The White House is facing mounting pressure from Congress to ban the widely popular TikTok app nationwide after Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Congressman Ken Buck (R-CO) introduced a piece of legislation on Wednesday to curb its use. A similar bill to ban TikTok in the U.S. was filed during the last Congressional session, but it was not considered in either chamber.
As soon as the US loses a fraction of its cultural hegemony it puts up its own Great Firewall lol.
It’s funny because Tiktok is now a complete propaganda tool for the US state department to use on the same level, if not higher than every Meta social media and Twitter but the people in the White House, Congress, and almost all Americans are too xenophobic and stupid to realize it
Destroying your own imperialist state propaganda tools to own the commies
Omg yes I noticed that too. There are also like on there Americans who are like “wow europe is so racist unlike America because of the treatment of romani people” lol.
Americans have always been like this towards Europeans. Used to see shit like that on the Neopets forums during the Bush years.
Why would they? They’ve already learned for decades that Americans are completely domesticated
Which makes it all the more weirder that the FBI head is claiming it’s dangerous.
I guess to them it is more advantageous to use TikTok to generate more China bad news, they probably are satisfied with all the other avenues for propaganda they have.
It’s so silly to read ostensibly normal people’s response to this on :reddit-logo: because they inevitably say something about how China can spy on you through the app - which, regardless of that, okay say they do… what’s China gonna do with my info exactly? It’s the western state intelligence apparatus that can effect me, I’m almost certainly not going to China at any point cause I can’t afford a trans pacific vacation. So, why should I care if “China can spy on me” through the app? And whenever this counterpoint is raised they inevitably mumble about how China influences you and that’s bad for nationalistic/patriotic/cold-war ideological reasons - never too loudly because this convo is on Reddit, right, so we’re also trying to downplay the level of spying and influence from Western social media.
bring up westerner #291924021’s profile
looks like they watched a tiktok about a duck and a kitten who were friends, we will use this information to bring down the west
My biggest thing is just asking how does Tiktok spy on people? If apps can just consistently steal all the data on your phone and that’s never fixed, then your security is a problem starting at the phone. Otherwise all of that data is opted into, just like most sites digital panopticons are. It’s scummy, but it’s not any scummier than Facebook.
Don’t trust any company with your data regardless of country. All companies have the same incentives to sell your data to someone who can exploit it and to cut costs with regard to data security so that it will inevitably be stolen. Capital does not respect borders and borders will not protect you in this regard.
Someone posted a meme in my university subreddit “My brother in Christ you use google chrome!” bc they’re considering banning tiktok and I got downvoted to hell for pointing this out.
Regardless of how you feel about the Chinese government, how are they gonna hurt you? Between the US and Chinese governments having my “data” (whatever the fuck that means at this point data is just a stupid buzzword) even setting aside my politics I’d pick China because Chinese cops can’t drag me out of my house, American ones can.
They claim “whataboutism” usually when bringing up what US companies do. But yeah the fear mongering over TikTok is hilarious and really shows how astroturfed Reddit it. The idea that TikTok is some evil overlord doesn’t really click with Americans at large with how often they continue to use it without a care.
It’s not even whataboutism, it’s MORE RELEVANT! The US government is the one that can hurt me, the Chinese government can’t do anything because I don’t live in China
So, why should I care if “China can spy on me” through the app?
You’re not meant to think through that prospect logically. “China can spy on you” is the end point of the discourse, and it’s assumed to be a threat, because they’re SPYING on you and they’re CHINESE.
Scare tactics work the best when they’re taken in good faith and nobody asks “what if”.
If China wanted American’s online data they would just buy it from google or meta like everyone else.
honestly I kinda wish tiktok weren’t a thing my gf spends way too much fucking time just scrolling through that shit and I hate the fucking constant repeated audio it’s like a fucking Gen Z weaponized You’re The Man Now, Dog
TikTok was a mass communication tool in the early 21st century, characterized by videos and audio backed by popular music. The 2025 seizure of the US nuclear stockpile by the eco-terrorist group Flowers for John Ritter is attributed, in part, to the banning of TikTok by the US federal government.
