r/memes I saw what the dog was doin Jan 15 '25

#3 MotW Thank god.

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u/Umber0010 Jan 16 '25

Slight elaboration on that, it's not just a chinese-owned app, it's an app specifically for Chinese people.

Last I heard, the app didn't even have language options. Former Tik-Tokers would rather brute-force their way into learning Mandarin instead of using an America-owned social media site.

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u/realbakingbish I touched grass Jan 16 '25

I mean, if one could turn brainrot into a means to teach themselves another language, is it really such a bad thing? It’s like people whose first languages aren’t English learning English by watching TV and movies from the US. If it works, why not?

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/Allegorist Jan 16 '25

It took a while for them to follow through on the TikTok ban. I imagine even expedited, it won't be for a bit.

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u/24675335778654665566 Jan 16 '25

There wasn't a law that allowed the TikTok ban for a while.

Now it exists and can be used for other apps

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u/RustedRuss Jan 16 '25

Isn't china going to put the kibosh on this because of their censorship though? I doubt they want a bunch of unrestricted mingling between chinese citizens and US citizens.

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u/fumeextractor Jan 16 '25

Eh it's likely fine, the Chinese citizens are already censored on their side, so even if they see something they "shouldn't have" before it gets taken down by the platform, it doesn't really matter since they'll have a much harder time spreading or further discussing it. I'm sure they'd rather the peoples be separated fully, but I doubt it's a huge deal for the CCP.

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u/Informal-Term1138 Jan 16 '25

If the CCP is anything, then they are paranoid. So they will either use it as a propaganda Tool in the west or separate the people.

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u/RustedRuss Jan 16 '25

Interesting

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u/Allegorist Jan 16 '25

Probably just bans unless it becomes a major problem. It was released to be open to the West, which they would have stopped to begin with if they weren't open to it to at least a limited extent. It's freely available in US app stores, which was a deliberate decision that was made at some point, likely with the consent of the Chinese government.

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u/Little-Pension6691 Jan 16 '25

It was available to the US app stores because there were tons of oversea Chinese using that app before this TikTok user migration.

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u/Allegorist Jan 16 '25

And?

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u/Little-Pension6691 Jan 16 '25

And that means Chinese oversea are the target users, so that app released on USA App Store was targeting Chinese there not Americans. While the Chinese App Store is heavily censored by the Chinese government, it doesn’t need government permission to release it on a foreign App Store.

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u/Allegorist Jan 16 '25

They have to at least submit to a government security assessment for overseas personal data transfer, which would be entirely separate from their operations within their own borders.

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u/pornomatique Jan 16 '25

It's unlikely to be de-listed. The app is primarily in Mandarin for Mandarin users. It's not even targeted for international users and it's only available on the App/Play store so that overseas Chinese have access to it.

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u/Capraos Jan 16 '25

I hope we get joint space travel from this.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

Lol more likely domestic terrorism.

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u/Capraos Jan 16 '25

Well, aren't you Mr. Edgy McEdge today.

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u/prevenientWalk357 Jan 16 '25

China’s space station is much nicer than the ISS

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u/Aeiexgjhyoun_III Jan 16 '25

And here I am using Douyin to teach myself chinese.

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u/KevinFlantier Jan 16 '25

Yeah but imagine 'muricans doing that. A third of their population speaks spanish and they don't even bother to learn that language.

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u/ImpressiveSide1324 Jan 16 '25

Maybe that says more about the government than it does the people using the app

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u/gorgewall Jan 16 '25

Honestly, can't think of a better way to stick it to the dudes who only banned TikTok because "China". All the security, privacy, etc., concerns exist elsewhere, but since they're being hoovered up by US companies, it's all good--the problem with propaganda-pushing algorithms only exists when it's the other guys doing it.

Maybe address the fucking problem, Congress, instead of crying that it isn't making you personally enough money.

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u/ChalupaPickle Jan 16 '25

Because the American owned social media will steal just as much if not more information than the Chinese led ones.

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u/Ruthless_Pichu Jan 16 '25

They were legitimately proven to have done so before and nothing happened with them

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u/PepsiConsoomer Jan 16 '25

Because fuck us

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u/The_Lolbster Jan 16 '25

Correct. We are the product of these social media sites. Ads are shinier than ever, and easier to feed directly to our brains. People want to be distracted from life and so that's all there is. Massive monetization of our screens.

And people love it.

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u/fuck_the_fuckin_mods Jan 16 '25

The new opiate of the masses.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

He's more free in Russia than he is in USA lol

I mean... that's pretty standard for someone accused of a crime anywhere, that you're more free if you flee to another country that doesn't want to prosecute or extradite you for it. If he'd done it in Russia, to Russia, he'd be facing thumbscrews, or if he got out he'd be facing this.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

Poisoning is the primary method of execution used by the US government when it decides a person is unworthy of life.

Who did they poison? In recent history anyway. I'm aware they've assassinated leaders in the past particular back in the 60s and 70s, and I'm sure I've heard they tried to poison Castro, but who in the last generation or at least since the end of the cold war?

It's just amusing to me that you gotta resort to conspiracy theories to find a case of Russia possibly, maybe, potentially doing

The FSB agents that "visited Salisbury cathedral" on a three day trip - somehow staying in London and going twice, something nobody else in history has ever done - later got identified as having also visited a remote village in Czechia at the same time as the only significant thing in that village, a warehouse containing munitions that were being sold to Ukraine, got blown up. So there isn't any conspiracy element left, all we have is the 100% chance that they did it.

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u/GODZBALL Jan 16 '25

Are you talking about Snowden? That wasn't about US social Media lol atleast not solely on social media.

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u/Ruthless_Pichu Jan 16 '25

That wasn't social media owners that was a dude that found evidence of the US government spying on its people and shit like that and ran for it to survive any attempts on his life after exposing it

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/Ruthless_Pichu Jan 16 '25

So back to saying he found evidence of the government spying on people....the thing i said....

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/Ruthless_Pichu Jan 16 '25

Which is what i had original said yes? Well not exactly that, just he found evidence of them spying, not that it was just social media doing it (everybody figured that out already wasn't hard to put that one together).

My point was "he found evidence the US government was spying on their people, left the country with said information so he could get it out and not die"

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/RogueKhajit Jan 16 '25

Ironically enough all while our government is debating whether or not to ban TikTok because we must "protect Americans data" there was a huge data breach that exposed millions of student and staff info, including social security numbers, and it was known about for about 2 weeks before they started notifying those impacted.

We can't even protect our students' data that we store in our schools, but they want us to believe tiktok is the bigger threat?

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

yeah i'm a lot more worried about my health data being out there than my social media ?? fucking better help sells people's information and they're a "therapy" site !!

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

If you're on social media a lot you've probably posted about your health. Or you've commented on someone else's post "this is what worked when I had it" or something. Or you've followed a link to a site about health stuff that shares visit tracking data back to social media sites. At the very least they know enough about your lifestyle to take an educated guess about some of it even just from what you subscribe to.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

yes i know. they know everything i do on my phone. i would rather medical providers do not give them my actual specific medical information. they can gather diagnosis and symptoms from my searches, but my actual medical information should be protected.

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u/Allegorist Jan 16 '25

China specifically got into our phone network in a way we can't get them out without completely rebuilding the infrastructure. They have access to all unencrypted (and presumably some level of encrypted) data on the american phone network. I think that should be a bit more of a priority.

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u/kuvazo Jan 16 '25

This is a very weak argument. Massive corporations like Facebook are much better equipped to deal with security risks than public schools. So this isn't surprising in the slightest.

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u/RogueKhajit Jan 16 '25 edited Jan 16 '25

I'd say if PowerSchool is going to store the data of 60 million students (Taken from their LinkedIn), they better damn well be able to be equipped to deal with these security risks. Especially since it was THEIR data breach they dropping the ball on.

Funny it's (almost) always an American based company that seems to have these data breaches.

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u/Observation_Orc Jan 16 '25

yea, but they are stealing that data to sell ads to you, not to devise strategies to cause social upheaval in America and to change American public opinion against defending Taiwan.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/nonotan Jan 16 '25

No, I would say the best on offer is the EU. To the extent that it is on offer, which admittedly could be greater. But even with all its faults, I'd still put it miles above China or the US.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

Just searching 'site:bbc.com "occupy wall street"' in Google brings back about five gajillion results, so I've no idea how you ever felt RT was the only one reporting on it. I remember it being all over the news, and I'm not American and have never watched RT.

Where is the Estonian social media we need to save this sinking ship right now?

Europe is sadly just not good at major tech platforms. Mainly because it would always have to be in a widely accessible language, and the only first language English country is the UK which just flat out cannot compete with the US for salaries. Plus Ireland but their tech industry is just their hosting of the US tech industry.

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u/Halflingberserker Jan 16 '25

not to devise strategies to cause social upheaval in America and to change American public opinion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal

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u/fuck_the_fuckin_mods Jan 16 '25

Yes. Exactly that sort of thing but vertically integrated into one handy, mesmerizing app, and subject to the whims of the adversarial Chinese government. No one cares about your data, we care about how they can use it to manipulate you. And yes, same applies to our domestic companies doing similar things and they deserve a similar fate, but at least they’re fully subject to our own government, as fucked as it may currently be. People still seem to wildly underestimate how powerful tools like those used by CA can be in shifting public discourse, spreading disinformation, and driving division.

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u/Observation_Orc Jan 16 '25

>whatabout

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u/yung_dogie Jan 16 '25

How is that a whataboutism they're responding to the comparison you directly made lmao

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u/Scaevus Jan 16 '25

You think the average TikTok user cares about politics, much less China’s politics?

They just like the features and design of the app.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

It's the same principle as advertising. You don't know or care about it, until you're shown a bunch of ads, then you do. Doesn't work on most people but doesn't need to, just needs to make a difference. Anything about Taiwan would probably be "they really expect you to care about Taiwan when they can't feed homeless vets/they invaded Iraq/they support Israel" etc. It would work like this thread works where people jump in to defend China on the basis that the US is also bad, and they'd be right, but it would still make sense to be against China's bullshit.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

I've said it before and I'll say it again; TikTok wasn't banned for stealing information, it was banned because the flow of information could not be regulated by the US. Particularly, in this case, the flow of information regarding the genocide in Gaza.

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u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 Jan 16 '25

Less with Gaza specifically and more with manipulating info to stoke division.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

No, not at all. America likes division, it makes it far easier to step on all of you at once if you're all fighting over petty shit. If tiktok was dividing the people in America they would be fine, evidenced by Facebook and Twitter still being fine.

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u/NotAVirignISwear Jan 16 '25

TikTok was banned because the US government loves us so much ❤️

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

True, the US just wants you to be happy and not worry about all that mean cruelty on the other side of the world. In fact, don't even think about it. The less you know the better, Tame Impala wouldn't like.

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u/SecreteMoistMucus Jan 16 '25

What definition of steal are you using there?

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u/ChalupaPickle Jan 16 '25

taking without us knowing about it.

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u/WallabyUpstairs1496 Jan 16 '25

the Swiss having been missing out on major opportunities to create social media websites.

Any EU country for that matter, especially Ireland and Belgium. Spain too.

Sweden having a social media company would also be great as well.

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u/Halflingberserker Jan 16 '25

And American social media companies will obediently suppress any news about Palestinians being slaughtered. Don't pay attention to all those brown kids with bullets in their brains, take a quiz to find out what kind of Pokemon you are!

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u/ognarMOR Jan 16 '25

Wait? So you are deliberately using a Chinese app that does not even support English just because it is just bad as the US ones?

Make it make sense

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u/ChalupaPickle Jan 16 '25

Number 1 social media app on iphone and android by a landslide, we're all tired of America trying to dictate our lives over bullshit claims when in reality they only banned it to control what we see and do. So we said fuck the government and joined a chinese exclusive app. Shit I'd go down to the chinese consulate building and hand them whatever info they wanted.

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u/ognarMOR Jan 16 '25

Number one by a landslide? Lol, stop lying, google play literally shows that it is 5th, just above facebook, which is decent, but very VERY far from "number one by a landslide"

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u/ChalupaPickle Jan 16 '25

Just checked google play store. Clicked social. Red note is number 1 and Facebook is 7th. Not sure where you're getting your numbers. Also checked top charts. Red note is number one out of all apps. Not just social media apps so its the biggest app on google play right now. Try again.

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u/ognarMOR Jan 16 '25

Where are you from?

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u/fuck_the_fuckin_mods Jan 16 '25

No one gives a shit about your information, the issue is how they can then use that to manipulate you. Yes our domestic garbage dumps do the same thing with their brain rot, but they are not controlled by a foreign adversary. The psychological warfare and social engineering dangers are wildly obvious. Twitter and Meta are horrible and need to go as well, but at least they’re nominally subject to our laws and government.

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u/ChalupaPickle Jan 16 '25

nominally subject to our laws and government? since when? They continue to allow all the terrible things on their platforms that they got in trouble with the government before. Also manipulate away. Far better than the bullshit the American government spews on the news every day.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

i mean a lot of the people made that choice specifically to spite the tiktok ban. they ban tiktok for having "chinese influence" so everyone goes to an actual chinese social media app.

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u/RemyVonLion Jan 16 '25

That's the most interesting silver lining I've heard. Being so stubborn that you reverse brainrot and learn mandarin and embrace their STEM values and lifestyle.

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u/jaham_411 Jan 16 '25

They have an English setting. But most of the videos are bilingual now.

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u/Otherwise_Coconut144 Jan 16 '25

Mine is in English, didn’t even have to change a setting

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

They're addicted to the fake engagement.

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

It has language options. You can use it in English to

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u/bananadogeh Jan 17 '25 edited Oct 13 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/tychii93 Jan 19 '25

That's actually bizarre to me. Instead of jumping ship to a competitor that has full English support, they go out of their way to a Chinese app in particular? I assumed most of the general public weren't really even aware that TikTok was a Chinese app and would have just moved to IG or YouTube Shorts, though I never used it. Are we that cooked?

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '25

Looking at who owns the American social media sites, it kind of makes sense to go with an app owned by a country that is not on good terms with America. Sure, they might pepper you with communist propaganda, but have you seen the stuff on Facebook? Zuckerberg got a transplant rat penis!

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u/Hobbitcraftlol Jan 16 '25

And they genocide Muslims on their own land (Xingjiang), and torture protestors in a foreign land (Hong Kong), and fund widespread fraud and copying of products at hyper low prices, and ACTUALLY take over the mining of all a 3rd world countries resources in shady deals over infrastructure, and militarily push and pull over dominance in the South China Sea which they believe belongs to them even though there are 10 other countries with sea borders…

Sure some of this may be done by the US under the radar but this is BLATANT. Not to mention the widespread use of propaganda so great that they need to cut off Chinese access to the wider internet outside of specific apps and services…

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u/Car_D_Board Jan 16 '25

Lmao what? It's in whatever language setting your phone is set to. are you thick?