The United States is 'looking at' banning TikTok and other Chinese social media apps

[jonnysensible]

While unintentionally, Tik Tok and other short form video applications are a promoter of peodo-culture. Either that needs to be reigned in, or the apps need to go away.

Down the road, I think you will see liberalism get defined as hate speech, and it will go way beyond going after tiktok or chinese social apps. they likely will go after websites with forums that lean left. wouldnt be shocked to see them even come after places as small as mmoc and go after the mods here for what they will claim as terroristic hate speech and toss them in prison. they will point to things like the BLM riots or chicago gang violence or the Tennessee school shootings to justify it. and you cant escape. you are logged. your id is known. your words have already been clipped, saved and catalogued by the FBI.

this is just the beginning.

save myself quoting twice, what the fuck are you talking about?

[s_bushido]

save myself quoting twice, what the fuck are you talking about?

Kathandira might have meant to say "pseudo-culture?" Only other thing I can think of is "pedo-culture." Idk what either of those would mean, though...

Kokolums is always stroking himself over the idea of civil war/upheaval, so his post was to be expected.

[jonnysensible]

Kokolums is always stroking himself over the idea of civil war/upheaval, so his post was to be expected.

who will you fight for in the mmo-c civil war? are you and endus loyalist or an fbi collaborator?

[s_bushido]

But what if Endus is working for the FBI? :thinking:

[Deus Mortis]

"lololol I don't use it so it should be banned!" is about as brainless as it gets.

The only reason something like this should be taken down is if it poses a quantifiable threat to people's information/security. Vague handwaving about China doing the same shit every American company does...well...sorry if I don't think that qualifies.

Say what you want about the impact social media is having on our culture, but it's not going anywhere any time soon. Short of implementing authoritarian bullshit that would be so much worse.

Never said it should be banned because I don't use it. It should be banned because it most definitely harvests data about US citizens to use by a foreign power. The American companies doing the same thing should also be punished but we all know that will never happen. I use Google Chrome so chances are everything I type, every site I visit most likely ends up in some random NSA database somewhere.

[Endus]

But what if Endus is working for the FBI? :thinking:

I'm Canadian.

I work for CSIS, duh.

[qwerty123456]

Oh do tell why? Because you don't like people expressing themselves?

Have you ever seen the "Tiktok taught me" ads? They got how many billions of hours of content and they could only come up with most basic already known shit to promote Tiktok as a learning app. Flamingos are pink cause of the food they eat? No shit literally everyone in the world who has ever heard of a Flamingo has heard that fact before because its the only interesting fact about them. Hell zoos/animal parks without them will even use the fact just to pad the number of facts about animals they have. You have to twist a pepper grinder and not just put it on one spot? Are tiktokers that stupid that that was something that needed to be told to them?

[Jester Joe]

Have you ever seen the "Tiktok taught me" ads? They got how many billions of hours of content and they could only come up with most basic already known shit to promote Tiktok as a learning app. Flamingos are pink cause of the food they eat? No shit literally everyone in the world who has ever heard of a Flamingo has heard that fact before because its the only interesting fact about them. Hell zoos/animal parks without them will even use the fact just to pad the number of facts about animals they have. You have to twist a pepper grinder and not just put it on one spot? Are tiktokers that stupid that that was something that needed to be told to them?

Or, hear me out, crazy idea.

It's quicker to slap a random fact into an ad than it is to list an entire cooking/baking recipe.

[Kokolums]

who will you fight for in the mmo-c civil war? are you and endus loyalist or an fbi collaborator?

well, the left wing is using corporations to attack the right. Obviously, the right is using the federal government to attack the left. so both are under attack via different means.

[unfilteredJW]

well, the left wing is using corporations to attack the right. Obviously, the right is using the federal government to attack the left. so both are under attack via different means.

More conspiracy theory nonsense.

[Flarelaine]

While unintentionally, Tik Tok and other short form video applications are a promoter of peodo-culture. Either that needs to be reigned in, or the apps need to go away.

For the record, I believe short form video applications are a cancer regardless of content. They destroy whatever attention span adolescents may build.

[s_bushido]

I'm Canadian.

That's just what the FBI would want us to think.

[Kathandira]

Only other thing I can think of is "pedo-culture."

save myself quoting twice, what the fuck are you talking about?

Yeah, Pedoculture is what I was referring to.

[qwerty123456]

Or, hear me out, crazy idea.

It's quicker to slap a random fact into an ad than it is to list an entire cooking/baking recipe.

If you want people to think they can learn stuff from you then put in a fact most people don't know about. Don't use commonly known facts or common sense. If you tell me you're a great teacher with a vast amount of knowledge and in order to prove it you tell me tying your shoes makes them not fall off I'm either gonna think you are an idiot, have knowledge only for little kids/babies, or are a grifter.

[Draco-Onis]

save myself quoting twice, what the fuck are you talking about?

There have been several scandals with Tik Tok and to be fair all short form videos having a very large pedophile problem. There are several lawsuits and groups formed to combat them but these companies have so far failed to stem the tides. It's one of the main reasons youtube keeps having adpocalypses out of them all though I think facebook has it worse.

[Jester Joe]

If you want people to think they can learn stuff from you then put in a fact most people don't know about. Don't use commonly known facts or common sense. If you tell me you're a great teacher with a vast amount of knowledge and in order to prove it you tell me tying your shoes makes them not fall off I'm either gonna think you are an idiot, have knowledge only for little kids/babies, or are a grifter.

This sounds like you have more of a weird superiority complex honestly.

Knowing that flamingos are pink because of the food they eat isnt some universal known fact like you think it is. It's a relatively useless piece of information that's a fun little piece of trivia that either is usually forgotten about or just unknown because not everyone has even seen a flamingo in a zoo. You're getting too worked up about something that's harmless and fun. Not knowing that about flamingos doesn't make someone dumb.

[Biglog]

It's not the front-end silly TikTok videos that are the security concern, it's the widespread info the app is gathering. If you install it on your phone, in addition to your email and birthdate to sign-up, by default TikTok can tell the device you are using, track your location, IP address, search history, the content of your messages, what you’re viewing and for how long. It also collects device identifiers to track your interactions with advertisers. In the US, TikTok can collect biometric information including face and voiceprints, and has access to your camera and microphone. And it has access to anything on your clipboard even from other apps.

So on a wider scale you can start to see the problem. For example, defense personnel or contractors. Granted they probably should know enough to not install it, and some of the tracking can be disabled manually if you remember to do it. But TikTok is popular enough that if a person innocently does install it, that's a treasure trove of intelligence. It tells them exactly what phone they have (from which they can tell exactly which 0-day malware it's vulnerable to), gives them a target for spearphishing, and they can tell their exact location at all times. Being able to turn on the mic or camera remotely inside a secure facility would be a target vector too. This is the issue. It does require quite a bit more permissions than it should really need for a video sharing app.

[qwerty123456]

This sounds like you have more of a weird superiority complex honestly.

Knowing that flamingos are pink because of the food they eat isnt some universal known fact like you think it is. It's a relatively useless piece of information that's a fun little piece of trivia that either is usually forgotten about or just unknown because not everyone has even seen a flamingo in a zoo. You're getting too worked up about something that's harmless and fun. Not knowing that about flamingos doesn't make someone dumb.

I said anyone who has ever heard about Flamingo's has heard of that fact because its the only interesting thing about them. That's not me insulting people who use tiktok or people who don't know the fact its me insulting Flamingos. Also notice how I didn't say everyone or that everyone remembers the fact. I was pointing out that Tiktok was using the most basic of facts about something to promote itself as this amazing learning experience. Me asking if tiktokers are dumb isn't from the flamingo fact. If you look back it was about the needing to twist a pepper grinder to make it work and not just let the shit all fall into one spot on your food. Who pours a pile of salt onto a single portion of their food then leaves the rest unseasoned? literally no one. My point is they have billions of hours of content, billions of dollars, and they couldn't even spend 4 minutes searching for anything but the most basic of information. You wanna get people to join to learn shit then give them some mind blowing stuff like you can use Egos to remove ink from a dress (fake fact) or something that will save you a bunch of time.

[Jester Joe]

I said anyone who has ever heard about Flamingo's has heard of that fact because its the only interesting thing about them. That's not me insulting people who use tiktok or people who don't know the fact its me insulting Flamingos. Also notice how I didn't say everyone or that everyone remembers the fact. I was pointing out that Tiktok was using the most basic of facts about something to promote itself as this amazing learning experience. Me asking if tiktokers are dumb isn't from the flamingo fact. If you look back it was about the needing to twist a pepper grinder to make it work and not just let the shit all fall into one spot on your food. Who pours a pile of salt onto a single portion of their food then leaves the rest unseasoned? literally no one. My point is they have billions of hours of content, billions of dollars, and they couldn't even spend 4 minutes searching for anything but the most basic of information. You wanna get people to join to learn shit then give them some mind blowing stuff like you can use Egos to remove ink from a dress (fake fact) or something that will save you a bunch of time.

Because it takes 5 seconds to list off a random fun fact instead of an entire recipe of how to make a pumpkin pie.

I already said this. You're making assumptions and missing the fact that you're ridiculing an ad for a massively successful app so obviously they did something right with their ads. No one wants to watch a 45-60 second ad, but when it's a quick 5-8 seconds, then it gets attention and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Hell I'd actually say it's pretty smart of an ad in that case, because it doesn't involve any former knowledge to understand it besides knowing what a flamingo is, and to the people who don't know (which I can guarantee you there's plenty of people who don't because how many people look up flamingo facts?) it's just a random fun fact that makes them wonder "what other random facts exist that I don't know"

[qwerty123456]

Because it takes 5 seconds to list off a random fun fact instead of an entire recipe of how to make a pumpkin pie.

I already said this. You're making assumptions and missing the fact that you're ridiculing an ad for a massively successful app so obviously they did something right with their ads. No one wants to watch a 45-60 second ad, but when it's a quick 5-8 seconds, then it gets attention and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Hell I'd actually say it's pretty smart of an ad in that case, because it doesn't involve any former knowledge to understand it besides knowing what a flamingo is, and to the people who don't know (which I can guarantee you there's plenty of people who don't because how many people look up flamingo facts?) it's just a random fun fact that makes them wonder "what other random facts exist that I don't know"

You seem really defensive like you wrote the ad yourself and also seem really focused on the flamingo part when all I said was a joke that there is literally nothing interesting about them except the one fact. I'm not attacking the people who don't know nor any of the creators on tiktok. It wasn't an ad from the creators on tiktok it was the company itself. The ad didn't make the app popular and apparently when you google if its dumb or not other people seem to have thought so so its not just me.

Typically you want to impress with your ads like how they used to place marbles in soup bowls to make it look more filling, having food artists make a perfect looking burger, phone sex line ads showing extremely attractive women instead of regular joes or what ever they actually got working their etc...