It's a chance to showcase how we're "more free" or literally just as restrictive
It’s one thing to allow the CCP to say whatever it wants, it’s something else to allow them the ability to manipulate of what other people can say. Allowing such a highly restricted platform seems like it hurts free speech more than it helps.
When as has been demonstrated their algorithm ignores the number of upvotes in favor of massively promoting viewpoints it cares about, that’s also vast suppression of opposing viewpoints but in a way o get creators to quietly comply rather than try and push the boundaries.
Creators are still free to use YouTube as a platform to discuss sensitive topics with a very large audience without paying per viewer, unlike say advertising or standing at a street corner talking to passersby. As such YouTube is still supporting the discussion and distribution of said content.
Maybe you disagree with the viewpoint or message, but it seems awfully paternal for such wide spread censorship.
This is why we can't trust only the US to provide us our social media and even if we don't like who is offering it.
Tiktok was and still is banned in China by the way.
And Fox News is also a foreign-owned straight unimpeded funnel used to subvert democracy, which sows division and conflict in our society.
It's done orders of magnitude more harm to it than TikTok ever has.
When are we banning it?
> On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations.
Speaking of hostile foreigners, a prominent South African was just giving the crowd a few Nazi salutes at the inauguration. Is that also benign? At what exact point do we start observing that the enemies to democracy are inside the house?
Particular people are problematic. But you can only judge that by actions, not by their country of birth.
Which is what makes this foreign manipulation rhetoric and ban rubbish. It refuses to identify what the bad actions it's trying to protect us from are, it's just a lazy, prejudiced rubric that gives the most egregious ones a free pass, because they have the right color stripes on their pin.
- Workers in state sectors can be banned from traveling out of China https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3265503/chinas-expanding-t.... Also, non 1st tier city citizens can have a hard time getting passports, essentially a ban of travelling
- banned from using trains or airline if they are on the social credit score ban
- banned from moving money out of China for more than $50k a year
- banned from accessing foreign websites. VPN is technically illegal, and using it can get you into trouble
- banned from accessing porn
- banned from using a long list of restricted words on social media, from Winnie the Pooh, to "support Xinjiang people"
- banned from using TikTok
- banned from protesting against lost wages from state enterprises
- banned from group protesting
the list goes on and on and on
> https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/24/shadowbanning-...
This is why it’s good to have a social media company free of US control.
I mean, nothing really. You could say the same about Israel and Palestine, or Saudi Arabia and Iran, or China and Hong Kong. Human rights abuses are perfectly acceptable in today's society, as long as they're out of sight and out of mind. He who controls visibility into human suffering controls the way people perceive his control. Hasbara, in Israeli vernacular.
> Also why do we do this:
Because Zionist lobbying exerts disproportionate control over both the US tech industry and the legislative apparatus regulating it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
You're not going to drive a wedge between people by repeating the Israel stance, though. If you tried to expose China's same abuses for working slave labor to death or suicide, you'd be suppressed in exactly the same way America suppresses your anti-Israel content. From a national security perspective, TikTok's existence is about whether another country can impose their own double-standard on top of America's own populist opinion. Today it's the war in Gaza, but tomorrow it will be about suppressing democracy in Taiwan for the "betterment of global peace" et. al. You can't deny China's plans to use TikTok for war with a straight face - by many accounts it's already started.
So much freedom!!!!
Do you hear yourself? Are you insane?
This is a histrionic response. America can still be more free and democratic than China while also enforcing a ban on their businesses.
This ban is the definition of a slippery slope - this ban may be in your interests, but eventually one will not. What then?
Also don't forget - TikTok has remediation options where they continue to operate in America as an American business instead. They are the ones that refused that and chose censorship. America just forced the choice between eating the cake and having it.
Edit: Correct, it is not. The part that is censorship on China's behalf is the enforcement of the Great Firewall and enaction of laws prohibiting citizens from owning or consuming foreign news or entertainment. China's ban on foreign apps could just as well be explained by a desire for better domestic software markets - the same cannot be said for the Firewall.
Edit 2: Yes, secession would settle this. China has proven that they cannot be trusted to disseminate information through a state-owned apparatus. If the owner continues to be a government entity, then continuing to let them do "business" is like letting the Trojans wheel in their horse so the citizens can marvel at it.
So if you accept to cede control we will leave you alone. Blackmail, in other words, exactly like China does it.
Also, you probably don’t realize this, but censorship and moderation are many times two sides of the same coin - depending on the incentives and factors at play.
https://www.instagram.com/ajplus/reel/C0SHLYlSynD/
Some others that aren't graphic:
https://www.instagram.com/middleeasteye/reel/C6RA3X0v1-y/
https://www.instagram.com/middleeastmonitor/reel/C4qXD7nvCLV...
https://www.instagram.com/katiecouric/p/CyW65klxgjA/
I'm not very familiar with Instagram, you'll have to tell me if those posts have been moderated to oblivion.
As far as this ban goes, there is in fact a less emphasized angle that explains the strong bipartisan support for this ban (related to Gaza): https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/05/06/senato...
On this basis alone, American consumer protections should have banned TikTok from the start. There is no tangible outcome where state-owned social media is given a holistic directive, especially not when China is the owner. I pity you for not keeping up with modern geopolitical tensions, but this is just the beginning of the "censorship" if you're reliant on China to voice your opinion. They had their chance to demonstrate detente, but they chose to fight instead.
But I also understand that an outright ban of a social media platform is an authoritarian practice, and a bad sign for the future of this country. It is an easy way out, but at the cost of introducing a mechanism by which more censorship can take place.
To me, this ban indicates that the US is willing to ban any platform that does not cave into its demands for content “moderation” (if you will) - just like China has been doing for a while now.
We are not “better” than them anymore, and the sooner we realize this, the better of a chance we have of reversing this process.
It was subtle before with stuff like Gerrymandering that the layman would never notice. But it's so blatant now that the democratic process is compromised.
Where exactly is the commenter implying this?
No political process on Earth, democratic or otherwise, has ever met this standard.
Is this not what we have all been saying about Trump? Or are you saying that is OK because his moves have been made within the framework of a democratic system?
But the mechanism we are using is one and the same - this is essentially the launch of a “Great Firewall of America”, just enforced a bit differently.