• SDK@midwest.social
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    17 hours ago

    The problem with the American government trying to propagandize us against China is that there is currently nothing that they can say about China that is not effectively the same or WORSE in the United States.

    But China spies on their citizens…
    

    Yeah, that’s the NSA.

    They can’t Google Tiananmen Square. They don’t want people knowing their history…
    

    We’re trying to ban history books right now because we don’t like that white people look bad during the slave trade.

    But China doesn’t have freedom of press…
    

    All of our press sources have been bought up by billionaires who also contribute enough campaign contributions to effectively own all of our politicians so that they can control which laws are passed as well as control the narrative surrounding those laws.

    China doesn’t have freedom of speech…
    

    The United States is officially banning a platform on January 19th that is used by millions of Americans to communicate and share ideas!!!

    But China has massive amounts of human rights violations…
    

    Forced birth is a war crime that is happening in America RIGHT NOW. Child marriage is legal in the United States right now. Our prison system is legalized slavery. There is a reason that we have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. It’s because it’s legalized slavery. The 13th amendment to our constitution says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Convenient for a nation that imprisons black people at more than FIVE TIMES the rate of white people.

    China is condoning/committing a genocide…
    

    That’s fucking laughable. Smile and say that to America’s indigenous peoples. Say that to Palestine. Say that to Congo. Say that to Sudan. Fuck it… Say that to ANY COUNTRY in the global south.

    But the working conditions for the Chinese people are terrible…
    

    We haven’t raised the minimum wage in 15 FUCKING YEARS! The minimum wage is still $7.25 per hour, meaning you could work a full time job and still only make $15,080 per year. BEFORE TAXES!!! With basically no guaranteed benefits. And on top of that, the government is actively banning an app that is a secondary source of income for people.

    There is really not much we can say about China right now, in a negative light, that we cannot find some equivalent here in the United States. And on top of that, at least China has universal healthcare. At least China has public transportation. At least in China, they’re not having their kids shot to death on a daily basis. At least in Chin/ they have managed their homeless population. Do you know how we manage our homeless population? We throw the In prison. We take our veterans and turn them into slaves. In China they give them temporary housing and a job.

    I’m not going to sit here and condone the awful shit that China is doing and I do not have any desire to live/suffer there, but if you wanted American citizens to actually believe that we are better than China, then maybe we should actually fucking BE BETTER THAN CHINA.

    I’m going to miss TikTok. Some of the smartest, kindest, most generous people I’ve met in my whole life, I met on TikTok.

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      7 hours ago

      Honestly, you’re probably better off without tiktok. Short form video is bad for humans, and it’s much worse if it’s not educational

      I’m genuinely sorry for the potential friends you’ve lost, but tiktok was not a good thing… An American controlled version wouldn’t be better, I hope you double down on the fediverse

      • Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        The Greeks complained about the youth using paper instead of writing chalk on stone.

        The British complained about the youth reading books.

        Things change man

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      that’s a whole lot of words used to sell tiktok as a fun wholesome platform…

      I’m getting strong “both sides are the same” vibes from that wall of text.

      tiktok will be the first(of many) apps that will be removed from access within the US. why? to protect the people from outside influence and to protect national defense.

      I’m not here to argue about the shit the US has or is doing that’s the same or better or worse than China. I don’t care because, it’s a red herring.

      tiktok has a well known and documented history of lying about their privacy protections. on the record they have sold American user data to Chinese backed MICs.

      it’s a threat to national security. the end.

      • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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        57 minutes ago

        to protect the people from outside influence and to protect national defense.

        Thats just not true, otherwise we wouldn’t be welcoming a South African who illegally immigrated to the US and has some serious international conflicts-of-interests with US interests control a major social media platform.

        • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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          24 minutes ago

          Thats just not true, otherwise we wouldn’t be welcoming a South African who illegally immigrated to the US and has some serious international conflicts-of-interests with US interests control a major social media platform.

          strawman gonna strawman.

          I didn’t vote for him. did you?

          you act like it’s the current administration that let’s Elon do whatever he does, but it’s the incoming administration (Trump) that is allowing that.

          • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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            12 minutes ago

            strawman gonna strawman.

            Hardly a strawman! We have a major social media company in the US, that is controlled by a foreigner, for their own, and for foreign interests, and impacting our elections with measureable results.

            So, obviously, this move wasn’t done to prevent such a thing from happening, just to prevent certain countries from doing it.

            you act like it’s the current administration that let’s Elon do whatever he does, but it’s the incoming administration (Trump) that is allowing that.

            Our current admin has done nothing to stop it, and therefore allowing it.

            Why are all the US Gov accounts STILL on Twitter?

      • IdleSheep@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        15 hours ago

        You actually tricked yourself into believing this isn’t all about shutting down competition to American companies or stopping people’s (especially young people’s) power to disseminate even remotely left leaning views that could gain traction and threaten the oligarchs.

        I mean even the politicians who back this bill state as much, so I’m not sure why you think this is about national defense. American citizens are just under as much threat as before, but now they have one less way to express themselves. Ain’t that great. /s

        • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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          11 minutes ago

          You actually tricked yourself into believing this isn’t all about shutting down competition to American companies or stopping people’s (especially young people’s) power to disseminate even remotely left leaning views that could gain traction and threaten the oligarchs.

          I didn’t though. and choosing an app to post memes is not a “power to disseminate”. that’s just childish to believe.

          I mean even the politicians who back this bill state as much, so I’m not sure why you think this is about national defense. American citizens are just under as much threat as before, but now they have one less way to express themselves. Ain’t that great. /s

          lies unless you can prove they stated that in an official capacity, disingenuous at best. Americans have the same amount of ways to express themselves today as they will tomorrow.

          you honestly believe that an app will aid you in expressing yourself more? now who’s tricking themselves? be it an app that’s federated, Chinese, corporate, etc; you will never express yourself more than when you do it yourself. all these “apps” are distractions that bring much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth that force you into a little box so you can pretend you made a difference. social media apps are the “thoughts and prayers” of the 21st century.

          so please forgive me for not takings your musings on one media platform over another seriously.

        • Freefall@lemmy.world
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          41 minutes ago

          It can be a corporate move to out competition AND also improve security. These are not mutually exclusive.