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Mainstream corporate print and broadcast media is the biggest source of misdirection, misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. Should it be banned?
Mainstream media ignores, blocks, censors, and derides any information that doesn't support the desired narrative. It hides information. It doesn't question. It creates a false sense of consensus. And in doing so, it provides a very narrow window of acceptable discourse. That's why people are so pitifully uninformed.
At least social media provides a means for alternative information, thoughts and views to squeak past the censors. It is where researchers, honest experts, independent journalists, thinkers and truth seekers can be found.
The government and mega corporations "tell" people "what to think". They try their hardest to prevent people from accessing information with which to formulate their own opinions and think for themselves.
I think the effort to ban TikTok has to do with the fact that it isn't as subject to government pressure as msm, Meta, YouTube, X, etc.
All social media contains misinformation and propaganda. It's up to the users to decide what is legitimate, and what isn't.
The US government wants to ban TikTok, not because of misinformation, but because there is a concern that its parent company, which has ties with the Chinese government, will use user information. In other words, it's a security risk.
Having said that, I don't think TikTok will be banned in the US. Even if it is, people will continue to access it by using VPNs.
Well when 3rd world countries bann a website or an app they simply block their IPs which is easily bypassed by VPN.
But the US is a tech giant and it has lots of leverage in that department.
They can remove tiktok from app and play store, they can make the iOS and Android not compatible with the tiktok app so every time you try to open it will just crash.
No, it should not be banned. There is a lot of TRUTH out there in TikTok. Maybe this is what they want to ban it, and not because of security threats. Are you kidding me? How about Facebook or Twitter (X)? How about our president elect who shared documents with Russia? That's a security threat. You see more things that are happening in the world on TikTok, than you would than you would on regular news or other media that seems to be covering up a lot these days, or not mentioning enough of something that's going on. We are losing our rights to see the real news, and many don't know it.
As for other social media apps yes all of them have shit posters spreading misinformation but nothing comes close to TikTok.
Twitter posts don't get the same reach as TikTok, where we see content spreading misinformation get hundreds of millions of views easily.
Instagram gets the same amount of attention/views, but the amount of misinformation content is no where near that of TikTok.
Facebook is dangerous I agree and it needs better monitoring, but most kids under 18 use TikTok a lot more than they use Facebook and this age group is the most sensitive as they are more prone to manipulation and brainwashing compared to adults.
So with that being said, all social media apps are a source for misinformation, but TikTok is in it's own league when it comes to spreading propaganda.
What do YOU know about Tiktok? Have you ever seen it or been on it? if not, why are you speaking like you know what you're talking about? I've seen news, and I've seen all the other media. Tiktok does not spread propaganda. We have as many people there that dislike what's going on in the world and in this country obviously, and the news there is not hidden. And there are as many MAGA there who hate the left as there are here. Don't confuse Tiktok for Fox News. THAT's propaganda.
You seem to much bothered by MAGA or whatever this is oh and you're telling me fox news is propaganda? Like girl, we get it, MSM is shit and no one asked you to watch it (I don't watch it too) but saying that tiktok doesn't spread propaganda? Like are you for real? Or you don't consider false information as propaganda as long as it fits your narratives?
Finally found a logical comment
I have heard, and am 90% sure its true, that the u. s. government cannot regulate videos on tiktok bc it is made from china, and this most likely is one of their actual reasonings for banning it. Essentially its an easy place to find non regulated videos from the world, which is actually a good thing.
@lil_will_12
American regulations = bad
Chinese regulations = good
🥲
@lil_will_12 That is exactly correct! It is the one thing they cannot censor, because it is owned by a Chinese company, and that is the reason behind banning it. There is nothing about security being a problem, because you don't sign up with anything personal. Only your name. No phone is required, no email address. Some choose to put in a phone but I never have. Just to let you know--most of the things I have learned about and seen in videos, are not seen on the news. The news has become somewhat censored... for example, those drones and "plasmoids" were on long before it reached the news. And, on the news it was reported for 2 or 3 minutes. I have seen pictures of plasmoid videos being taken up close by astronomy enthusiasts, by people living in NJ and in PA. Most folks think this is all a hoax.
Ma'am I literally said that I don't watch MSM but you're still insisting that they "got me" and I'm just parroting their propaganda.
How about you actually read my comments before replying because I feel there is a lot of "projection" your side.
Anyway, so we agree that MSM is shit? Okay but you didn't answer my question about TikTok? Is there no misinformation on TikTok?
I can't count how many conspiracy theories I saw on TikTok about these mysterious drones.
Some were claiming those are Chinese drones who flew 3000km from China and are observing secret military locations in the US.
Some said those are UFOs
And those aren't even the worse, some were saying the drones were carrying radiation meters to measure radiation from an anticipation dirty bomb detonation 😂.
And there are many more and the funny think is that posts with such BS got dozens of millions of views and TikTok didn't even care to moderate misinformation or delete fake AI videos.
Sometimes I think people are okay with Chinese regulations because they can post whatever BS they want and ensure it will reach millions and little to no moderation.
It's must suck for you that the US owns and controls all of the SoCs, operating systems and most of the apps developers.
And again you're reasoning is like this:
American regulated apps = no that's media censorship and against freedom of speech.
Chinese regulations = yes it's good because we can post anti-American BS without consequences but we can't post anti-Chinese BS because why would we? China good America bad...
there's a couple things, 1: the vast majority of stuff on tiktok is made by influencers. Meaning that there will be very little if any chinese propaganda on there. Secondly, if you want to talk about misinformation, banning tiktok isn't just gonna make that stuff go away💀 itll just move to insta reels basically, except now the u. s. government can regulate it. The reason why having an unregulated media app is a good thing is so that you can find videos and media that the u. s blocks. Do you really think that people are posting a bunch of anti amerian and pro china stuff on there? I dont use tiktok so i dont know whats on there, but in general a media place that doesn't block certain things is usually a good thing. i think we should have access to other media around the world, how is that a bad thing?
@lil_will_12 So if influencers are making the content, then it must be all true, right? Well, I hate to break it out to you but both "influencers" and main stream media lie, and that's why I said many times in the replies that I don't watch MSM, but that doesn't mean that I would trust "influencers".
Because for some reason you think that influencers don't make propaganda? Like really? Are those influencers your watching saints? This is a weird statement coming from a real "truth seeker".
Anyway, banning TikTok "the app" won't work, people can just turn on VPN and hurray! TikTok works again. What the US would do if it decided to ban TikTok, is that it would ask Google and Apple to ban the app from working on both operating systems (iOS and Android) so the app won't work, it would just crash when you try to open it.
And before you tell me that people will ditch iPhones for Chinese phones just to use TikTok, well I very much doubt that will happen, but even if it did, Chinese phones also use American OS (Android) and American chips (snapdragon).
Oh and China just can't make a new operating system and sell it to the world in a blink of an eye, Huawei have been desperately trying since 2019 to create an alternative to Android after getting banned back then, and they are still struggling, even after 6 years!
So is TikTok going to risk losing billions of users, like Huawei phones which pretty much went down the list of the global market after they were so close to becoming #1 smartphone sellers? I don't know, but if they were wise they would sell the app to an American company, or maybe TikTok has a trick which we don't know about, so let's wait and see what happens.
Enough of those pro-Russia/Chinese "influencers" intimidating the American people by issuing a nuclear threat every single damn day.
Tiktok is as much a “danger” as facebook, twitter, and instagram. The reason they’re banning it is because the US government doesn’t have direct access to the data because it originates in China. It’s hypocritical as hell
Nothing comes close to TikTok.
Twitter posts don't get the same reach as TikTok, where we see content spreading misinformation get hundreds of millions of views.
Instagram gets the same amount of attention/views, but the amount of misinformation content is no where near that of TikTok.
Facebook is dangerous I agree, but most kids under 18 use TikTok a lot more than they use Facebook and this age group is the easiest to brainwash.
So with that being said, all social media apps are a source for misinformation, but TikTok is in it's own league when it comes to spreading propaganda.
Oh please, I don’t think you’re on twitter if you genuinely don’t believe it gets the same range as tiktok. They literally put the US servers on US soil, something no other company has done, meta certainly hasn’t, and meta has done the most lobbying against it. All of this is the result of Zuckerberg and his team being greedy monopolists.
Putting servers on US soil is a very good measure as far as cyber security is concerned but it seems you are against it for some reasons.
And yes I'm on X and it doesn't have the same reach as tiktok because the latter's algorithm is like a heaven for clicks farming shit posters.
It's so rare to see posts on X reaching +5 mill views but on TikTok that's a commonality. There is a reason why lots of start up accounts get +100k views on tiktok after the first month but on X that really happens. In fact if you have just 30 followers on X that's already more followers than 50% of other X users, that's not the case with TikTok.
On top of that, X has community notes and while it's not perfect it's still better than nothing.
Everything tiktok is guilty of so are facebook and twitter guilty of. The only reason they’re mad about it is bc the US government has to go through another government to access the data. Not to mention Meta’s set a lobbying record trying to get them to legally ban their biggest competition. It’s BS and you’re not changing my mind
Data access is privacy; I'm talking about misinformation and propaganda.
As for the other apps, yes they are bad especially Facebook and it needs better monitoring and there is X, YT and instagram which are not perfect but still a lot better than TikTok.
For example X has community notes and it's not flawless but it helps.
Also X heavily relies on text, OTOH, TikTok is only media which makes countering misinformation a lot harder because not everyone is going to make a reel addressing a certain topic.
But on X, I've seen many lies/propaganda getting debunked by other users and that's on top of the community notes.
And before you comment about China and the US, all social media apps are full of anti-American/anti-Chinese posts, but on TikTok it spreads a lot faster and countering it is a lot harder compared to other platforms.
And who is benefiting from that? China! And I hope that this is not a misunderstanding, but you have "United States" in your bio yet you seem okay with other countries spreading misinformation about your country?
And I'm not talking about insulting American, that's okay in my opinion and it's part of our daily life and we gotta deal with it, but I'm talking about staged campaigns from Russian/Chinese troll farms aimed at pushing anti-American narratives.
Just look at all the people celebrating the fires in california because they think that all Americans are zionist so they deserve it! This is what allowing constant hate speech leads to.
And before you comment about China and the US, all social media apps are full of anti-American/anti-Chinese posts, but on TikTok it spreads a lot faster and countering it is a lot harder compared to other platforms.
And who is benefiting from that? China! And I hope that this is not a misunderstanding, but you have "United States" in your bio yet you seem okay with other countries spreading misinformation about your country?
And I'm not talking about insulting American, that's okay in my opinion and it's part of our daily life and we gotta deal with it, but I'm talking about staged campaigns from Russian/Chinese troll farms aimed at pushing anti-American narratives.
Just look at all the people celebrating the fires in california because they think that all Americans are zionist so they deserve it! This is what allowing constant hate speech leads to.
And before you come at me with "but but the Americans do it too" yes they do it, but it's not because the Chinese are so kind and allow it, it's because they can't do shit about it when it comes to non-Chinese apps.
Take a look at weibo (Chinese social media), and I dare you find even 10% of the amount of propaganda aimed against China as the amount of propaganda on tiktok aimed against American, and that's when you relize that banning tiktok is a rightfully justified decision by the US, because the enemies of the US did the same thing when they had the ability to do it.
I’m sure the US benefits from it just as much as our enemies. Remember when Russia was found to be responsible for furthering division in our nation through facebook and the 2016 election?
Opinion
17Opinion
Social media in general is a platform for misinformation and propaganda.
Humans are not smart enough to have social media and be trusted to not fall for stupid shit. Humans are a veritable firehose of stupidity, and facilitating the spread of usually-incorrect information and usually-ignorant takes on life, society, and government, will always, always, ALWAYS be a bad idea with likely-terrible results.
Usual American right wing propaganda is this. NSA literally spies on American people and the entire world, that's no problem, Twitter is a fucking hub of misinformation, that's not a problem, you can find misinformation on every fucking platform exists on internet medium, that's fine
But a Chinese tech firm is the evil? Why? Because they're Chinese and they do not share all they have with US parlaiment.
And United States of America never spies on anyone, it never misinforms, it always tells the truth and is the embodiment of everyhthing good in the world, right?
The post is about misinformation and propaganda nobody said a damn thing about spiying and Chinese you are defending literally have an amendment oblgating tech firm to share data with the government if they are asked to.
In any case, the post was about misinformation, and by that I mean people/individuals posting not governments because we all know all governments lie but it's funny how you made a comparison with China as if they were saint so don't get me started with the Chinese and their troll farms feeding Americans propaganda 24/7 they literally have a constantly running bragging machine telling us that China does everything better and that all other countries are shit.
And Americans don't have propaganda? I never saw Chinese saying that China does everything better and all other countries are shit
I actually saw Americans saying such stuff though
Facebook and YouTube hold that sin. As far as I know it's kids doing dance that is unique to tiktok.
Creeper factor aside it's promenitly base in China doing "patriotic act" level internet surveillance on behalf of china. THIS but China is getting information and holy fuck this is almost 10 years old.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/SgTQDp1jwBwIf the general public gave a single fuck about usa getting data from everyone I would say yes tiktok should be ban. Because we don't our best defense is throwing every bit of data possible to create a needle in a haystack and 10x the energy consumption to gather and hold then search that data.
It's not about privacy It's about misinformation.
Tiktok has been the #1 platform for spreading anti-American propaganda and the same goes for X, FB, YT etc. But Tiktok is more dangerous because the majority of its audience are minors and young adults and countering misinformation there is a lot harder compared to say X.
Like on X you have community notes, and you have people doing quick threads correcting others, but on TikTok most shit posters get away with it because it's an only media app and not everyone is going to make a reel correcting someone.
It’s not significantly more dangerous than X, Instagram etc but definitely doesn’t moderate anti-Zionist/anti American imperialism protests as much as meta or google.
They’re anti-Zionist not anti American, and anti imperialism isn’t anti American, in fact it’s more in line with what the founding fathers described as American.
But yes, I generally think blocking protests and public discourse is a bad idea.
While I agree that’s distasteful they do have the right to say it according to your constitution.
I believe there was a Supreme Court case where they found that defacing the flag, including burning, fell within the teams of free speech
Yes.
I am tired of TikTok. So much fake crap on there.
Even photos have now fake.
I don't have an account but some people my age do and the younger generation.
It must seem so tiring figuring out what. content to post next.
I see people in the Square where I working dancing infront of their phone or posing infront of shops after they buy something.
It's become stupid and I have no care for it.
I wish it was banned.
Spot on!
Lots of fakes on there and what's
even worse is how addicted are the people especially those minor girls doing weird dancing just to get some clicks and when they are not getting the views they start doing +18 things.
The same goes for other social media apps but TikTok is by far the worst.
Exactly.
I even see parents dress up their kids and the poor kids don't even look like they're enjoying it.
One girl I work with is in her early 20s. We've been in the same company for a few years. I've seen her filming for IG while she is working. She sits at her desk and just records herself or if she's setting up an event she'll film herself doing that do.
She's got like 4 different Social Media pages now adult content.
It's quite sad what people go to for a few likes.
I only have FB, I don't post pictures or videos. I just use it to private message my overseas family.
Quite sad seeing teens now on the phone all the time.
I feel sorry for the parents trying to get their kids off their phone.
So glad I was born in the 80s and new what life was like before this crap took over.
I feel like porn sites should have been banned before tiktok. Let's acutally get rid of the stuff that's rotting everyone's brains
NO TikTok cannot get banned because that's where the universal sign for I need help came from and that sign has saved lives because I heard a story about a girl who was being kidnapped and she did that sign through the car window and someone recognized it and called the cops!!!
Why am i not surprised?
Ban or no ban. I do Tik tok as much as i do smoking: None.
Others can do what they want with it.
In the wisdom of Andrew Tate: Tik Tok is mind poison.
If we ban it then why don't we ban every social media platform since misinformation is rampant everywhere? The real issue is that the US government has no control over it, either they "sell it" or they ban it.. how convenient huh?
I think what people want to post and view is their own damn business and people need to stop worrying about or definitely stop trying to control what we do on social media.
you use it at your own risk... no one forces you...
all social media are that... why would you ban them all... other ones would pop-up right away... either way, so that's kind of pointless
Lets make China divest itself from ownership and see what happens. We can always ban it later.
If you ban tik tok for these reasons you must also ban meta and X.
Are we going to ban the mainstream media too?
I thought it was banned. Are you saying it's not? Yeah ban it.
I think it should be banned and anyone that uses it executed
Hopefully this month. Nothing but airheads, stupid videos and why is it leading to suicides in tic tockers?
No. I like TikTok. TikTok also gives the option to report misinformation.
ever stop to think how many people would still be alive if they hadn't been "persuaded" into doing one of those dangerous "tiktok challenges"? remember the tide pods? that didn't come from facebook or twitter.
If THAT'S your criteria then shouldn't we ban CNN and the New York Times as well?
Yes, if it harms Canadian or American national security.
Every platform has. Not just TikTok.
Facebook is the worst
Yes it should be
Yes, Tik Tok is a platform for idiots.
I think Xitter should be.
China should be banned.
I don't care. I don't use it.
No….
Fine with me
Yes!
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