8 ms·
I have a feeling the ban is likely the result of "special interest" groups as opposed to a "classified briefing"
by elfbargpt 2y ago
I have a feeling the ban is likely the result of "special interest" groups as opposed to a "classified briefing"
- lordofgibbons 2y agoIt's obvious the app is being banned because for once we had unbiased news about Israel/Palestine and the ongoing genocide. A media outlet not easy to censor is unacceptable to the Israeli lobby, and therefore unacceptable to our politicians.
- a_wild_dandan 2y agoPeople will downvote you for revealing this, but it's the truth. I saw it on TikTok, after all.
- seventhtiger 2y agoLeading politicians said it explicitly. It's been discussed in the news since the conflict started.
- 9dev 2y agoIt’s not. The effort started earlier. It’s just a convenient narrative.
- seventhtiger 2y agoBased on what do you say it's not? How is it a convenient narrative? The ban both could have started earlier and been pushed to completion based on more recent factors. Lawmakers talked about propaganda potential relating to Palestine directly, multiple times. https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palestine-republicans/ https://theintercept.com/2025/01/09/tiktok-ban-israel-palest...
- 9dev 2y agoThe whole TikTok legislation was not created to suppress Palestinian views, even if that may have been a side effect of it, and repeating that does not make it true. It’s a convenient narrative because it sounds like „the government“ or „they“ want to conceal the truth, and suppress the honest rebels. It’s a trope. Again, it may well be that some parts of the government feel like the side effects are beneficial, and I’m not commenting on that. But spinning the story to say this was the whole purpose of the law is simply not the truth, and instead pushing a certain narrative.
- seventhtiger 2y agoThe choice doesn't have to be binary. There can be multiple factors, which should all be discussed. Dismissing a frequently reported on factor that mentioned by officials requires a higher burden than vague commentary on narrative shaping. Trying to minimize it despite factual statements is its own narrative.
- 9dev 2y agoI don't disagree with you, and I don't dismiss any factor, but oppose the altered storyline of events offered by GP, which is simply not factually true. Subtly twisting history into a more convenient version may be presidential territory now, but that doesn't mean we should let a proper discussion devolve into shallow, black-and-white stories just because those are easier to understand.
- spookie 2y agoIn the second paragraph of the link you posted this is said: > But in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, conservatives have become hyper fixated on policing pro-Palestinian messages on the app, accusing TikTok of influencing young Americans to “support Hamas” and favoring pro-Palestinian content. If you follow the link attached to "influencing young Americans", you'll find Palestine isn't mentioned once, but Hamas is. Of course there's bias everywhere, and we should have by now ways to follows stories to their source automagically by now. But anyhow.
- FranzFerdiNaN 2y agoThe process to ban it was started years earlier.
- serial_dev 2y agoIt was, but why did the ban only succeed now? Edit: to be honest, it is an honest question. My guess is that the uniparty can’t afford a popular platform they don’t fully control and where there is significant dissent. On Russia-Ukraine, the voices against US propaganda didn’t gain enough traction for them to worry about it. With Israel-Palestine, the opposition was for the first time reaching people who they previously never could.
- suraci 2y agobecause the election campaign has already ended?
- Aloisius 2y ago> It was, but why did the ban only succeed now? This has been going on for years now. The Navy banned TikTok because of security concerns in 2019. Then in 2020, the US announced it was considering banning them. ByteDance planned to divest by selling to an American company. The Chinese government disagreed. TikTok sued and that took a while to go through the courts. Then TikTok tried negotiating to avoid having to divest for a couple years by placing all private user data in the US, but later leaked recordings made it clear that Chinese employees still had access. A law to ban TikTok on US government devices was then passed. Then a law to ban TikTok unless they divest was drafted, but it took a couple years to pass and then that had to wind its way through the courts.
- hmry 2y agoFor those who don't know, Mitt Romney said this. "Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts."
- surfaceofthesun 2y agoJust to add on: I don’t imagine discussion of what’s happening to the Uyghurs is getting much traction in TikTok either. Movement against TikTok started started with the Trump admin well before Oct 7, 2023 [1]. I think this is less Israel / Palestine and a better explanation lies elsewhere. Namely, that anti-China sentiment has been growing for a while now and Meta has plenty of money to burn (on the Metaverse, Lobbyists, etc.) The actual law was passed after accounts of spying on Hong Kong citizens were made public [2]. ——— 1 — https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/ex... 2 — https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-d257d98125f69ac80f983e6067a84911 https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-bytedance-user-data-...
- lordofgibbons 2y agoThe effort to ban tiktok stalled for a few years due to public backlash. Only after the strong shift in sentiment by younger Americans on Israel's genocidal actions did the effort renew with vigor.
- cudgy 2y agoSure. Everyone reads the 100 page TOS for every site and app they use, right?
- null_deref 2y agoIt baffles me that people can seem to comprehend that only the United States government has interests in its media outlets, and the authoritarian second to the US in the global stage don’t. 1. TikTok in the westernized form is banned in China. 2. When some people tried to move to rednote (the in the open Chinese app), they were getting banned in the first few hours for being gay and other ideas that came with them, so it’s very entirely plausible that also TikTok is heavily regulated from the officials of a foreign actor.
- danielspace23 2y agoThere's plenty of openly gay Chinese RedNote influencers, as there have been for years now [1]. I don't know why you're pushing disinformation. The Americans getting banned probably just violated their ToS, since they were in Chinese and they couldn't understand them. [1] https://www.xiaohongshu.com/search_result?keyword=gay https://www.xiaohongshu.com/search_result?keyword=gay (requires log-in)
- wordofx 2y agoHe’s not pushing disinformation.
- sorushn 2y agoUS is the only state that pretends to champion absolute freedom of speech, to the point of citing violations of it when imposing sanctions on other nations.
- brazzy 2y ago"unbiased" as in: maximally biased to serve Chinese interests.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoI'll go against my better judgment and ask: What are China's relations to Palestine and Israel? I genuinely do not have the slightest clue about that dynamic.
- Applejinx 2y agoFor that matter, what are China's interests regarding Russia/US? It seems like China would lose a lot of money in the event of America taking a major dive, but they could be preparing to make the case that they are a more stable regime with a more stable currency. I feel like that would be aligned with China's interests.
- petre 2y ago> For that matter, what are China's interests regarding Russia/US? "If these two get into a fight, we can move on with our Taiwan agenda." That's why Trump is pushing the EU to properly finance their defense, so the US can concentrate on Asia Pacific. He signalled this during his Notre Dame meeting with Macron, France being the only European NATO ally with a reliable army and interests in the region. To Trump, China is the new US rival, Russia is merely a bigger Iran with nukes and more advanced tech. I don't see him giving Tiktok a break.
- matwood 2y agoPossibly none. But the logic goes like this - China sees that amplifying positive Palestinian stories serve to destabilize US discourse so they put their thumb on the scale to push those over positive Israeli stories. And we know this type of thing works because we see it everyday with US internal propaganda. The last thing the US needs is an adversary with a direct line to the US populace controlling what they see. Also, I'm not even talking about misinformation, just pushing what stories are seen and not seen. Once you add in misinformation and bots it's pretty wild how easy it appears to control the population.
- gymbeaux 2y agoThis reminds me of the Al Jazeera America (“AJAM”) news channel. They weren’t banned per sé, but it’s obvious they were doomed from the start. An Arab news network operating in the United States… if you think TikTok had a target painted on its back for being Chinese-owned… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_America https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_America
- victorbjorklund 2y agoThey arent "just" an arab media. They are financed and controlled by the dictatorship of qatar. That is like claiming Russia Today was domed because it was a "slavic" network. No it was domed because it is propaganda financed and controlled by a dictatorship.
- roenxi 2y agoTechnically the BBC is a state broadcasting service subject to King Charles who, AFAIK, nobody voted for. State run propaganda networks are actually a pretty good source of information; they are well resourced and have a vested interest in being perceived as high-credibility so they can tip the scale on a small number of issues critical to the state. And good propaganda is mostly done by omission and careful fact selection, although a lot of the bit-player dictatorships aren't competent enough to handle good propaganda.
- AshamedCaptain 2y agoIt always rub me the wrong way that YouTube puts a "this is a state actor" disclaimer on a video uploaded by the well-known public media corporation of a western democracy, but put zero disclaimer whatsoever on a random video uploaded by an anonymous account created 2 minutes ago.
- pydry 2y agoAnd Al Arabiya isnt banned because...?
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- UltraSane 2y ago[flagged]
- corimaith 2y agoWhat evidence do you have that preexisting news coverage was biased regarding Israel/Palestine? From many Israeli perspective, much of MSM is biased against Israel! And funny enough, I can see that repeating pattern for every interest group. Left-Wingers say MSM is all Right-Wing and biased against them, Right-Wingers say MSM is taken over by the Woke Mob. There are dozens of contradictory narratives depending on who you ask, what makes your paticular narrative more compelling than the competing narratives?
- bjourne 2y ago"major major major generational problem … We have a TikTok problem, we have a Gen-Z problem." https://www.liberationnews.org/israels-pinkwashing-task-force-aims-to-crush-growing-palestine-solidarity-on-u-s-campuses/ https://www.liberationnews.org/israels-pinkwashing-task-forc...
- dekelpilli 2y agoWorth noting: > In a phone call leaked by the Tehran Times
- lordofgibbons 2y agoIt's a recorded audio file, not an opinion or hearsay, so I don't think the leaking organization matters. Would you feel better if an anonymous user uploaded it to Reddit/Twitter/Tiktok?
- KennyBlanken 2y agoNYT, WaPo, etc would disclose whether they had been able to verify the source or authenticity of the recording in some way. A state-controlled newspaper in an autocratic county? It could be something they did verify as true and just happens to align with their agenda - or it could be nonsense and they know it. Or they couldn't just shrugged and said "makes the US look bad, run it." I think most people don't appreciate the levels of internal review and fact-checking that go on when a national paper in the US ends up with a big story in its lap.
- roenxi 2y agoNYT, WaPo, etc aren't very likely to publish it. It'd be in the same bucket as Jeff Epstein - politically toxic and the majors aren't going to take the lead drawing attention to it even if it is plausible. Facts would need to be in the public sphere for a while and gaining traction before they pick it up. It might be the Iranians making stuff up, although realistically that sort of activity is what should be expected without any leaks at all. It has been obvious since around 2016 that the corporate media doesn't have the ability to single-handily dominate the narrative any more and that will impact national security propaganda because, you know, what military would be stupid enough to leave that sort of messaging to chance?
- logicchains 2y agoSpecial interest groups that spend a huge amount of money to unseat representatives who go against their interests: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/16/congress-election-pro-israel-lobby-aipac https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/16/cong...
- mikae1 2y agoThe new president is populist. Once the rage of the TikTokrs is overwhelming, he's going to find a way to reinstate it.
- KennyBlanken 2y agoHe is populist second, and transactional first and foremost. He always has put himself, namely his vanity, first.
- schwartzworld 2y agoVanity first, then wallet.
- richrichie 2y ago[flagged]
- AlexandrB 2y agoI don't know how you think other politicians operate, but their self-interest always comes before the interests of their constituents (maybe there is the odd exception).
- nico 2y agoAnd loves being the hero. When the app was taken down, there was a generic message about the ban. Then 1 hour later, it was changed to include: “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!” I wonder what happened behind the scenes. This gives me flashbacks of the signed stimulus checks
- bitexploder 2y agoCarter, Reagan, and some hostages, for example.
- nico 2y ago
- chvid 2y agoA special interest group called Meta.
- pbiggar 2y ago[flagged]
- onemoresoop 2y agoThat is certainly tipping the scales in this case
- nico 2y agoOf course. TT is to China as WMDs were to Iraq No real anything presented to the American public, just handwaving and finger pointing It just barely needs to make sense and it becomes the center of the conversation, derailing any meaningful or real discussion Very effective propaganda
- krona 2y agoIf what you say is true then we should've expected a buyer to come forward, or at least signal some interest in buying the platform, surely?
- nico 2y agoNot sure why it would imply that However, there’s been a lot of people not just signaling but openly announcing they are vying for the purchase. Like Kevin O’Leary, who said he’s offering $20b in cash to buy TT
- nico 2y agoIt’s very telling that the TT ban was not a standalone bill, but rather just one item of a bill that included $26 billion in aid for Israel, $13b for Ukraine and $8b for Taiwan Congress can’t even agree on the federal govt budget, but they can almost unanimously agree to support war, and banning TT
- scarab92 2y agoIf ByteDance's interest in TikTok was purely commercial, they would have made the commercial decision to spin out the US market into a US-listed public company or sold it to a US buyer. The fact that they chose to shut down instead, strongly suggests, that they have interests in TikTok beyond financial.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoThat doesn't follow. A third option is: shut down, wait for the pushback and for things to return to how they were before. And it might just be working.
- scarab92 2y agoThere's no guarantee that will happen, and even if it does, TikTok will likely have lost marketshare by being unavailable for a period of time. A financially motivated actor would have avoided the damage by spinning it out. They likely could have even kept a large minority share.
- HotHotLava 2y agoGoogle also opted to pull out of China instead of selling their Chinese operations to a domestic company. Does it imply that Google had interests beyond financial when operating in China? I think it's more likely that they don't want the brand name dilution that comes from having a separate TikTok US that's probably going to be a shittier version of the original since it doesn't have the original algorithm (which isn't allowed to be exported) or the original TikTok engineers working on it.