• ZahzenEclipse
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    01 year ago

    This meme is a bit dishonest because its about Chinese government harvesting this data not about companies harvesting it. Both are bad but ones substantially worse.

    • @Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml
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      01 year ago

      How the Chinese government having my (Westerner’s in a NATO country) data is any worse than Western (and thus subpoenable by the Western governments) corporations having it?

      • Olivia
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        01 year ago

        Cause somebody is selling the Chinese king false dreams of invading America. And maybe having documents on every American citizen would be helpful post invasion.

        Source: anonymous internet poster

    • SleepyWheel
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      01 year ago

      American companies have way more power over my life than the Chinese government

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
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      01 year ago

      Yeah, if China wants the data of Americans they should buy it from American companies, not harvest it themselves.

      They’re not mad about leaking data, they’re mad that China is drinking their milkshake.

  • @caveman@lemmy.ml
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    01 year ago

    Just install an alternative app Store like Aurora or install it directly from TikTok sites.

    For open source projects, you can also use Obtainium or F-Droid

    • CindyTheSkull [she/her, comrade/them]
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      01 year ago

      Oh really? This ban won’t effect people who use (for example) F-Droid to get the app?? That’s great to hear tbh. Hopefully this stupid ass decision will have the effect of turning more people on to FOSS stuff more than it will actually prevent people from using TikTok.

      • @caveman@lemmy.ml
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        01 year ago

        I don’t think they will put it on fdroid, because it has to really be open source to be there, but there’s certainly other app stores which will have it.

        How can a ban be enforced? It’s always thru Google app Store or IP, and you can always bypass both.

        In Aurora Store there’s TikTok. You can install aurora store here:

        https://aurorastore.org/

        In Worst case you can try finding the official tiktok .APK install somewhere

        • CindyTheSkull [she/her, comrade/them]
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          1 year ago

          ok, thanks for the info. I don’t know a lot about how this kind of thing works (clearly), I just try to use and support FOSS and “piracy” whenever possible.

          • @caveman@lemmy.ml
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            01 year ago

            You can use VPN (paid or free) for instance and if the ban is really badly done even by changing the DNS server (which is free) access can be restored.

            • @Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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              01 year ago

              Nope. You can’t access tiktok through vpn in India. You need a patched/modded app. I live in India and I’ve tried doing that. It’s a non-existent platform here. Bans will affect user engagement.

    • @MonkderZweite@feddit.ch
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      01 year ago

      Aurora displays currently no app, be it anonymous or with login. Anyone knows why? I need it to reinstall my banking access app, dammit.

  • @caveman@lemmy.ml
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    01 year ago

    Makes me remember when UK and France invaded China and forced then to commercialize opium and destroy their country:

    “The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and Britain. It was triggered by the Chinese government’s campaign to enforce its prohibition of opium, which included destroying opium stocks owned by British merchants and the British East India Company. The British government responded by sending a naval expedition to force the Chinese government to pay reparations and allow the opium trade.[1] The Second Opium War was waged by Britain and France against China from 1856 to 1860, and consequently resulted in China being forced to legalise opium.”

    Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

      • @caveman@lemmy.ml
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        01 year ago

        Of course not, but can also make people unproductive and by guiding the content you can make the whole population acquire stupid behaviours

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]
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          01 year ago

          I think you’re really misevaluating the (non)equivalence between how you’re crippled as an organism by opium addiction vs just having your attention fucked up by tiktok

          • @caveman@lemmy.ml
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            01 year ago

            Yes, of course.

            In this case, what UK+France did to China at that time is much worse than what China is doing to the US now.

            So it would be much more hypocritical if UK followed suit

      • @NorthCountryHermit@lemm.ee
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        01 year ago

        Unless they’re implying that Chinese software will fail and bow down to “western software”, I’m not seeing a link either.

      • @caveman@lemmy.ml
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        01 year ago

        Hi, UK forced China to get their country destroyed, and no an UK-derived country is complaining that China is destroy them.

  • @Mastengwe@lemm.ee
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    01 year ago

    Imagine spending the time and effort to make that perfect whatabout meme you spent all day thinking about- only to have people tell you that all of them should be shut down.

  • @Zerush@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Spying on user data is a constitutional right of US companies, what are the poor going to live on when they can’t traffic with your data, or when a disgusting red communist company steals their bread? A little more proper patriotism, guys. Bad enough that the EU is cutting the wings of this companies, therefore also don’t use EU apps to make America great again.

  • @makeasnek@lemmy.ml
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    01 year ago

    How come every thread I see about this topic, there is nobody who is concerned about letting the federal government dictate which apps you can and cannot use to communicate with other people? This is some 1984 shit.

    • Because it isn’t new nor special.

      Apps are a Service and services have been and are regulated for decades now and the system have been always arbitrary as fuck.

      In the case of TikTok, the west, as a military alliance, should be concerned due to the nature of current valid Chinese laws and the implications of it.

      And e.g. facebook has proven that they don’t like to stick to rules about how to handle data. In case of TikTok, this could easily have bigger implications for e.g. the American military.

      • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
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        01 year ago

        If it’s really about the military as you suggest then the extremely easy solution is to order service members not to use Tik Tok.

        Passing a specific law to compell the sale of one specific company is arguably some sort of Bill of Attainder, which I’m sure ByteDance’s lawyers will be argueing as soon as Biden’s pen touches paper.

          • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
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            01 year ago

            Most of those bans are organizations saying that employees can’t install TikTok on organization issued phones and computers, which is not at all comparable to an overall ban? My work doesn’t allow me to play video games on work computers or drink on work property, but that’s not at all the same as a law banning all video games and alcohol.

            Look at the Russian propaganda war in e.g. Germany, that shit can have a negative effect on the defensive abilities of a nation.

            Yeah one problem with human and civil rights is that they tend to have negative effects on the defensive abilities of a nation. War would be so much easier if you could just arrest all the peace protestors, or hold suspected enemy agents without trial, or force people to work without pay in defence industries, or force women to give birth to more people so you can conscript more soldiers.

            So let’s just do away with free speech and habeus corpus, reinstitute slave labor and force women to pop out lots of kids. Then Germany can defend itself again, just like the last two times.

          • FunkyStuff [he/him]
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            01 year ago

            The current situation over in China still allows internet users to easily access services like Facebook or YouTube through VPNs, it was more of a measure of digital protectionism to allow local development of IT companies, online business, etc. If China wants to do similar censorship in response to these measure, they very well could still crack down on VPNs.

  • @csm10495@sh.itjust.works
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    01 year ago

    I would say make laws about data collection, usage, etc. instead of banning TikTok.

    Heck, fix more important problems like income disparity, hunger, homelessness, healthcare, our wasteful spending, so many things more important and yet we’re wasting time on TikTok.

    I don’t think people think this is a good use of time.

    Seriously, it’s government overreach and ignoring freedom of speech, etc.

    • @thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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      01 year ago

      We can agree that there is at least a slight difference in having your own (or a friendly nation’s) Government tracking you, versus allowing a competing nation to have direct access to over half of the adult US population (as per their recent push-notification stunt), as well as a robust collection of their interests and preferences.

      There is a reason China has banned most US-based software in the mainland (Meta, Google, etc.); in favour of self-developed alternatives. This is just treatment in kind; it’s not an outright ban, rather a forced sale to prevent more of that user data falling into dubious hands.

      • @csm10495@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I’m not really ok with that type of anti other country behavior in (edit to add the word: almost) any case. Heck, I want cheap Chinese EV options in the US too.

        Make government (and other) tracking opt-out-able by law. That is the law we need. Not this bs version.

        This current bill literally sounds like it’s written by American companies to squash a foreign competition. You know Facebook, YouTube, etc. are biting at the teeth for more users (and ad revenue) of short form content; especially if TikTok users scattered to other platforms.

        Once again: give users the freedom to chose what they want. This is a government overreach.

      • Yes, there is a difference. Having your own government spy on you is way worse because it has the monopoly on violence over you. No one protects you from that. But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences.

        There is a reason for the outrage when PRISM came out of the closet.

        • Venia Silente
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          01 year ago

          because it has the monopoly on violence over you

          I’ve been hearing this one going for a while, where does it come from? Sounds like a corpofascist slogan.

            • Venia Silente
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              01 year ago

              Still can’t understand the point of it. Like, is the state ordering that civilians must be defenseless in the face of crime, for example? But yeah in general it just sounds like the usual “I am the Senate” fascist kind of takeover and control of power.

        • But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences.

          Oh, like stopping a forogn government from influencing people through a popular app. huh. Good point.

        • @thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
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          01 year ago

          But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences That’s what this is, though.

          Take a step back and consider for a moment the absolute mayhem TikTok was able to cause through one single push notification to their US user base (>170m, over half the adult population). That is not a power that should be wielded lightly, and definitely not one in the hands of a foreign adversary ready, willing and capable of weaponising it at their whim.

          Think of the power that affords them to put their finger on the scale when it comes to the critical upcoming Presidential election, not just directly - but through slight manipulations of the algorithm to engage one political cohort and disenfranchise another.

          • My point was that there is some institution on your site of that standoff. This will not be the case if you have to fight against your own government. So it’s better to have to fight a foreign government, rather than one’s own.

            TikTok is a dangerous influence, yes. I wasn’t trying to argue against that. But then, so are Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter and similar social media. Maybe even all social media.

            Other than fighting with shortsighted regulations I don’t know how one would fight such an influence other than widespread education of the people. But that would make them more resilient against any propaganda.