Chris TrottierJan 24, 2023

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley is calling for a TikTok ban.

This is a day after another Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio, published an OpEd in Fox News also pushing for a ban.

To be sure, these Republicans care very little about TikTok's surveillance of users.

Their problem is that, unlike Meta or Twitter, TikTok is not an American company.

Nevertheless, I personally think surveillance capitalism should be banned wholesale on all social networks.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/us-business/article-us-senator-josh-hawley-wants-to-ban-tiktok-nationwide/

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley wants to ban TikTok nationwide

‘TikTok is China’s backdoor into Americans’ lives. It threatens our children’s privacy as well as their mental health,’ U.S. Senator Josh Hawley said on Twitter

The Globe and Mail
Show threadChris TrottierJan 24, 2023

I really hope that progressives turn off the lizard brain response of "TikTok is good because Republicans say it's bad."

No, TikTok is bad.

The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend.

Is their opposition based on nationalism, racism, and yellow peril? Probably.

Is TikTok still monitoring and tracking teenagers, feeding them unhealthy content based on "relevancy" algorithms, screwing with their mental health? Yes.

All surveillance capitalism should be banned.

Show threadLinke
@atomicpoet I don’t think it should be banned, but I refuse to use it and am so tired of friends sending me links to it. Little short videos just aren’t my flavor of media.
Jan 24, 2023 at 8:05pmWeb
Show threadChris TrottierJan 24, 2023
@andrew The thing is, TikTok can't exist without dodgy blackbox algorithms and surveillance of its userbase.
Show threadLinkeJan 24, 2023
@atomicpoet this is true.
Show threadHera [Yaseenist] HarperJan 24, 2023
@atomicpoet @andrew And for that matter, the existence of short form videos on social media does not depend on TikTok in the slightest. Pretty much every platform has an implementation for something almost identical now, including a WIP one for the Fedi.
Tiktok relies on being invasive, its content does not, and we won’t lose it when it dies anymore than we did Vine
Show threadHera [Yaseenist] HarperJan 24, 2023
@atomicpoet @andrew Well, I should specify *good content. Clout chasing will largely die