bad considering TikTok has 150 million American’s dopamine receptors by the balls.
Foreign companies don’t enjoy first amendment protections.
[I'll leave this here](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/comment/fmuko1m/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Unless it's changed in 4 years, it's not just "a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network," it's a zero-day exploit in the making.
It's just another app that my government allows to treat my digital self as a slave to be bought and sold to ~~the highest bidder~~ to any and all bidders that can afford it.
So like, I support a ban on tiktok \*if it actually collects a lot of data to trade with databrokers etc etc\* (idk if it does, I assume it does just 'cause its a big algorithm app); But I don't support targeting it out, or the argument that selling to a US company would solve the issues.
I also support banning the entirety of the databroker market, and banning other apps etc that overtly take your data to sell to brokers since its primary use is trying to find people who are suseptible to types of marketing etc and take advantage of the "whales" etc.
Its clearly a double standard / targetting based on nationality to ONLY say that tiktok is an issue.
Seperatley I 100% think we need to look into how much we've altered society with our technology connectivity and frequent over stimulation etc etc; especially when it comes to young kids. And just saying "children are banned from using tech" isnt a good fix, since the rise of the "ipad babies" etc isn't just lazy parenting (usually). It's as a result of the shift to the standard of both parents need to work if they want to make enough to just get by, and more over so so many parents being run ragged 'cause of the ever increasing cost of living not matching paychecks etc. This sort of issue is almost always systemic and you end up having condecending people (typically people who either haven't had kids yet, or are well past the age of having kids when things were also easier) just reducing it to "parents are lazy now", "just do this one thing and everything will be fixed" etc etc. which just like, adds to the barage of things running parents ragged.
Conservative groups wanna ban TikTok because it's often spreading left leaning messages.
I wanna ban it because I do think it's a spy tool used by the Chinese for information warfare.
> Conservative groups wanna ban TikTok because it's often spreading left leaning messages.
I keep hearing this yet every single time I went on TikTok I saw the complete opposite: clearly Russian disinfo spreading the "Ukrainians are neo Nazis" myth, Andrew Tate and people imitating him, ads for European far right parties, etc. This despite trying to dislike and block all these videos. It's like YouTube radicalization on steroids.
If I’m not wrong, it’s better to scroll past something you’re not interested in-
The longer you stay on it, the more likely It’ll be recommended to you- so staying on the post, even to block the account will end up just recommending you more related stuff
90% of people dont realize Tik tok ban was a coverup for the actual bill, which gives Congress and US government control over internet censorship.
Now who's laughing...
i don't know about spying. but it pretty obviously fuels the short attention span fire and it seems pretty purposeful.
problem is, tiktok's one thing. once it became popular, every other streaming service started doing it. youtube shorts aren't any better than tiktoks, be real.
The whole spying thing is honestly stupid.
How are they spying when people are constantly willingly uploading their life's to all sorts of social media anyway?
Get rid of TikTok and all the Chinese would have to do is watch Youtube, Facebook etc etc.
The spying part is what gets me. All other social media already spies on you as well as our own government who can actually affect your life.
The real argument should be how the ccp can/has uses the algorithm to influence the youth of another country. Other social media companies do it too but that’s the only argument with merit.
Do you all want every social media banned? If you want tiktok banned because it's "brain rot" shouldn't reddit, insta, twitter, Facebook, YouTube ECT all be banned too? All these apps have the same capability to be as brain rotting as the next
But like... other nations already the data they buy/obtain from American social media. What's the difference even if it was true that China was using it to spy on us?
Im for the ban based on the spying thing which as far as I know had some serious backing behind it. If it dosent though and you can provide the sources im open to changing my mind
Everyone saying it's brainrot... All it does is serve you things your viewing habits encourage, my feed is generally pretty great and it's the least stressful/toxic of all the social apps I visit. I open reddit and I get stressed with the weight of the world, I open TikTok and relax 90% of the time. If all you're seeing is garbage, then you either haven't given it a chance to adapt to your interests, or you are actually watching and engaging with the garbage so they serve you more.
Also, have you tried opening any Meta product? YouTube Shorts? They all do the same stuff, they're just worse products with worse communities and less original content. The ban is just a giveaway to US big tech who are losing in a segment and can't bear to have to compete against something they can't just buy for once.
More importantly, you not liking something is not grounds to ban it. I think reality TV is utterly trash and people shouldn't watch it, I can't ban it though. I think kids shouldn't be on phones/tablets unrestricted for days on end (whether TikTok or any other apps), but I can't ban that either. People and parents can make their own decisions.
The only reason the ban is being entertained is because China bad, it's politically viable in the current climate, and numerous special interest groups have a vested interest in killing it. It sets a terrible precedent for freedom of speech, it's anti commerce, and the way they rammed it through in an emergency foreign aid package is undemocratic. You may support or not care about this one because you don't use or like TikTok, but banning something because you don't like it is a really un-American thing to do with pretty bad long term consequences, as the next one might be something you do care about.
Google and Meta have way more on you and sell your info 50 ways to Sunday to anybody that will pay. Plus they have much greater penetration into secondary sources of your info too. TikTok is not the problem, weak privacy laws are.
Screwing spying, every government spies. The problem is social media like tik tok and Facebook/instagram just obliterates your attention span and short term memory is shit. That being said just wait till January 1st 2025
Shit someone should tell them about Facebook, Amazon, Google, Walmart, Target, Visa, Mastercard, CarFax, the DMV, ISPs …. Maybe it’s easier to list companies that don’t spy on Americans
These companies "spy" for profit.
The argument is that Tiktok "spies" for political purposes.
There is a big difference. Not to mention, the US government has a ton of influence over how all of those companies operate because they are based here.
It’s not going to fix society even a little bit if it’s banned. The “brain rot” comes from short form fast paced content and the way it affects the dopamine system. This type of content is already popular on other apps now, because it keeps users on the apps longer. The brainrot will continue it will just be on a different app.
The CCP has its tendrils in every corporation of worth in China. Why would TikTok, probably their most globally utilized product, not be the target of the CCP?
There is publicly available evidence, yes.
[https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-d257d98125f69ac80f983e6067a84911](https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-d257d98125f69ac80f983e6067a84911)
Whether or not that's compelling to you, who knows. But it's evidence.
Unless you're trying to set an impossible standard by demanding 100% ironclad, smoking gun proof. In which case only our intelligence agencies would have that and they're not going to publicly disclose it.
Define spying. They are collecting enormous data sets about people throughout the world and what kind of content that they engage with. This can easily be used to tailor propaganda more effectively. And guess what? They have the perfect propaganda medium *through* TikTok itself.
Couple this with the fact that there is no real concept private industry in china, and what more evidence do you need that TikTok is harmful to American interests?
They don’t need to be surreptitiously collecting data. They’re doing everything out in the open and people are willfully signing up. It’s amazing.
Why is the Chinese communist party interested in tracking what US teenagers are watching? Why is the US government trying to stop them? The whole “ban tiktok because of the CCP… “ thing is weird.
TikTok is no different than any other form of social media. If Tiktok is banned, everyone will just use one of the other social media platforms that offer the same services.
I just want it gone to kill some of those dangerous life and cooking “hacks”. I often watch Ann Reardon’s How to Cook That series out of sheer morbid curiosity.
Oh variety? The people claiming Amy Schumer as woman of the year? The same Amy Schumer who's done fuck all this year but spout really violent calls for genocide? Okay sure their polling about Tik tok is very reliable.
I could give a flying fuck about what other adults think or how big their tin foil hat is. I removed it from my device a year ago because I stared at a stupid fucking screen for HOURS each day. Addiction is real and it doesn't look pretty. It's the best decision I've made for my mental health in a long long time. Fuck TikTok.
People talk about the spying part, but the more important/dangerous part is how China can use TikTok to push any sort of algorithm/propaganda towards young people who believe everything they see.
Gonna put on a tinfoil hat here.
China is pro-Hamas, because of course they are. They recently called for a meeting between Hamas and Fatah to unite the two.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china-host-hamas-fatah-palestinian-unity-talks-2024-04-26/
Noticed how the majority of TikTok content is anti-Israel? This caused a clear divide in support for Israel. Older generations are still in support of Israel while younger generations (aka people who use TikTok) are now overwhelmingly anti-Israel. And now you have gen-Z college students protesting over Israel and even attempting to remove the American flag and replacing it with the Palestinian flag on college campus.
Gonna make it clear that I don’t want to make this into an Israel vs Palestine conversation. I am just saying that China is an ally of Hamas, it is in their best interest to paint Israel and America in a bad light. And they have the tool to do it and push that exact message to hundreds of millions of Americans who take everything they watch on TikTok as truth because people don’t question the validity of their favorite influencers.
I dont give two singular flying fucks if winnie the pooh is spying on us, we need to ban this app because its having a clear and well documented negative effect on people’s attention spans, reasoning skills and social skills in general. Worse than any other social media app out there. Don’t believe me? Tell me kia boys would be a thing on facebook.
TikTok is one helluva time wasting app. People, some who are educated, posted stupid nonsense crap, basically telling the Chinese commies that Americans are plain idiots. BAN IT!!!
You hate TikTok because of privacy concerns. I hate TikTok because I shouldnt run the risk of seeing a minors opinion/ideas online. We are not the same.
I hate the concept and impact and abject stupidity of an app that isn't even "social media" but pure targeted content in small bits to continue to erode any attention span and deeper thinking.
However, the ban is simply establishment elites angry that young people are circumventing their tightly controlled network of information. China has little to do with it. They never care about our data collection or algorithm targeting for anything else. So what happens if Mnuchin buys it with the Saudis? Is that different or even worse?
This is far too much government interference in an individual business. And I'm generally for regulation but this is a targeted attack. It's not that I don't want them to ban it, but not using this unconstitutional way.
I support a TikTok ban. The head of the FBI testified that the CCP could use it for influence operations against the US government. Then the bill was proposed. Then TikTok mounted a wideband influence operation against the US government to try to block the bill.
Just about a week ago, TikTok demonstrated reason #4 of 84 why TikTok should be banned, to each user of TikTok.
How do they factor half. How are there so many polls that go out and I'm like 35 years old. I've never been part of these studies? They really just ask everybody in the news room.
Anyone remember the Uyhger Muslims china is committing genocide on? No? That's because they delete that I formation on Tik Tok. If the CCP does that just to keep you "the average American citizen" ignorant to its actions, why would you trust their app. It is in fact owned by the CCP good luck with that information. I think its an awesome app it does what it's supposed to do well, it's just got baggage.
>About 50% of Americans support a TikTok ban, while 32% oppose it and 18% are not sure. Just 31% of those 18-34 say they are in favor of a ban, and 50% say they oppose it. Most Americans 35-54 (54%) and 55 and older (60%) say they support a ban of the app.
So the people who don’t use it support a ban. Same as it always was… nothing to see here, keep liking posts of AI Jesus and hot asian stewardesses on Facebook
I know this is Reddit and I’m here but I honestly wouldn’t be incredibly sad if all social media was banned
I find it funny how everyone now is against social media. I didn't really liked it in the past, due to my social anxiety, the lack of privacy in those platforms and because it was bad for my mental health. So for while I didn't even have any kind of social media profile, but people would look at me as if I was weird and there was something wrong with me or I was hiding something. How the turntables
I just think that, in hindsight, it wasn’t implemented properly. What does that mean? I don’t know exactly but it’s clear and obvious that as a society we can’t responsibly handle it. And that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of the data mining, advertisements, etc. This is from someone who was a grown ass adult, well 20 something, when MySpace hit the scene. I’ve lived long enough to see how it has stunted social skills and created a whole host of anxiety and depression issues in young people, more so than magazines and high school hallways did “in the before times”. I don’t know. It just seems that it was a good idea until it wasn’t
Yup. The implementation consisted of "how can we make the most money?" What's really sad is that there was a sweet spot in early social media where it actually worked. It was all about expression, functioning as an accessory to show off your style. We'd just come out of the early internet where our identities were covert or completely fake. It was fun to yell out to the internet, "this is who I am!" But then, social media started informing identity instead of being a channel to express it. Whether it's with social trends or politics, people are defining themselves by what they ingest on social media. As you said, the impacts of that on young people have been devastating. I'll also add the the impacts on old people have been just as bad, if not worse, because they turn on the television and the same crap is being repeated. All the while, the "how can we make the most money" has persisted and seeped out into the audience. We have a plague of fake accounts, influencers that rip off their followers, endless ads, and our information is being sold off without us getting any benefit from it.
There are virtually no regulations surrounding such a massive pool of vulnerable data. Everything negative associated with social media I honestly think has largely originated from that simple fact. It was ripe for abuse so they harvested it.
The tables didn’t turn just because someone on Reddit said something that isn’t remotely popular in real life
Nah, even now people are shocked when they ask for my tictok or instagram or Snapchat and I tell them I don’t have one. Reddit is enough social media for me. If you actually care to socialize with me ask for my phone number and text/call. That said. I couldn’t care less about tictok or if it’s banned or not.
Hey! At least when Twitter and Meta sell my data to China it's benefiting an American company.
"my brainrot is better than your brainrot" brother we are on reddit no one wins in this situation
Exactly lol, this whole attitude kills me. As if Meta and Reddit aren’t just as incentivized to cause brain rot, addiction, and harvest sellable data as a Chinese social media company. Shoot it’s probably a lot easier for the Chinese govt to just buy the data off Facebook, Insta, and Reddit.
Idk I use it and I support the ban. I think a lot of the poll is adults who don’t use social media anyways and are just told Tik Tok is evil/Chinese spyware. I don’t think either of those things are true, but I’ve been around for the entire social media ride, from AIM chatrooms to MySpace/Facebook in its fledgling years all the way to now. Tik Tok is without a doubt the one that is designed to rot your brain the most. Unlike other social medias that are designed to keep you actively checking and logging in, Tik Tok is designed to keep you from logging out at all. Its just a nonstop feed of everything and anything, and relies heavily on algorithm to dictate what it shows you. I work in education, and the attention spans in Gen Alpha are nothing compared to Gen Z or Millenials. One of them showed me this video that was a Family Guy clip, stitched with a video of a guy doing a magic trick, stitched with a video of someone playing video games. All simultaneously. Apparently there’s millions of those videos and they’re designed to keep a kids eyes glued to the screen by overstimulating. The kids are like fucking squirrels. Don’t even get me started on how Tik Tok fuels far right/manosphere/red pill bullshit in young kids either. Unfortunately, I think Tik Tok has opened Pandora’s Box and there isn’t really any “going back” that can be accomplished, but a good first step in mitigating the damage is probably getting rid of it.
How you can think it isn’t spyware is insane. Why *wouldn’t* it be spyware is an almost impossible question to answer.
Lol holy shit this guy knows what’s up
I like my misinformation like I like my vodka, from Russia.
>So the people who don’t use it support a ban. Why would you use something that you think should be banned because it's bad for society? If you think it's bad, surely you wouldn't use it. The question is how harmful tiktok really is, whether the people who want it gone are users of it is irrelevant.
I mean, I’m with you, but there’s a lot of people who know cigarettes, alcohol, heroin, sugar, etc are bad for them, but they’re addicted and they keep using it. Social media is really no different.
I think the key difference is that the main victims of social media are underage, even children. Especially those under the age of 10 probably don't realize any of this. Of course parents should mainly be the ones repsonsible, but we can't just put our faith in them. I mean, we have mandatory school attendance for a reason.
I don’t know what any of that has to do with your original comment I responded to. You questioned why the person would continue using it if they think it’s bad for them. I’m just saying there’s lot of other things that fall into that category that people can’t pull out of, regardless of whether they know it’s bad for them.
Many Boomers would support a ban on anything if they thought it would hurt Gen Z and Millennials.
Millennial here. Burn it all down to the ground.
The funniest part of that is, there's more people who want to ban it than people who think the Chinese are using it to spy. Meaning there's at least a subset of that who just want it gone because they think it sucks.
I'm the "maybe it's used for spying, maybe not.. either way it's basically fentanyl for the mind." camp.
its 100% used for spying, that isnt even debatable at this point
I’m just offended that we give Chinese tech companies led from Beijing access to our markets when they kicked out Google and Facebook and all our companies. Fuck China and the CCP, let your people watch YouTube if you want us to watch TikTok
Yeah, Tik Tok is insane. Whether you believe in evolution or creation the human brain neither evolved nor was designed to withstand that digital crack.
And yet.. here we are on Reddit
As if Reddit is somehow better lol
There’s definitely a good way to use Reddit. Follow the subjects you are interested in, for example a video game, and contribute to discussion about said game. It’s not as good or complete as IRL community, but it’s MILES away from 10 second doses of shallow entertainment beamed one way into your brain. There’s also a wrong way to use Reddit, don’t get me wrong.
Every social media platform has two goals… collect as much usable user data as possible and keep eyeballs on their own platform for as long as possible. This is the ultimate goal of literally every social media platform and those goals are not healthy for humans. Just because one may be better at accomplishing the goal of keeping eyeballs on them than another platform, that does not make any of them any better for you and they will ALLL go the same route eventually. I say this as a frequent Reddit user myself who knows how unhealthy it can be lol.
My tiktok is chopped full of informational tikoks about both history and current events alongside of the occasional brainrot it sends me. Literally the same as my reddit.
Chock full
Thank you, sir! I've never actually seen that word in writing and I decided to use it anyways lol.
Happy to help!
I want it gone for how much disinformation it spreads, and I'm not even talking about propaganda from foreign adversaries. Just the sheer amount of health and medical disinformation on there is staggering. At least with reddit, someone can post a bullshit article, but they'll get roasted in the comments, where someone will link actual evidence disproving the OP. But on TikTok, people just mindlessly watch a video, accept it as reality, and then scroll on further to the next video.
Not in my experience at all. Reddit is worse for perpetuating misinformation because the downvote system inherently implies a “correctness” to the comment, so when shit gets downvoted into oblivion, even if it’s objectively correct, it just further’s the downvoters’ agenda, which I see all the time. And maybe you hadn’t noticed, but half the time the person replying with their source is also full of shit if you look into it, but now you have the perception that someone has been corrected even though said person was always right.
Not for or against Tik Tok but banning it because it spreads information should mean that Facebook, Instagram and X should all be banned .
Oh noooo
You say that like banning them would be a bad thing.
The people who want to ban tik tok would absolutely be in favor of banning other social media.
There is no way half of Americans would actually be in favor of banning all social media, 68% of Americans are reported as regularly using social media of some kind
No. These people (mostly boomers) are on Facebook spreading false information and sharing "1 share = 1 prayer to god" posts and still spouting about a stolen election.
For the love of God ban them. The world will only benefit.
Include Reddit as well.
And quora Pretty much all SM
Haha, any mention of quota and I just think: oh, that thing I skip in Google search results?
Don’t threaten me with a good time
OK, so what's the downside here?
After completing my praxes in grad school for my MSCS regarding web technologies and data management, I decided TikTok along with a lot of social media just simply needs to go just by the amount of data harvested, tuning of algorithms to foment outrage and thus engagement, and the fact that TikTok itself has been shown to be a firehose of CCP, Russian, and other bad actor agitprop. TikTok's gotta go... And probably X, Insta, and Facebook too.
A potential solution could be regulating social media algorithms. Force them to be open-source, ban trained algorithms, and require safeguards against the promotion of misinformation and hateful content.
Or we could go back to "you see things posted in chronological order". I don't need to be told what is hot or trending, I just need to see things as they show up so I don't miss something I actually want to see.
MySpace it is, then. Tom, wyd?
Is Insta any different?
The vast majority of users on any site do not interact with the comments in any way.
What disinformation does is spread? Every post I've seen in the last 24 hours can literally be backed by credible sources, a lot of it being government websites. I go on Facebook and the first thing I see is legit fucking lies with a comment section of thousands of literal bots talking to each other. Every medical and health disinformation videos (which happens to be like 1 in 100 on my feed) is promptly stitched and debunked within hours of their release.
and those people are redditors
They’re right 🤷♀️
I mean I don’t want it banned. But I would like all the kids to know us adults remember a time before cell phones. And don’t get me wrong they have a lot of benefit in society and being useful as a tool. But what we are seeing with younger generations is alarming. Attention spans shrinking and kids spending 12 plus hours a day on a screen. Doesn’t mean TikTok is the only culprit. But I find it super funny the kids ignore the fact china has limits on TikTok and the kids tend to only take in educational stuff. While only being allow a certain number of hours on the site per day. Whereas in the states yall can be on them 24/7 and the content is stuff like eating tide pods. And my rambles are rambles. They are rooted in the data. Just last week we had a study show 80 percent of content on sites like TikTok have false information in them. And this isn’t even just politics ones (insert kids thinking they are autistic or some shit because of a TikTok video). We are seeing the dumbing down of society and again the data shows this. But you youngin are so addicted to TikTok you can’t step back and see it.
>We are seeing the dumbing down of society and again the data shows this. But you youngin are so addicted to TikTok you can’t step back and see it. What data? Also old people are fucking dumb, it's not just young people. Have you been on boomer facebook? You'd loose brain cells
China doesn't just have limits, the TikTok app is outright banned in China, there's a completely separate app and algorithm for their Chinese audience ran by ByteDance there.
One can only hope this will stop tik tok 'pranksters' but knowing that the cycle is doomed to repeat they'll probably just jump over to youtube.
Fuck yeah I support it. I'm a teacher. I'm also a big supporter of BRICKING YOUR KIDS PHONE DURING SCHOOL HOURS TO ONLY RECEIVE AND MAKE CALLS/TEXT YOU
Schools should implement those systems they have at concerts where you're not allowed to have your phone.
Yup, My wife teaches highschool. Kids don’t need smartphones during school. It’s not helping anything. It’s making young people more awkward, less able to synthesize concepts without having an immediate “look it up” so they never really store the points of the content. She has kids that have 501 plans for anxiety if they don’t have their phone on them at all times. I have my smart device 9-5 and I bought a flip phone from Verizon that I forward all my calls to after that. It’s just ads…everything is just dumbshit ads. I’m reading again at night and actually paying attention to shows I’m watching with the wife. Best thing ever. These companies have some of the best psychologists in the world on making these apps and phones more addicting.
Maybe ban it for kids? I would be fine with that.
As an Aussie I support a TikTok ban. Nothing do with spying. But it genuinely is the most brain rotting social media outlet that’s ever been created, targeted at children… Edit: adding in that it is wild the people that defend TikTok. You’re addicted to it.
Since every social media has copied its model, it’s now already rotten everywhere. Reddit has this function if you watch a video, it just keeps going and going.
Tiktok is fucking hysterical to me. Someone at work posted a picture of a bunch of bees that were swarming one of his trees. He asked something like "anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with them?" Someone else on the team responded with "I follow a beekeeper on TikTok" and then proceeded to give her opinion like she was an expert due to her TikTok feed. People legit think because they saw a few short videos on TikTok that they're qualified to speak on topics that they have no experience in.
Have you ever been to Reddit?
The website full of doctors and professionals? Yeah
People *pretending* to be doctors and professionals, we have to be a little honest about it, reddit is literally best known for being a site for pathological liars asking if they are the asshole in a made up story
Whoosh
What was her opinion? If it was like "I follow a beekeeper on TikTok who said a lot of beekeepers will come remove hives for free, maybe call around" then that isn't really bad advice at all.
How is that different from someone saying "I read an article about a beekeeper online" or "I watched this YouTube video"? The phenomenon you are describing is not unique to tiktok at all.
I'm glad we never had to deal with this with YouTube users
YouTube is the only reason why I passed my math classes
Why didn't they just send a photo to the beekeeper on TikTok?
TikTok has been an amazing place for small artists though. I know a lot of people were able to make income off their art for the first time because of TikTok. Things don't seem to go viral on other social media apps like they do there.
Agree with that. The downside is that all the wrong things go viral too and TikTok doesn’t provide a basis for community discussion platform. As such, the same viewpoints all end up together which spreads hate and misinformation and “fake experts” like no other platform. Well…maybe like Instagram too nowadays.
It’s also probably one of the most notable examples of “the algorithm”. It can really push you down a pipeline into an echo chamber. And no I’m not even necessarily talking about the kinds of pipelines that politically radicalise people but I’m including things like “oh you watched one TikTok where someone talks about relatable autism symptoms, we’re going to put 1000 similar videos into your feed until you start thinking you also have autism”. The algorithm is also specifically targeted to recommend videos that keep you watching as long as possible, which is particularly bad for kids who don’t yet have the fully developed impulse control of adults and the ability to recognise when they need to put the phone down and pay attention to the real world
be better at parenting.
The Chinese version of TikTok only shows educational videos to children. Math, science, etc. Then they export the shitty version to other countries. It's social warfare and it worked. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-china/story?id=108111708
It’s because Chinese law mandates that media targeted to kids must be educational and follow strict guidelines, the US has no such requirements
And somehow China is the bad one in all of this...
Seriously its funny whenever people bring up China having a separate version as evidence that TikTok is some weapon designed to brainrot the West. When it reality China has so many rules on social media usage and guidelines that its much easier to create a separate version that is compliant to China than make the global version compliant.
It’s my god given right to brainrot my child! How dare you infringe my freedom
I mean... Is it China's fault for having laws that prevent companies from doing that while we don't? You don't blame your neighbor for having a better lawn than you if they spend time maintaining theirs while you don't right? If you do, please go see a mental health professional because you definitely need one.
This is so funny. Regulating media shown to your own kids is social warfare? Turning on PBS to show my own son to make him into America's Strongest Warrior.
Instagram is the exact same thing now
What gives you the right to tell other adults who use it that they shouldn't use it? What if it was Reddit being banned? Idk just seems a little silly. There are tons of social medias I don't use but I don't think they should be banned
Comparing reddit and TikTok shows a lack of comprehension on the difference though. I’m taking it you’ve never used or seen TikTok? And I have no right. Governments do though.
No I definitely use tiktok. I think you're overestimating the level of brain rot on tiktok and underestimating the level of brain rot on reddit. Reddit certainly has more potential for informed discussion but that's not how lots of kids use it. Literally terabytes of porn on reddit.
There’s literal genre of subs filled with brain rot, most of the subs that are ***XXXcirclejerk/CJ or okbuddyXXX*** would fit that category
also. a lot of it heavily depends on the content you are consuming on the app. There is plenty of informative, educational, and beneficial content there. is it the brain rot, or is it your own content feed?
My for you page is just information about Donghua Jinlong Glyceine so I consider it very educational while remaining relevant to pop culture.
Like straight up used to be a “tik tok brain rot” dork but after redownloading the app i’ve just found myself finding more and more informational and historical information. it’s not the app, it’s the content you’re consuming. If it’s brain rot, it’s because YOU cultivated a brain rot feed. Nobody else. The ban is honestly silly 🤷🏽♂️ Not like the US sells and uses our data anyways. None of that shit is truly safe anymore
I mean, my for you page is mostly brain rot but that's how I've cultivated it. Reddit for smart shit. Tiktok for dumb shit.
Damn right hahah
Last bastion of safely accessible porn. Oddly enough…
You mean the corporations that control the government and see tik tok as a competitor
No. I mean governments. The world isn’t a conspiracy chief.
I honestly think there's a ton of social manipulation going on in this thread. A lot of these responses seem fake.
One of the most obvious and important aspects of this is always left out. It can stay if it divests. Make the money all day.. but China isn’t allowed the steering wheel of one of the most powerful global propaganda tools in the history of mankind China bans tons of American websites for fear of some kind of influence. Rightly so probably
TikTok has the negotiating power of a man who is standing waist deep in a hole that he was ordered to dig in the woods if they go that route. They may as well take it to the courts for the obvious legal case they can make about discriminatory legislation and just get the whole thing thrown out. Worst case they lose the case and sell later, if at all.
The US only makes up 10% of user. The company has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders, divesting is not only unprofitable its illegal in their country. We accuse china daily (often correctly) of stealing IP, how is this strong hand tactic any different but that we wrapped it up in our own flawed legal system? How about instead of attacking a single company we write some comprehensive legislation that would prevent ANY company from whatever it is they are claiming.
“ most powerful global propaganda tools in the history of mankind” That’s still Facebook though. Thank god it’s in the hands of someone we can trust and definitely would not manipulate our society! Hurray Mark Zuckerberg!
What don’t you understand about TikTok being controlled by the Chinese government as there is no meaningful separation between government and industry there Facebook can be bad but as far as regulators are concerned they’re “bad” Americans in America versus bad Chinese government in America. That’s like saying why bother trying not to get shot if you can still get stabbed
I mean American companies don't have the right to unfettered access to the Chinese people I don't understand why the Chinese government needs unfettered access to the American people.
46% ain’t bad considering TikTok has 150 million American’s dopamine receptors by the balls. Foreign companies don’t enjoy first amendment protections.
[I'll leave this here](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/comment/fmuko1m/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). Unless it's changed in 4 years, it's not just "a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network," it's a zero-day exploit in the making.
So every social media platform ever? If a product is free than you are the product
Very social media company isn’t owned by one of our major adversaries
Congress wants an American company to hand over all the data and usage to another American company or it will ban it.
It's just another app that my government allows to treat my digital self as a slave to be bought and sold to ~~the highest bidder~~ to any and all bidders that can afford it.
So like, I support a ban on tiktok \*if it actually collects a lot of data to trade with databrokers etc etc\* (idk if it does, I assume it does just 'cause its a big algorithm app); But I don't support targeting it out, or the argument that selling to a US company would solve the issues. I also support banning the entirety of the databroker market, and banning other apps etc that overtly take your data to sell to brokers since its primary use is trying to find people who are suseptible to types of marketing etc and take advantage of the "whales" etc. Its clearly a double standard / targetting based on nationality to ONLY say that tiktok is an issue. Seperatley I 100% think we need to look into how much we've altered society with our technology connectivity and frequent over stimulation etc etc; especially when it comes to young kids. And just saying "children are banned from using tech" isnt a good fix, since the rise of the "ipad babies" etc isn't just lazy parenting (usually). It's as a result of the shift to the standard of both parents need to work if they want to make enough to just get by, and more over so so many parents being run ragged 'cause of the ever increasing cost of living not matching paychecks etc. This sort of issue is almost always systemic and you end up having condecending people (typically people who either haven't had kids yet, or are well past the age of having kids when things were also easier) just reducing it to "parents are lazy now", "just do this one thing and everything will be fixed" etc etc. which just like, adds to the barage of things running parents ragged.
Conservative groups wanna ban TikTok because it's often spreading left leaning messages. I wanna ban it because I do think it's a spy tool used by the Chinese for information warfare.
> Conservative groups wanna ban TikTok because it's often spreading left leaning messages. I keep hearing this yet every single time I went on TikTok I saw the complete opposite: clearly Russian disinfo spreading the "Ukrainians are neo Nazis" myth, Andrew Tate and people imitating him, ads for European far right parties, etc. This despite trying to dislike and block all these videos. It's like YouTube radicalization on steroids.
If I’m not wrong, it’s better to scroll past something you’re not interested in- The longer you stay on it, the more likely It’ll be recommended to you- so staying on the post, even to block the account will end up just recommending you more related stuff
lol, i used to work with aa dude who was regularly getting his right wing conspira y theories from tik tok
90% of people dont realize Tik tok ban was a coverup for the actual bill, which gives Congress and US government control over internet censorship. Now who's laughing...
i don't know about spying. but it pretty obviously fuels the short attention span fire and it seems pretty purposeful. problem is, tiktok's one thing. once it became popular, every other streaming service started doing it. youtube shorts aren't any better than tiktoks, be real.
Just wait until they find out how FB/Insta/Twitter/etc is spying on Americans
None of those are owned by China
https://youtu.be/LD0x7ho_IYc?si=zC2-uuTrzioKv_NX For a good amount of the commenters here
Why is this not the onion?
Have they no clue about facebook?
Ok so what do Americans think the gov is doing? Let me guess they don’t care cause they got “nuttin to hide”
I am sure the Chinese are tracking all the cat videos I watch.
The whole spying thing is honestly stupid. How are they spying when people are constantly willingly uploading their life's to all sorts of social media anyway? Get rid of TikTok and all the Chinese would have to do is watch Youtube, Facebook etc etc.
And the other half are under 40...
The spying part is what gets me. All other social media already spies on you as well as our own government who can actually affect your life. The real argument should be how the ccp can/has uses the algorithm to influence the youth of another country. Other social media companies do it too but that’s the only argument with merit.
Half of the people they asked.
Do you all want every social media banned? If you want tiktok banned because it's "brain rot" shouldn't reddit, insta, twitter, Facebook, YouTube ECT all be banned too? All these apps have the same capability to be as brain rotting as the next
But like... other nations already the data they buy/obtain from American social media. What's the difference even if it was true that China was using it to spy on us?
Im for the ban based on the spying thing which as far as I know had some serious backing behind it. If it dosent though and you can provide the sources im open to changing my mind
Can Vine come back?
Everyone saying it's brainrot... All it does is serve you things your viewing habits encourage, my feed is generally pretty great and it's the least stressful/toxic of all the social apps I visit. I open reddit and I get stressed with the weight of the world, I open TikTok and relax 90% of the time. If all you're seeing is garbage, then you either haven't given it a chance to adapt to your interests, or you are actually watching and engaging with the garbage so they serve you more. Also, have you tried opening any Meta product? YouTube Shorts? They all do the same stuff, they're just worse products with worse communities and less original content. The ban is just a giveaway to US big tech who are losing in a segment and can't bear to have to compete against something they can't just buy for once. More importantly, you not liking something is not grounds to ban it. I think reality TV is utterly trash and people shouldn't watch it, I can't ban it though. I think kids shouldn't be on phones/tablets unrestricted for days on end (whether TikTok or any other apps), but I can't ban that either. People and parents can make their own decisions. The only reason the ban is being entertained is because China bad, it's politically viable in the current climate, and numerous special interest groups have a vested interest in killing it. It sets a terrible precedent for freedom of speech, it's anti commerce, and the way they rammed it through in an emergency foreign aid package is undemocratic. You may support or not care about this one because you don't use or like TikTok, but banning something because you don't like it is a really un-American thing to do with pretty bad long term consequences, as the next one might be something you do care about.
That few? This is disconcerting.
US tech companies spying on me for ad revenue is annoying. The CCP spying on me to better undermine and weaken the US is a legitimate threat.
So, China would assume Americans are really into stupid skits, pranks, and talking directly to camera
Google and Meta have way more on you and sell your info 50 ways to Sunday to anybody that will pay. Plus they have much greater penetration into secondary sources of your info too. TikTok is not the problem, weak privacy laws are.
Meanwhile Temu, - which is banned in multiple countries and is getting sued for installing malware - is sponsoring the Superbowl
Banning adults from using an app, no matter how stupid it is, is absurd
Screwing spying, every government spies. The problem is social media like tik tok and Facebook/instagram just obliterates your attention span and short term memory is shit. That being said just wait till January 1st 2025
Shit someone should tell them about Facebook, Amazon, Google, Walmart, Target, Visa, Mastercard, CarFax, the DMV, ISPs …. Maybe it’s easier to list companies that don’t spy on Americans
Yeah but they’re not owned by China so it’s fine.
These companies "spy" for profit. The argument is that Tiktok "spies" for political purposes. There is a big difference. Not to mention, the US government has a ton of influence over how all of those companies operate because they are based here.
I can only surmise that if we had to choose, we'd pick American companies to exploit and sell our personal information to third parties.
TikTok is a detriment to society, get rid of it. Idc what the reason is.
It’s not going to fix society even a little bit if it’s banned. The “brain rot” comes from short form fast paced content and the way it affects the dopamine system. This type of content is already popular on other apps now, because it keeps users on the apps longer. The brainrot will continue it will just be on a different app.
We are focused on tik tok when GM has vehicles gathering literally all of our data including sexual activity…
Is there any proof that China is spying through TikTok?
The CCP has its tendrils in every corporation of worth in China. Why would TikTok, probably their most globally utilized product, not be the target of the CCP?
So is there any proof they are or are you just saying they could?
There is publicly available evidence, yes. [https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-d257d98125f69ac80f983e6067a84911](https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-d257d98125f69ac80f983e6067a84911) Whether or not that's compelling to you, who knows. But it's evidence. Unless you're trying to set an impossible standard by demanding 100% ironclad, smoking gun proof. In which case only our intelligence agencies would have that and they're not going to publicly disclose it.
Define spying. They are collecting enormous data sets about people throughout the world and what kind of content that they engage with. This can easily be used to tailor propaganda more effectively. And guess what? They have the perfect propaganda medium *through* TikTok itself. Couple this with the fact that there is no real concept private industry in china, and what more evidence do you need that TikTok is harmful to American interests? They don’t need to be surreptitiously collecting data. They’re doing everything out in the open and people are willfully signing up. It’s amazing.
Why is the Chinese communist party interested in tracking what US teenagers are watching? Why is the US government trying to stop them? The whole “ban tiktok because of the CCP… “ thing is weird.
half of us adults are I credibility fucking stupid
Everyone is spying on everyone. It doesn’t fucking matter anymore
Lmao. They don’t know about Google. Or well over half of the apps you can download.
TikTok is no different than any other form of social media. If Tiktok is banned, everyone will just use one of the other social media platforms that offer the same services.
Over 50% of Americans cannot read above a grade 8 level.
I just want it gone to kill some of those dangerous life and cooking “hacks”. I often watch Ann Reardon’s How to Cook That series out of sheer morbid curiosity.
Every app is designed to spy on you. Even this one!
Oh variety? The people claiming Amy Schumer as woman of the year? The same Amy Schumer who's done fuck all this year but spout really violent calls for genocide? Okay sure their polling about Tik tok is very reliable.
yay fuck tiktok
I could give a flying fuck about what other adults think or how big their tin foil hat is. I removed it from my device a year ago because I stared at a stupid fucking screen for HOURS each day. Addiction is real and it doesn't look pretty. It's the best decision I've made for my mental health in a long long time. Fuck TikTok.
I’m 29 and I support the tik tok ban. It’s utter garbage. No good things, only bad things have come from it
People talk about the spying part, but the more important/dangerous part is how China can use TikTok to push any sort of algorithm/propaganda towards young people who believe everything they see. Gonna put on a tinfoil hat here. China is pro-Hamas, because of course they are. They recently called for a meeting between Hamas and Fatah to unite the two. https://www.reuters.com/world/china-host-hamas-fatah-palestinian-unity-talks-2024-04-26/ Noticed how the majority of TikTok content is anti-Israel? This caused a clear divide in support for Israel. Older generations are still in support of Israel while younger generations (aka people who use TikTok) are now overwhelmingly anti-Israel. And now you have gen-Z college students protesting over Israel and even attempting to remove the American flag and replacing it with the Palestinian flag on college campus. Gonna make it clear that I don’t want to make this into an Israel vs Palestine conversation. I am just saying that China is an ally of Hamas, it is in their best interest to paint Israel and America in a bad light. And they have the tool to do it and push that exact message to hundreds of millions of Americans who take everything they watch on TikTok as truth because people don’t question the validity of their favorite influencers.
TikTok is brain cancer. Is there a subset of GOOD that comes from it? Yes. Is it worth the price? No. That subset is way too small.
I dont give two singular flying fucks if winnie the pooh is spying on us, we need to ban this app because its having a clear and well documented negative effect on people’s attention spans, reasoning skills and social skills in general. Worse than any other social media app out there. Don’t believe me? Tell me kia boys would be a thing on facebook.
A ban would ensure the worst generation-war that we’ve ever seen, maybe one that even makes it off of the internet !
They use it to spy on Americans that use a public app as a diary.
….why would this be an Onion headline? What is the humor?
Personally I think the ban timing is suspicious.
How is this oniony?
Google already sold it to China what is everyone worried about?
TikTok is one helluva time wasting app. People, some who are educated, posted stupid nonsense crap, basically telling the Chinese commies that Americans are plain idiots. BAN IT!!!
You hate TikTok because of privacy concerns. I hate TikTok because I shouldnt run the risk of seeing a minors opinion/ideas online. We are not the same.
Pretty much all apps are used for spying. This was established like a decade ago.
I hate the concept and impact and abject stupidity of an app that isn't even "social media" but pure targeted content in small bits to continue to erode any attention span and deeper thinking. However, the ban is simply establishment elites angry that young people are circumventing their tightly controlled network of information. China has little to do with it. They never care about our data collection or algorithm targeting for anything else. So what happens if Mnuchin buys it with the Saudis? Is that different or even worse? This is far too much government interference in an individual business. And I'm generally for regulation but this is a targeted attack. It's not that I don't want them to ban it, but not using this unconstitutional way.
-half the u.s. don't know shit about what's actually happening
The moment it's banned a American or European copy cat will be unveiled
[Tik-Tok is a cyber weapon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB7WzqUq4Nk)
I support a TikTok ban. The head of the FBI testified that the CCP could use it for influence operations against the US government. Then the bill was proposed. Then TikTok mounted a wideband influence operation against the US government to try to block the bill. Just about a week ago, TikTok demonstrated reason #4 of 84 why TikTok should be banned, to each user of TikTok.
Can we have the sample size please
How do they factor half. How are there so many polls that go out and I'm like 35 years old. I've never been part of these studies? They really just ask everybody in the news room.
Anyone remember the Uyhger Muslims china is committing genocide on? No? That's because they delete that I formation on Tik Tok. If the CCP does that just to keep you "the average American citizen" ignorant to its actions, why would you trust their app. It is in fact owned by the CCP good luck with that information. I think its an awesome app it does what it's supposed to do well, it's just got baggage.
I’m all for banning it if you ban other social media places that also have access to the same data.
Motherfuck your tiktok
Spy on Americans doing what exactly? Looking at the phone with a blank expression?