this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Al the problems in America and this is what the federal government decides to focus on

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This was part of an overall package including aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is that supposed to make it better?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They claimed that the government was focusing on this one issue when really it was a small part of a much larger legislation. Whether it's good or bad is a separate judgement.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So much for the land of the free.🤦🏻‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago

What? The "land of the free"? Whoever told you that is your enemy

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Thanks AIPAC, for protecting Americans from foreign misinformation campaigns.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

They outlawed Fox News?

Don't pretend this is about disinformation.

Fox News is disinformation peddler numero uno.

This is about the seizure of media outlets that don't parrot pro-capitalist propaganda.

But it's too late, the majority of each generation millennial and later is anti-capitalist. The critique media will simply change form.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No, only boomers watch Fox News, young people watch TikTok making it a way more potent weapon.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

And the weapon is ideas? If a society has to shield itself from ideas to prevent revolt, then perhaps that society has bigger problems. Patching the hole as a united bipartisan front, when the ONLY things that receives united bipartisan support is corporate interests, kinda gives their hand away. They're doing this as a desperation move to prevent societal erosion and more importantly, loss of power in media. I think it's too late.

Seems like an upheaval, electorally or otherwise, is at hand and this is a desperation move. I don't expect the patching to prevent the rain, but who knows.

My interpretation, open to being wrong.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Fox News isn't rallying people to support Palestine.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But tiktok the company is? And there are certainly also people on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit and even Lemmy rallying to support Palestine. And that's what you tried to avoid with your "argument" in the first place, that many us companies are far worse in spreading misinformation. How does your one very specific point prove anything? And why focus on this one at all? Meanwhile fox news especially has been rallying against all kinds of minorities since forever in the US. You have very weak arguments here, maybe you just want to have tiktok banned? But then just say so outright.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But tiktok the company is?

Yes, among other things they're also explicitly suppressing pro-Isreal content https://lemmy.world/post/14643617

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If I'm reading that right, that could also say that Instagram is suppressing anti-israel content? It's just saying that in comparison to Instagram tiktok is showing more x, y, z. But Instagram is absolutely not a neutral point to measure from.

For starters there's different demographics on each one, but I'm sure you could adjust for that, maybe the study did. But I don't think you can adjust for the impact the US government has on Meta. I don't believe for an instant that some US agency isn't manipulating algorithms or requiring certain tweaks to steer discourse just like they did with US news outlets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Hm... I agree that Instagram is not a neutral source. I also agree that there are going to be some biases imposed by the user base.

I don't believe the US government plays a major role in Meta's content moderation behavior. Meta if anything has shown a reluctance towards any political or news content in recent years. That's not to say the US government doesn't have influence but their influence is (from what I've seen) oriented around fighting disinformation and threats of violence ... not cherry-picking the discussion of subject matter. I think there would've been a pretty significant leak out of Meta by now if there really was a strong political bias or government influence in content moderation.

I don't think any of these lines particularly fall along political lines within the US either. There are people on the left and right taking different sides on virtually all of the topics with statistical divergence; many of them are unusually bipartisan within the US.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

So, I took another look at the report, they did do this sort of statistical bias correction. See "U.S. Politics" page 8 https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

No misinformation is needed for that.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No, Facebook and Twitter are still useful for the status quo.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Ah, I missed the sarcasm in the original comment. Carry in

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Oh please. The anti-TikTok hysteria has been going on much longer than the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and the narrative has largely been about national security concerns, particularly as they relate to election misinformation.

Agree or not with the anti-China rhetoric about TikTok, but at least argue about the facts and not inane conspiracy theories.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

gonna kiss myself with a cement brick if they let zuckerberg buy it and turn it into the same UX nightmare that reels is

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summaryPresident Joe Biden signed a foreign aid package that includes a bill that would ban TikTok if China-based parent company ByteDance fails to divest the app within a year.

The divest-or-ban bill is now law, starting the clock for ByteDance to make its move.

While just recently the legislation seemed like it would stall out in the Senate after being passed as a standalone bill in the House, political maneuvering helped usher it through to Biden’s desk.

The House packaged the TikTok bill — which upped the timeline for divestment from the six months allowed in the earlier version — with foreign aid to US allies, which effectively forced the Senate to consider the measures together.

There also remains the question of how China will respond and whether it would let ByteDance sell TikTok and, most importantly, its coveted algorithm that keeps users coming back to the app.

“As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired,” Haurek said.


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