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> Although video-sharing app TikTok was developed by Chinese company Bytedance, it is not available in China. Instead users can download a twin app, Douyin, whi

> Although video-sharing app TikTok was developed by Chinese company Bytedance, it is not available in China. Instead users can download a twin app, Douyin, which was also developed by Bytedance. Douyin features restrictions such as blocks on international content and limits on children’s usage. The Chinese state owns a stake in the Bytedance subsidiary that controls its domestic Chinese social media and information platforms. [1] So China deploys and app to the US market that China itself doesn't use. The app aggressively collects location and biometric information about the users while promoting copious amounts of destabilizing and divisive political content among other things. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's hard not to see this as a trojan horse and it's shocking that the powers that be in the US are not assessing this situation more seriously. The OP is right in that this seems like one of many troubling signs that the US is in a decline of sorts. [1] https://time.com/6139988/countries-where-twitter-facebook-tiktok-banned/ https://time.com/6139988/countries-where-twitter-facebook-ti...

dirtyid 4y ago
Douyin collects a fuck load data too, maybe less than TikTok one day once new PRC privacy rules come into effect. But that's somethign US doemstic politics have to sort out for their territory. >promoting copious amounts of destabilizing and divisive political Ant that's more fault of US political culture than TikTok being Chinese/PRC. IMO TikTok would like nothing better to ban politics from platform, but that's how you get the muh-free-speech types reeeing about PRC censorship. Large reason WHY TikTok/Douyin is successful is from lessons learned maturing in PRC/Chinese censorship enviroment - platforms are very good at censoring/filtering destablizing political content to focus on light hearted content that produce casual engagement and political serenity. Chinese social platforms are calibrated for stability, but when in rome... see all the western media campaigns trying to smear tiktok for censorship when it first gained popularity, of course now that TikTok as calibrated to political reality of US market, the "destablizing" narrative gets pushed.

dirtyid 4y ago

Douyin collects a fuck load data too, maybe less than TikTok one day once new PRC privacy rules come into effect. But that's somethign US doemstic politics have to sort out for their territory. >promoting copious amounts of destabilizing and divisive political Ant that's more fault of US political culture than TikTok being Chinese/PRC. IMO TikTok would like nothing better to ban politics from platform, but that's how you get the muh-free-speech types reeeing about PRC censorship. Large reason WHY TikTok/Douyin is successful is from lessons learned maturing in PRC/Chinese censorship enviroment - platforms are very good at censoring/filtering destablizing political content to focus on light hearted content that produce casual engagement and political serenity. Chinese social platforms are calibrated for stability, but when in rome... see all the western media campaigns trying to smear tiktok for censorship when it first gained popularity, of course now that TikTok as calibrated to political reality of US market, the "destablizing" narrative gets pushed.