this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2024
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Privacy

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

First, it's not a TickTok ban. It's a ByteDance ban. ByteDance could sell TickTok to another company outside China and TickTock would be fine in the US.

Second, it was never about protecting user data. It was about preventing China from tweaking the algorithm to try to subtly influence public political opinion, instead of maximizing generic rage and political polarization, to exploit for ad dollars.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Yet nobody cares about US companies like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube manipulating public opinion with their algorithms.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Plenty of people care, just not enough

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This isnt the point.

An adverserial nation shouldnt be able to influence public opinion like that.

We all understand that those companies do nefarious things. Imo its quite a bit different when its a whole ass country purposefully manipulating public opinion and they dont like the united states.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I get it, i don't want to live in China but i don't want to live in whatever Elon Musk has planned for the US, either, and his wealth gives him undue influence over... pretty much everything. You're not convincing me you've got a consistent take here if you're cool with Twitter but not TikTok.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Nobody cares because they are US companies.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Seems bizarre that people are okay with public opinion being explicitly manipulated by a very small group of people with very little overlapping interest with the public, but not okay with public opinion being explicitly manipulated by a very small group of people with very little overlapping interest with the public from a foreign country.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Not really. One can be dealt with if needs be, since they're US companies. The other can't because it's the Chinese government.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

You're exactly right on both counts. When you hear it from politicians, the sound bite (byte?) is "to protect the children" which is ambiguous. I take it to mean to protect the data of my children, somebody else takes it to mean to protect my children from being brainwashed and the children running the social media companies take it to mean it's protecting their right to wealth. It's win win win!

If the US govn't were serious about protecting people, they'd implement GDPR and put data privacy into the hands of the individual.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

First ban Discord or Instagram.

You know they won't cos they don't give a shit about our privacy, about us.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Don't ban anything. Pass legislation to protect data rights and make them all safe platforms.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Should ban data collection, even if it breaks the current e-commerce paradigm

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I don't see why that would break e-commerce at all. It would only make it better

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

New idea for a web service: Give it the url of an article decrying the sorry state of corporate social media and hyping up some zany theoretical alternative that nobody's heard of, and it tells you whether or not the author gives any hint of having heard of the fediverse.

[–] Ilandar 3 points 2 months ago

As I said last time this was shared, the article isn't really about TikTok - that is only used as a recent example of why these big proprietary datasets are problematic. The main point of the article is really to explain why we need an alternative and how it could work, using the example of Getgee. I wish more people would read past headlines, especially for interesting articles such as this one.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

If you want to really make a change do not ban anything just stop advertise it and promote it. The people next will switch to privacy alternatives. It's not the TikTok fault it is the society fault. Meaning there is one solution and it's to change massively the society

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

How about we just create some laws governing data collection and addictive behaviors? It shouldn't just apply to a few companies either it should be a simple policy that everyone must follow. It also needs to relatively easy to understand and clearly documented on how to be compliant

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Is this whole article literally just 1 sentence?!?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago