This is barely even a “formality” before a massacre. Israel was looking for an excuse to go all out without any restraint and they got it. It’s fucking tragic that these bastards are playing with civilians lives. Fuck both authorities.
It’s a war between genocidal terrorists and apartheid colonialist fascists, with a massive civilian body count on both sides. Can’t we all just be sad about dead kids instead of being cheerleading freaks?
Its a one way ticket to erasure of the country of Palestine from world map, sponsored by USA, you fucking dimwit. Israel is not known to be the last apartheid state on the planet for any reason. They are genociding and colonising Palestinians under the Zionist Project for almost 80 years now.
The only reason you do not hear about it is USA is Israel’s military and cyberterrorism backer, and USA, thanks to CFR, NED/CIA, Bilderberg and Murdochs, controls basically 90% of world’s news and TV media.
Chicken prices at U.S. grocery stores have hit record highs and should stay elevated as Tyson Foods and other companies dial back poultry production to boost margins while inflation-weary shoppers buy chicken instead of beef and pork.
That's not competition, that's cartel behavior. Sounds like it's time to break Tyson Foods back up into smaller companies.
He didn’t say that. It’s a fact that hypocrisy is common around the world. But I would say that China’s is so deep and blatant it should be able to be ridiculed online without anyone whatabouting.
Foreign companies would be required for citizens to own part of that company. China did it first though, others can have a similar thing. In the US we forced tiktok to a certain degree.
If an “official act” is anything that happens while they’re in office, Biden should just shoot Trump on his last day in office. Following this argument, he’d be immune to prosecution.
A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.
It’s funny that this hasn’t happened in 45 presidencies, yet his argument is that it’s suddenly going to be a problem for every future president…
Sort of, poster left out the key quote that triggered the post from the Republican party:
“We are asking all of these moms and grandmoms to come from wherever it might be, North Carolina, South Carolina, and to descend upon the state of Iowa,” said Casey DeSantis, who has been promoting a “Mamas for DeSantis” coalition as she campaigns for her husband.
So non-resident in this context would be out of state.
The world long ago has proven to care very little about actual human beings. The world cares only about politics and power, everything is power struggles no matter the human cost.
Honestly I am sick and disgusted how for example the US is using another conflict for nationalist propaganda, e.g.
Posting on social media Biden wrote: "Today, thanks to American leadership, we secured safe passage for wounded Palestinians and for foreign nationals to exit Gaza.
They reiterate that Israel doesn’t have the right to indiscriminately kill civilians, while also vetoing every UN resolution calling for a ceasefire or even a pause to ease the humanitarian situation.
The world is appalled by 1400 victims, but at the same time turning a blind eye at the human toll on the Palestinian side.
By the end of this conflict the number of civilian casualties would be much higher, the number of traumatised kids and people, who have lost relatives, and/or roof over their heads would be even higher and this would have solved absolutely nothing as a new wave of desperate people would be pushed into radicalization and hatred towards their oppressor.
Engaging groups like Hamas, isis, or other groups that are highly integrated into the civilian population is ugly business. Hamas is not a conventional state actor with military assets on bases or mobilized for action. It’s uncles and sons and brothers in the homes of family.
The carnage in Gaza is horrifying, but Hamas isn’t likely to form lines and face the IDF in honorable field combat.
Removing the threat posed by Hamas will have an absolutely horrific cost in civilian lives. After oct 7, “the world” seems to agree that Israel has some right to remove that threat. Hamas leadership crossed a line, and like all war the cost will primarily be paid by the ordinary people who were unlucky enough to be born in the war zone.
And no one has yet proposed a better way to stop Hamas from firing rockets and prevent another attack on Israel. The only advice people give to Israel is “just stop fighting and die”. The world left Hamas alone to fester in Gaza and now that they hit Israel too hard and their end was decided everyone and his dog cares for the people of Gaza.
Israel is the most powerful military force in the region. They’re not going to die if they stop the fighting. In fact, the current fighting is doing half of hamas’ work for them. Israel is hamas biggest recruiting tool. Peace is the only way to end this conflict.
“Stop fighting, you won’t be driven into the sea, we promise”. There is no peace with Hamas and no one has a solution better solution on how to remove Hamas from Gaza.
There is also no peace with Israel. Both sides have violated international treaties. Both sides are horrific in peace. It’s an ongoing war, spanning back more than 70 years. Israel isn’t an innocent party in this conflict.
According to this logic the Vietkong should be attacking Americans until this very day.
Once you stop oppressing people the resistance fighters disappear. Crazy how that works.
Though bombing super densely populated civilian areas is a close second choice that might work according to America in all its lost wars. let’s see how that works out!
Hamas is an Insurrection Movement against an occupying power and said occupying power killing more Palestinians is just going to give it more popular support and even more combatants, unless the objective of said occupying power is to “solve” the problem by killing all Palestinians.
Even putting the morality of the Occupation aside, the correct military way of going about this would be Counter Insurgency, but that means actually listening to and making the lives of Palestinians better, not making it worse sprinkled with random violence against civilians as the Israeli government has consistently done for 7 decades, so the only other military alternative that stands a chance of success is Genocide (i.e. stop the support for the Insurgency by killing or expelling the entire population).
I would never defend Israel’s shitty colonialist behavior over the last 7 decades. A horrible colonialist idea followed by generations of stupid mistakes and vile actions.
The question was “when is the world going to put a stop to this”. The answer seems to be that “the world” is going to let Israel attempt to dislodge Hamas. Eliminating Hamas is going to be a disgusting bloodbath and probably will just sew the seeds of the next conflict. The alternative is telling the Israeli people that they deserve to having Viking raiders pillaging the borders because the antisemitic leaders of “the greatest generation” picked a pretty horrible solution to what they called “the Jewish question”.
One problem is that certain countries in said World seem to have picked up the “giving material support to those committing genocide” option, which goes way beyond the more neutral “closing your eyes” option that would seem to be the safest one since - and I agree with you on this - there really are no good options at this point given what’s happenned so far - Israel has really been fucking up the Palestinians but forcing Israel to actually stop doing that and give back the Palestinian Land right now (which is probably not possible) would be rewarding Hamas for its choice of committing terrorist acts and would incentivised them and others to do more of it.
The second problem is that there are a lot of ways of going about the whole “fighting Hamas” thing and “the world” is not just letting Israel attempt to disloge Hamas but actually letting Israel do it in unnecessarilly bloody ways (the blockade of food and water being a prime example) - even genuine self-defense is not a valid justification for choosing to do it in the way that causes the most suffering to civilians.
Whilst I agree that there are no good choices, I believe the whole “unwavering support for Israel” choice which has tied certain nations to what is already a Genocide is almost certainly influencing the current Israeli government to feel that they have total impunity and will get away with killing tens or even hundreds of thousands of people for the purpose of triggering what they themselves describe as their objective - a “Second Nakba” - so the choices they are making are immensely worse than those they would be making if they feared repercursion from going too far (this is why I keep blaming western powers such as the US, the UK, France and Germany - the “unwavering” and uncritical nature of their support is what is enabling the Israli leadership to turn a “no good choices” situation into the far more extreme situation which is a Genocide).
The current Israeli government seems to be Fascist and historically Fascists aren’t exactly known for caring about the lives of “lesser races”, refraining from sacrificing even “their own people” “for the greater good” or once they’re engaged in politics by violent means to stop unless force by an even more powerful force.
Given that those Fascists have the unwavering support of the US (as well as from countries like France, the UK and Germany), they will likely continue the killings until they achieve what they themselves described as a “Second Nakba”
Fascinating, thanks for sharing that. Lehi was classified as a terrorist group by Israel although they were Zionists. As the article states, most Jewish militant groups at the time allied with the UK against Germany, not the other way around.
Lehi became Likud, the party of Netanyahu. Currently in power. Their own party members are all over Israeli TV advocating for the genocide of all Palestinians in Gaza and cheering on every bombardment. The number one target of most Jewish militant groups was the British. As they were the authority in mandate Palestine. You are truly ignorant of history.
Interesting, where can I read more about this? Wikipedia says:
The Likud was formed on 13 September 1973 as a secular party by an alliance of several right-wing parties prior to that year's legislative election—Herut, the Liberal Party, the Free Centre, the National List, and the Movement for Greater Israel.
Nothing about Lehi.
the party of Netanyahu. Currently in power. Their own party members are all over Israeli TV advocating for the genocide of all Palestinians in Gaza and cheering on every bombardment.
I suspect that's hyperbole and they're not literally saying they want genocide, but still, right-wingers gonna right-wing. Assholes, the lot of 'em.
The number one target of most Jewish militant groups was the British. As they were the authority in mandate Palestine. You are truly ignorant of history.
From the article my comment was regarding:
the majority of the Yishuv [the body of Jewish residents in Palestine] ... had abandoned the struggle against the British when World War II broke out to join in fighting their common enemy of Nazi Germany.
The article goes on at great lengths about how the other militant groups were at odds with Lehi regarding their attempts at alignment with Germany. Who's ignorant?
When will the World stop Israel indulging in this Blood thirsty revenge ritual ?
I suspect it will end when they have achieved safety for themselves. Unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza didn't work, negotiating with Hamas didn't work, perhaps destroying north Gaza, (and I suspect eventually annexing it,) to create distance from this endlessly violent and belligerent territory will keep their population safe from their explicitly genocidal enemy.
Yes indeed. In hindsight that seems obvious, but at the time it didn't. Generally speaking divide and conquer is a good strategy against one's opponents so I understand why they tried it. Israel's system of incentives didn't mean much to a radical Islamist enemy who wants to drive them into the sea at all costs. It kind of reminds me of how the US inadvertently created Al Qaeda via the Mujahadeen, which directly led to the 9/11 attacks.
PLO at the time was gaining popularity by pushing for a two state solution. That doesn’t track with “drive them into the sea” narrative of the enemy though.
Wasn’t Hamas’ attack a revenge for past stolen land and actions too? They’re the same. Hamas is just stupider because they are weaker and will never win by violence
everything degraded in quality while getting more expensive, with the pandemic being used an excuse for all of it, relevant or not. then things went back to normal and quality stayed shitty, because now ‘the numbers’ don’t justify upping the quality
I nearly doubled my income ($13/hr to $24/hr) from the beginning of the pandemic, and I don’t feel like it made any difference. I’m still one emergency or missed paycheck from destitution.
I make more money now than I ever have in my life, I’m still living in a tiny apt that I pay nearly 2k a month for and have virtually no savings or room for it because of some debt I racked up when unemployed last year
I’m the end you’ll get sick, lose your insurance, and the government will require you to sell off everything you own before Medicare will pick up the tab.
In other words, get used to that feeling.
They said it out loud at Davos a couple years ago. “You’ll own nothing - and be happy”
We don’t own anything. We just rent it, and if they can force you to liquidate it for medicine, than the only freedom your entire life bought you was the freedom to choose death over extortion.
Every person involved in making this decision deserves to be buried in an unmarked grave with the weapons they love so much. How many innocent people completely uninvolved with the war are going to grow up suffering the effects of depleted uranium rounds? Another absolutely monstrous decision in a long line of monstrous decisions by the US government.
Are you aware of what depleted uranium does to the human body? Innocent people are going to be dealing with the consequences of a decision made by a handful of people across the planet for decades after the war ends. Does poisoning generations of people sound like “defending” Ukrainians to you?
It’s use will have consequences far outside of the conflict and ruin the lives of who knows how many people who had absolutely no say in this war and I’m supposed to cheer it on?
The op is specifically about depleted uranium but hey, if you want to make the case that we shouldn’t be sending weapons to Ukraine in the first place I’m not going to argue against it shrug-outta-hecks
Yes, I’m aware of the effects of depleted uranium on the human body; are you? 2) What would you propose to help Ukraine evict the genocidal invaders from its territory?
Just stepped in someones front yard without permission, which is technically an invasion, and ive been told this is tantamount to genocide. Am I an imperialist war criminal, Hexbear?
The only fascists in this conflicts are the ones you support, they’re pretty open about being fascists too. These are the actual people defending themselves from scum like you hrw.org/…/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munition…
No, the only fascists are the ones that crossed the border into Ukraine and are currently being pushed out. According to the article you linked, it states it's not possible to conclusively prove who launched those cluster munitions in October.
You know, the simple solution for the war crimes to end would be for the Russian invaders to admit they fucked up, retreat to the borders that were recognized in 2013 and start preparing for the trials at The Hague.
But, Putin is too weak and much like Tankies need to tank... Russian fascists need to fash.
They aren’t that dangerous as a weapon of war. The uranium is depleted, as the name suggest. The alternative is heavy metal, which is also dangerous to breathe in. It’s war and it sucks for health. Maybe there shouldn’t have been an invasion…
Depleted Uranium is definitely radioactive. It’s depleted but there are still radioactive isotopes in it. It’s relatively same to handle until it’s fired and some of it turns to dust. The dust is both poisonous and radioactive. The toxicity of it is probably worse than the radiation but they’re both still bad.
Unironically yes. A peace deal was in the works last year until, according to the Ukranian Pravda, Boris Johnson pressured Zelensky not to go through with it. This would have stopped the fighting and resulted in some withdrawal of Russian troops, but since the West is more interested in weakening their geopolitical rivals and helping the weapons industry rake in profit than ending the war, they squashed any possibility of that happening.
No, Ukraine didn’t want to give up but they were becoming desperate. Boris Johnson came in to let them know the West was finally willing to offer some support. Ukraine giving up would not have resulted in the withdrawal of russian troops from their newly conquered territory
And so do other heavy metals. What do you suggest they use that won’t have negative health impacts (which is ironic for something designed to kill, but whatever)?
i cannot believe they think we are stupid enough to accept that shooting rubber bullets at unarmed student protestors on public property is justified and morally correct.
paternalistic bullshit like that breeds hatred and contempt; they are making their own enemies in order to justify more crackdowns, and more fascist behavior.
it’s dark, but it will pass. i hope for the better.
It receives federal funds so yes in a limited way it is. Doesn’t matter though because they have rights as a paying customer redressing both the government and their school.
Public property as we knew it in the 60’s has been completely privatised. Our legal system definitions of public spaces haven’t caught up with the modern reality of these spaces so let’s not defend police brutality with this “was it REALLY a public space” semantic bullshit.
It’s obviously pretty valuable. How would we feel if say, China decided Microsoft/Google/AWS/Oracle had to sell to a Chinese company on the grounds of national security? They’d rather pull out too, despite China being a very large market too. Or what happens if other countries starts demanding the same?
Pretty sure ByteDance would rather keep their IP.
And if they sell, do they keep the rights for the other countries or it belongs to the US now?
They wouldnt have to sell their IP even just the userbase and videos would be valuable enough to let someone else plug in an algorithm. Then again, i suppose this could all just be bluster.
I’m under no illusions that the US is pursuing this for altruistic reasons, but fundamentally I do think it’s ridiculous that China bans western competition, yet the west rolls over and allows Chinese companies, or even the Chinese government, to buy out western companies, to enter the market and compete, and to compete using massive state subsidies or slave labour that kill domestic competition.
IMO it’s entirely fair for a country to say “you’re banning our companies? Ok then we’re banning yours.”
And I do also agree that China uses the data they collect for nefarious purposes. Be it training language models so they can better track and shut down dissenting voices at home, or spreading misinformation amongst other nations. I just wish the US would also clamp down on the privacy policies of domestic companies too.
How would we feel if say, China decided Microsoft/Google/AWS/Oracle had to sell to a Chinese company on the grounds of national security?
But no one is saying that ByteDance has to sell TikTok to a US company. Just divest it to an owner that is not beholden to the Chinese government and obligated to share any and all data upon request. Compared to the legal requirements that China puts on US companies operating in China, this is a pretty tame ask.
Yeah but the 5 Eyes and their friends are everywhere outside of the CCPs borders. So if they really don’t want to let the US have that algorithm, and probe the interfaces the CCP propaganda arm used to access the TikTok backend, there’s few places overall that have a reason to buy it, and can also afford it.
AWS already had to effectively do this. AWS only exists in two regions in China because they licensed much of the AWS software to be run by a pair of Chinese-government affiliated ISPs inside China (that is, Amazon doesn’t run AWS in either of its China zones — it’s run by a pair of Chinese companies who license AWS’s software).
This is why the China AWS regions are often quite far behind in terms of functionality from every other region (they either haven’t licensed all the functionality, they don’t keep up-to-date at the same cadence as Amazon, or Amazon is holding certain functions back), and why you can’t really access them from the standard AWS console.
So in effect, Amazon did have to give their software to Chinese-government affiliated companies in order to continue operating in China.
Except that is what China already does. Cloud providers with regions in China have to utilize a local partner company which gives access to the whole tech stack. It’s a reason that AWS China regions were always so far behind in service offerings to the rest of the AWS regions.
I think it’s a gamble… Too many people love tiktok (don’t ask me why) that they know the pressure on the gov would be terrible
More importantly, a forced sale (with a time limit to boot) is bound to fetch them the worst deal ever
I think they are calling their bluff
And before anyone comes at me with some stupid fallacy, no I don’t love the Chinese government or I’m trying to imply tiktok has nothing to hide and it’s the source of rainbows and warm sweet buns
They love tiktok because the algorithm works extremely well.
No other social media actually targets you as well as tiktok does. Instagram is constantly trying to shove you in the direction of whatever makes them the most money even if it’s entirely unrelated to your interests. YouTube is clueless to what you like with shorts. Tiktok surfaces new content that is basically unseen anywhere else (thousands of views not millions) that perfectly fits your interests.
Could other platforms do the same thing? Probably: but they’re too short sighted to do so.
I don’t think “shortsightedness” is the difference. The sheer amount of privileges TikTok requires on your device speaks to Cambridge analytica levels of personal profile knowledge.
Couple that with the endless scroll, hot people doing thirst traps, flashy idiocy, flashing icons hugging the full screen image, no discernible window with controls tempting you to back out or log off…it’s the “perfect” tech product. One that’s endlessly addictive. That’s what makes tech good. They know you better than you know yourself, and they will shamelessly serve you exactly what you didn’t realize you wanted to see.
The sheer amount of privileges TikTok requires on your device
The fuck are you on about?
Tiktok has a total of 0 granted permissions from me.
By default it has the same perms as other similar apps: Google Advertising ID.
That’s it.
You can’t opt out of that: it’s Google.
If you give it a fuck load of perms that’s your fault. By default it has less access than Discord.
You’re just parroting bullshit you’ve heard elsewhere.
I’m a professional Android developer: Tiktok isn’t requesting anything strange. It asks for camera, audio, and storage access when you record a video. That’s exactly what you’d need to ask for: nothing more or less.
I just looked it up again because you made me second guess myself. But i distinctly remembered a laundry list of permissions on the App Store. My lemmy client isn’t letting me upload he screen grabs for some reason, but the detailed tracking information took up four screenshots. So…you might wanna double check that.
It’s the second. But the Apple App Store alerts you to it reading up browsing history, your physical address, “other user contact info” besides name, phone, email, and physical address, whatever that could mean, as well as your “other financial info” besides your payment to them, “other diagnostic data” besides crash, performance data, and app use…
Maybe this is just a matter of opinion but those few things alone are way too much. But hey, you do you.
Are you talking about the App Privacy page specifically?
Because that page is about as useful as “known to the State of California to cause cancer”
Any social media with advertising will have similar alerts as to what it might be collecting.
How would it be collecting that you might ask?
It’s not on your phone: Your browser and your apps are sandboxed from each other. They cannot read from each other. It’s a constant pain in the ass for session persistence, you end up having to use wonky nonce patterns to maintain sessions from app to browser & vice versa.
They’re collecting it from advertising ids that are on your browser. It’s the Google Ad Api - That’s it.
Go ahead, look at Instagram or Youtube. They’ll have the same laundry list of “Browsing history, Physical Address” etc.
TikTok isn’t conjuring that from thin air - It’s just that it, like any other advertising app, is using the publicly available data about you to advertise.
I really wish I could post those pictures. I opened the “learn more” page on the App Store. It does list some of the same info under a few different headers, but I take that to mean it’s more detailed info to apply to their multiple tracking desires.
As soon as a user starts using TikTok, the company begins building a profile about them, including their interests, political leanings, sexuality, and every other variable that could impact the selection of videos they see. TikTok also collects information about users’ keystroke patterns, location information, browser history, and even biometric information (face and voice print).
I’m not a social media person, so I was never going to use the app anyway, but I’m also pretty strict about what apps I’ll download. It’s probably a security blanket, but I try to do what I can. I’ve changed my mind about downloading a couple of apps that required way fewer permissions. So maybe my opinion is different than others’.
My point here is less that TikTok is totally cool with privacy (they’re not)
It’s that tiktok is just as invasive as all other mainstream social media but they provide a better service than any other social media.
That’s it: They do more with the exact same.
You can drop instagram straight into that sentence and it reads the same. Except Facebook tracks you even when you don’t have an account.
As soon as a user starts using Instagram, the company begins building a profile about them, including their interests, political leanings, sexuality, and every other variable that could impact the selection of videos they see.
I see. Maybe that’s true. I don’t think we even know the true extent of their snooping. Any of them. It’s probably much more extensive and creepy than any of us could ever know.
Although, I do think them providing “better” service is subjective. It’s basically vine, right? Vine had an “explore” page, right? I would definitely agree they provide a more stimulating service than any other social media company.
But if you asked them their mission statement, their answer would be “providing customers with a great experience.” Though, if you could actually get the non-PR answer, their goal is to maximize engagement with an app people have a hard time turning off, while maximizing profits by dominating the data broker market.
Would you say they’re providing customers a better experience? Or that they’re the most effective social media company? I’d argue that probably every new iteration of social media, and every year they exist, they get more invasive. They’re finding new ways to streamline their profit centers. And they’re…free apps. So….
That’s all I’m saying. I don’t know for certain who’s more invasive, but I will say it’s a race to the bottom and we’ll never know who actually won until there’s a whistle blower. That’s…not a good sign. I’m sure we can agree on that much.
Although, I do think them providing “better” service is subjective.
Sure, better is always subjective
But there’s a reason it’s way more popular for short form video than anyone else despite coming after them.
It’s basically vine, right? Vine had an “explore” page, right?
Sorta. It’s short form video but vine was locked to 7 seconds. TT is anything up to 3 minutes.
But beyond vine: the “for you page” of Tiktok is an algorithmic beast unlike anything else. It is miles better at training to your likes than anyone else manages.
It seems like their main money plan besides ads is shopping. That’s been their major push for a year or so now.
With social media companies and ad tech in general it’s safe to assume that they’re all merciless and cutthroat. They will do anything to profile you better, short of the existentially illegal shit (IE the company would cease to exist if they were caught. Think breaking into your house).
That’s why it’s always hilarious when people tout whatsapp being e2e encrypted
the “for you” page of TikTok is an algorithmic beast unlike anything else. It is miles better at training to your likes than anyone else manages.
And maybe this is me being a pessimist and something of a Luddite lite, but I take that to mean the data they’re extracting from users is way more invasive than other companies.
They’re not hand selecting things they think you’d like, like you said, it’s an incredibly advanced algorithm that is scientifically creating the most effective content service they can.
And yeah, def agree people who trust WhatsApp are dumb af. I don’t trust meta any more than I trust the people who own TikTok’s algorithm.
I think we’re basically saying the same thing, but just looking at it differently. I take what you’re saying to mean they’re more invasive. You are more or less saying they’re as invasive as any other SM company, and they’re all pretty much neck and neck.
I’d agree in some senses, but think TikTok has mastered that profiling to the heights anyone could even imagine. And I also think, with ties to the Chinese govt—a ruthlessly authoritarian state—that it doesn’t bode well for user privacy, probably going beyond that threshold you mentioned. I would say the exact same thing if Facebook were owned by the US govt and was operating in China, Russia, etc.
Yeah seems like we’re just of different opinions there.
I firmly believe that American companies have excruciating detail on every single user, as well as most non-users. That’s how they can do things like predict pregnancy before the rest of the family has been told…
And that was Target more than a decade ago.
And I also think, with ties to the Chinese govt
It’s worth noting that ByteDance has a board that is 3/5ths American. The company has a communist committee like all Chinese megacorps.
China has blocked Youtube because it contained content around Free Tibet & Tienanmen Square. American Congress has decided to ban Tiktok because it might have content that China wants people to see (maybe). There is no credible reason why besides “No totally, trust me it’s a problem”.
Right. I mean, I’m no fan of china. I’m no fan of the US govt either. But I would say that China banning YT because it told the true story of Chinese oppression and the US trying to ban TikTok because it might be used to sway American opinion are starkly different…I mean, there have been coordinated disinformation campaigns in recent years. It’s not completely crazy to imagine china would use this incredibly powerful tool to spread their influence. Their track record isn’t amazing.
Also, yeah, most definitely, the data broker situation is waaaayyy the fuck out of control. It’s terrifying. Us companies are absolutely not innocent. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that US companies were the first to really “create” this new market. I haven’t looked that up though.
Yeah I’ve deleted Facebook and affiliated products since 2017.
Google social never made sense to me but even just for content YouTube does a terrible job showing me what I want to see.
Tiktok had honed in on things I found funny or interesting within an hour of picking it up. And I’m not talking mainstream sports or TV type content, I’m talking niche sub communities and creators with less than 1k followers.
Idk how they’re doing it (besides the obvious data collection) but they’ve got a well tuned algo.
YouTube was going down that route but whole terriost pipeline deal durning the hight of the war on terror put big breaks on it. TikTok doesn’t. Its actually wild how vastly different friends of mines tiktoks could be. Just all the most extreme version of anything their into. Had them all asking completely nuts things thinking it was everywhere. Like no sis I don’t about the witches that are supposed to be doing something tonight, that was just an old qanon thread with new dates, wth is boy love anime?
The article talks about why they’d prefer to shut down if you take their word it. Essentially the US is such a tiny portion of ByteDances revenue, it would be more optimal to shut down then to risk the sale of their algorithm. Assuming they’re using relatively similar algorithms on Douyin, and they don’t want whoever they sell to to turn around and sell to their Chinese competition, which is where the real money is being made for ByteDance.
Average revenue per user is a pretty common industry benchmark, and the US absolutely slaughters the rest of the world. We’re the fat, dumb, brainwashed cows the advertisers can’t get enough of.
Is that really justified, or an example of selection bias?
There’s a reason you couldn’t actually talk about the ARPU, and that’s because an American user is worth literally 7x more than a Chinese user on average. Which is why TikTok had a revenue of 16.1b in 2023, with a growing user base, and ByteDance’s total revenue was 40.8b.
Makes the children screaming we are taking their toy away seem even more oblivious when the billion dollar corporation gives absolutely zero shits about losing the business.
It’s a scare tactic. You as a customer won’t care if the business gets a new owner but if they threaten to shut down all the kids they have will start kicking and screaming to make the government dial back the decision.
The way you are speaking it’s as if they mean to close down the whole thing. There is a whole rest of the world for them to operate in. Sure losing the US market would be a huge detriment, but the owners still might rather have it everywhere else, than keep it running in the US in someone else’s hands.
They aren’t being forced to sell their operations in the entire world, just the US. So, doesn’t it make better financial sense, if all legal options to keep control fail, that they sell their US operation to another company, and at least get billions of dollars before exit, than to just lose the market and get not billions?
They have a leg up, they would have to use their early footing to compete. If they go, the vacuum of their loss of presence will open a spot for an american tech company to copy them. Either way, they are going to get competition from an american tech company. Nothing they are doing is esoteric in a way that would make them hard to copy. There really is no secret sauce, so to speak, in the software. If they are doing it to hide something then then it lends credence to the US’s accusations, at least it leaves a grey area for that speculation. This gives the US a big avenue to push that they are right and everyone should be cautious of their media business.
They are going to get one when a western tech company copies them to fill the vacuum they left. Their only real advantage is their leg-up with their earlier footing. There is nothing particularly interesting in their software, it’s easy to copy, and someone likely will. If they do not get a copycat, their crowd will move on to some other thing and, being in the same industry, will still be a competitor.
They don’t want to compete with tiktok, they want them gone so they win without trying to make their own service better, which they could do, but they don’t want to change what likely ends up being a more lucrative algorithm for them if they aren’t dealing with competition. You know, American free market economics 🙄
A thing never mentioned in these debates is that noone in the world is buying tiktok without buying the underlying algorithm, the same algorithm the app runs on worldwide, the algorithm is the special sauce. They are not going to sell the basis for their app just for a single payday in the US market, which after buying it, they could rebrand and then once successful in the US, compete in the global market against tiktok but with the income of the most lucrative app market in the world behind them. It’s an extremely stupid business move.
reuters.com
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