• someone [comrade/them, they/them]
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        329 months ago

        I’ve always found it darkly comical that United States government policymakers, masters of the art of soft power in the first cold war, is now staffed with people who can’t conceive why anyone would use soft power and always leaped to military options. They can’t imagine the government of China continuing economic soft-power control over Taiwan for long-term reintegration purposes. Because US policymakers would never do such a thing themselves.

      • hello_hello [comrade/them]
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        9 months ago

        Why would the US fund China?

        Ohhhh man fuck these people. I hope the seperatists get cold feet and China is able to confiscate Taipei’s assets and create a new government.

  • Zuberi 👀
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    69 months ago

    Still only going to be banned under trump. They extended it to 9-12 months specifically to keep it alive through the election to hurt genojoe

  • FourteenEyes [he/him]
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    609 months ago

    I can see TikTok calling their bluff and then Gen Z just using VPNs to get around it so now all the ad dollars flow exclusively to Chinese companies instead of American ones

    • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
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      429 months ago

      That is what will happen

      over 1.7 billion users as of 2023

      TikTok has 150 million active monthly users in the United States.

      I’m guessing that 1.7 billion number is prolly off due to bots and defunct accounts, but still, you don’t sell your platform for 10% of your market lmao. I’m not sure if the US thought they would honestly back down just because they’re America, if they wanted to ban it because they honestly think it’s spying on Americans, or what exactly the play here was, but the obvious one (force them to sell to Americans) was laughably stupid and unlikely to happen for obvious reasons.

      • AcidLeaves [he/him, he/him]
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        9 months ago

        tbh that 10% of the market probably contributes about ~30-40% of the revenue

        Western users typical contribute >10x more revenue than all other users for adtech platforms, and just ~20-30% of users will contribute to 90% of the revenue (my source is my employers’ internal analytics dashboard)

        Here is Google’s (note that rest of world includes all other developed countries too like Canada, Europe, Oceania, East Asia)

        • Zuberi 👀
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          59 months ago

          Better off without the Americans on the app anyway. The smarter ones will just use VPNs

              • AcidLeaves [he/him, he/him]
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                9 months ago

                Do we not really know revenue being generated that is directly attributable to Tik Tok?

                It’d be unlikely that Tiktok shares this detailed of financials to us. I’d imagine that Google data above got leaked from a random employee, they have a ton of analytics open to all workers

              • EmoThugInMyPhase [he/him]
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                9 months ago

                Oh interesting

                This was in fact brought up by Republicans questioning the CEO of TikTok. They asked him why (or said it was unfair that) the Chinese version of TikTok shows stuff like science, math, and limit children’s usage of the app but the American one shows only mind numbing content lol (some of which he defined as pro Hamas, anti American content)

  • SerLava [he/him]
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    149 months ago

    Yanis Varoufakis was recently saying some interesting stuff about TikTok. Basically TikTok is a way for a Chinese company to generate data capital in a way that cant be taxed or restricted in ports, and that drives US capital crazy.

    He also connected it with the Huawei ban- basically the US is terrified of China’s free universal digital banking, because it could threaten to unseat the dollar as the international trade currency.

    • Zuberi 👀
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      59 months ago

      Surprised more of the leftists here aren’t already on it. You’re missing out ngl

        • Zuberi 👀
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          49 months ago

          Hasn’t been short form in years though. Typically 1-8min depending on what kind of content you interact with.

          • Hestia [she/her, love/loves]
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            9 months ago

            Longer than I expected, but still not long enough for my taste.

            I prefer videos that are at least an hour in length. I tend to listen to them in the background while I do other things.

          • AdeptusPrimaris
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            49 months ago

            Is there anyone on tiktok you can recommend to follow? Also not familiar with it, but curious

  • sempersigh [he/him]
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    569 months ago

    ByteDance should simply take TikTok down and replace it a few days later with a new app called “Tik tok 2”

  • BeamBrain [he/him]
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    859 months ago

    I hope China calls the bluff and lets TikTok be banned, leading to the Gen Z Uprising

    • Zuberi 👀
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      69 months ago

      They aren’t required to sell it. That’s the end of it. It’s not for sale.

    • MaoShanDong [none/use name]
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      199 months ago

      There are a couple of points to consider the biggest one being that Americans as a user base are but a fraction of the global base,less than 10% iirc, and one of the hardest to monetize. Outside of financial considerations it’s worth more to keep tiktok just for the global soft power it exerts on the other parts of the world and to send a message as well.

  • anarchoilluminati [comrade/them]
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    739 months ago

    They’re not even trying to hide the fact they just want TikTok to be Westoid-owned.

    Purely just a question of capital flow, they don’t care about surveillance.

    • Pentacat [he/him]
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      209 months ago

      Nobody has ever explained to me why any person in the US should care about a government with no jurisdiction over them might conduct surveillance on them. The government that worries me is the one that has power over me. Maybe I’m stupid, though.

      • anarchoilluminati [comrade/them]
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        169 months ago

        One reason could be because that other government may not be bound to rules regarding surveillance on people who are not citizens of their country, thus can’t be held accountable, and then that government could share that information with anyone they want including that government where the person is a citizen.

        But then I’m just describing Five Eyes and US surveillance again anyway.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
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      559 months ago

      The context is a chef’s kiss.

      The US isn’t just reauthorizing its surveillance laws - it’s vastly expanding them | Caitlin Vogus | The Guardian

      The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies’ warrantless surveillance of Americans’ emails, text messages and phone calls.

      The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as “terrifying”, the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on free speech.