Though I violently disagree with Marcie about TikTok (I think it's an open sewer full of Chaya fucking Raichiks, and that's as good as it gets) I agree that this is hyperfascist unconstitutional bullshit.
Look. I'm admittedly an old who's not really that old. The last dying gasp of Gen -X because small towns are a few years behind on the culture. I've tried to engage with the tiktoks. I don't get it. I don't get the fascination. The erratic low-attention-span content doesn't appeal to me. Challenges are dumb, and I refuse to open any video link anyone sends me from tiktok. I don't like silly dances, and I famously hate fun. I have a hard time caring when so many serious issues are happening, so many more critical things are being taken from us. But bread and circuses, right?
That said. The youths like it. The boomers like it. The millennials like it. The government case against it is stupid. There are concerns but no more than concerns from predatory capitalists from any country, including our own. Especially our own. So meh. I'm just a cranky old syndicalist slowly rotting away in a capitalist hellscape that's on borrowed time because we were supposed to be nuked into oblivion by the time I was 19 years old.
Hopefully you get to keep your tiktoks. If it brings you joy and it's essential to living as your authentic self, then by all means fly that flag, I'm here for that.
I've never been fond of not thinking, and most of my distractions are just engaging with things that make me think in different ways. But humans will do anything to not be alone with their thoughts. And our modern devices make it more convenient than ever to escape from ourselves. The funny thing is, our brains are always functioning, and always hungry, what are they consuming while we're distracted? So many people claim to get their news from tiktok, and not from journalists on that platform. How many people identify with their favorite content creator and feel like they have a relationship with them of some kind? I'm guilty of that with YouTube content, which is longer form, but you start to get emotionally invested in people that have no idea you exist beyond a number. People are more likely to listen to their "friends" than to facts. I don't see doom scrolling to shut off as any different than any other addiction. I get the human desire to engage in it. I just can't get on board with it personally.
I consider doomscrolling comparable to certain drugs like alcohol. Many people use it because they can't handle reality.
This video has some interesting stuff to say about doomscrolling, specifically that it could very well be that doomscrolling is self-medication for depression, turning the normal narrative on its head. It's not that doomscrolling makes you unhappy, it is that being unhappy makes you doomscroll. Though, like alcohol, it is always both. Doomscrolling and alcohol help in the short term but in the long term they make your problems worse. https://youtu.be/tvpiI-6BEUs?si=_vQqh9xR-lA2OO-B
Own goal faceplant #879437 in a series. So, Dems pushed to ban TikTok in order to force sale to 'Murkins. Knew this was gonna be the outcome the minute Sen. Whositz (D-Dipshit) explicitly said the purpose was to force sale.
Now, as background, Sarah Longwell found in focus groups that low-info Trump voters' primary source was what? TikTok.
Now that it appears SCOTUS will uphold the ban, just which 'Murkins do you suppose is in the best position to buy it? The MAGA broligarchy--who else? (Denis Leary is reportedly assembling a deal---aaaand latest rumor---ByteDance (parent co) is looking to--anyone--anyone?
Space Nazi. And you don't think he has liquidity to pull it off? He has 200 billion new equity (off the coming Reich) to leverage with. Easy peasy.
That's it. Game, set, match. Having full capture of Faceblort and Xitter, they now have the 3rd Directorate of the Ministry of Trumpaganda.
We not only failed to bring a racket, we brought a checkerboard--and forgot the checkers.
They will have complete, absolute control of the social media universe (absent political junkieville), while we meep about 'ground game', chasing the last Fuller Brush salesman to the last slammed door.
(Cont--apparently a character limit in these here Substack non-comments):
They will have complete, absolute control of the social media universe (absent political junkieville), while we meep about 'ground game', chasing the last Fuller Brush salesman to the last slammed door.
Who could have possibly predicted that this Act would result in a huge new Fascist propaganda platform targeting the Youngs?
Democrats, apparently. And we wonder why we lost the election. How can a party run against fascism and oligarchy when they're so deeply complicit in it?
Because authoritarianism is one hell of a drug, especially when you're regularly in power.
Two party systems ratchet up authoritarian power structures where each re-enforces the power structures that currently support it more than they weaken the power structures that in the future will support their opponent. In systems like that the growth of authoritarian power structures is an emergent property.
This is a grift being perpetrated by trump & muskRAT. I don't know how it's working but the whole thing sounds shiftier than shit. Also, too, the phone call to Alito. Must be financially important to someone.
“Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok.”
Just what the US needs: another social media platform that Elmo the Man-child could take through enshittification like he has done with Xitter.
-----
"Sixty percent of ByteDance is owned by non-Chinese global institutional investors including Susquehanna International Group (majority shareholder Jeff Yass)"
The fact that Yass is an asshole buddy of the Fulvous Flatulence is probably *the* reason that he thinks he should be given the opportunity to create a "deal" that would allow TikTok to remain in operation in the US:
Question: what gives Mooseballs Mussolini the right to try to renegotiate a bill passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by Pres Biden? His "mandate" says nothing about being able to second guess recently enacted laws. Fortunately, this appears to be one case that the SCOTUS won't roll over and play dead for the Amber Ardipithecus ramidus:
"Sounds most likely that “people familiar with the matter” was Elon"
Elmo is exhibiting an ingrained trait very similar to one of the Sociopathic Marigold Swamp Monster when he prefaces his bovine scat with qualifiers of "I've heard" or "I've read." The latter is impossible unless Melania translated whatever into a Fifth Grade reading level for him (it seems as if she has a better grasp of the English language than her hubby). IOW, “people familiar with the matter” is another way of saying "I'm making this shit up to make a point" like the Hillbilly did on the campaign trail.
-----
"because I won youth by 30 percent. All Republicans lose youth. I don't know why. Maybe it's changing. And last time we were down 30 percent with youth. This time we're up 35 percent with youth"
So, which is it: 30% or 35%?
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" Ralph Waldo Emerson We all know that the stable genius' mind is larger than anyone else's and constantly growing.
-----
"Also notable, the end of TikTok will mean the end of income for millions of content creators and revenue for about 7 million small businesses on there"
I'm sorry but I find this argument a tad disingenuous. There is *nothing* preventing the content creators and small businesses from migrating to other social networks, and bringing their subscribers with them. There are other networks that already monetize their platforms for users, i.e. Xitter, Facebook, or even here on Substack. Plus, there are new ones cropping up, like Bluesky.
Ms Jones, if the ban is upheld I'll commiserate with you and cry for you, but it isn't the end of the world as we know it. If one's life is too fixated on social media then you're not really living, and that fixation, IMO, is another form of addiction.
-----
As an aside, there are too many Americans who use social media as a source for news:
"More Americans are flocking to TikTok for news and information, but they aren't necessarily following media organizations or journalists on the platform, according to a new report from Pew Research Center.
Why it matters: Instead, they are relying on *creators, entertainers and influencers to deliver the news* — even as mis-and-disinformation campaigns continue.
State of play: More than half of Americans say they at least sometimes get news from social media platforms, according to Pew.
> Among those who use TikTok, 52% regularly get news there, up from 22% in 2020.
...
Less than 1% of accounts with U.S. followers on the platform were journalists or media entities."
This should be more than just concerning, it is downright dangerous. These "news consumers" are getting the info they base their lives on from some rando with little to no outside verification.
The move to eliminate TikTok is bipartisan. Members of each party have been trying to outdo each other to prove their hostility to China. As Ms. Jones points out, TikTok is no more a Chinese company than Meta or Nvidia, but that's not the point. The point for the politicians is to show how anti-China they are.
The real reason behind the bipartisan effort? Twitter/X, Meta, Google and Microsoft spend good money to buy government power to eliminate their competition. The Youngs like TikTok, not the other companies' offerings. So the companies want the government to use the power they bought fair and square.
Whether the user data is stored in China, or hoovered up by US spy agencies, or both; irrelevant. I'm sure it's all stored on Amazon Web Services servers anyway, like damn near everything else.
Unfortunately, "foreign adversary" is defined by the country and not the hostile individual actor
And since apartheid was OVERTURNED in the country of SA, they're no longer so classified by the United States (if they ever were, because we should never forget that Hitler got what he considered his "best" ideas from the closed fascist state that was codified in Jim Crow)
The definition doesn't cover the example of white supremacists who still yearn for codified apartheid because they left SA when it collapsed
Though I violently disagree with Marcie about TikTok (I think it's an open sewer full of Chaya fucking Raichiks, and that's as good as it gets) I agree that this is hyperfascist unconstitutional bullshit.
Tik Tok is full of very stupid stuff, I just looked at it for a few minutes and now it won't leave me alone. I uninstalled it.
Didn't Zuckerberg (and probably Musk) also spend millions lobbying Congress to kill TikTok?
Unpopular opinion follows.
Look. I'm admittedly an old who's not really that old. The last dying gasp of Gen -X because small towns are a few years behind on the culture. I've tried to engage with the tiktoks. I don't get it. I don't get the fascination. The erratic low-attention-span content doesn't appeal to me. Challenges are dumb, and I refuse to open any video link anyone sends me from tiktok. I don't like silly dances, and I famously hate fun. I have a hard time caring when so many serious issues are happening, so many more critical things are being taken from us. But bread and circuses, right?
That said. The youths like it. The boomers like it. The millennials like it. The government case against it is stupid. There are concerns but no more than concerns from predatory capitalists from any country, including our own. Especially our own. So meh. I'm just a cranky old syndicalist slowly rotting away in a capitalist hellscape that's on borrowed time because we were supposed to be nuked into oblivion by the time I was 19 years old.
Hopefully you get to keep your tiktoks. If it brings you joy and it's essential to living as your authentic self, then by all means fly that flag, I'm here for that.
I think tiktok helps people to not think. And when being conscious of reality is unbearable, then distraction is welcome.
I've never been fond of not thinking, and most of my distractions are just engaging with things that make me think in different ways. But humans will do anything to not be alone with their thoughts. And our modern devices make it more convenient than ever to escape from ourselves. The funny thing is, our brains are always functioning, and always hungry, what are they consuming while we're distracted? So many people claim to get their news from tiktok, and not from journalists on that platform. How many people identify with their favorite content creator and feel like they have a relationship with them of some kind? I'm guilty of that with YouTube content, which is longer form, but you start to get emotionally invested in people that have no idea you exist beyond a number. People are more likely to listen to their "friends" than to facts. I don't see doom scrolling to shut off as any different than any other addiction. I get the human desire to engage in it. I just can't get on board with it personally.
I consider doomscrolling comparable to certain drugs like alcohol. Many people use it because they can't handle reality.
This video has some interesting stuff to say about doomscrolling, specifically that it could very well be that doomscrolling is self-medication for depression, turning the normal narrative on its head. It's not that doomscrolling makes you unhappy, it is that being unhappy makes you doomscroll. Though, like alcohol, it is always both. Doomscrolling and alcohol help in the short term but in the long term they make your problems worse. https://youtu.be/tvpiI-6BEUs?si=_vQqh9xR-lA2OO-B
Can someone point me at the rare Duran Duran concert vids?
Search “Duran rare” - https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8FHMrjM/
Nick Rhodes looks like he's 80 😂
❤️
Ta, Marcie. I've only seen Tik Tok videos posted elsewhere.
FUCKING TOLD YA!
Own goal faceplant #879437 in a series. So, Dems pushed to ban TikTok in order to force sale to 'Murkins. Knew this was gonna be the outcome the minute Sen. Whositz (D-Dipshit) explicitly said the purpose was to force sale.
Now, as background, Sarah Longwell found in focus groups that low-info Trump voters' primary source was what? TikTok.
Now that it appears SCOTUS will uphold the ban, just which 'Murkins do you suppose is in the best position to buy it? The MAGA broligarchy--who else? (Denis Leary is reportedly assembling a deal---aaaand latest rumor---ByteDance (parent co) is looking to--anyone--anyone?
Space Nazi. And you don't think he has liquidity to pull it off? He has 200 billion new equity (off the coming Reich) to leverage with. Easy peasy.
That's it. Game, set, match. Having full capture of Faceblort and Xitter, they now have the 3rd Directorate of the Ministry of Trumpaganda.
We not only failed to bring a racket, we brought a checkerboard--and forgot the checkers.
They will have complete, absolute control of the social media universe (absent political junkieville), while we meep about 'ground game', chasing the last Fuller Brush salesman to the last slammed door.
Told ya.
(Cont--apparently a character limit in these here Substack non-comments):
They will have complete, absolute control of the social media universe (absent political junkieville), while we meep about 'ground game', chasing the last Fuller Brush salesman to the last slammed door.
Told ya.
Who could have possibly predicted that this Act would result in a huge new Fascist propaganda platform targeting the Youngs?
Democrats, apparently. And we wonder why we lost the election. How can a party run against fascism and oligarchy when they're so deeply complicit in it?
Because authoritarianism is one hell of a drug, especially when you're regularly in power.
Two party systems ratchet up authoritarian power structures where each re-enforces the power structures that currently support it more than they weaken the power structures that in the future will support their opponent. In systems like that the growth of authoritarian power structures is an emergent property.
If Elon Musk primaried every politician who pissed him off, wouldn’t he run out of money eventually?
This is a grift being perpetrated by trump & muskRAT. I don't know how it's working but the whole thing sounds shiftier than shit. Also, too, the phone call to Alito. Must be financially important to someone.
If Elon Buys it we could call it Dik Tok.
Needle-Dik Tok.
Needle-Dik (the bug fucker) Tok
“Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok.”
Just what the US needs: another social media platform that Elmo the Man-child could take through enshittification like he has done with Xitter.
-----
"Sixty percent of ByteDance is owned by non-Chinese global institutional investors including Susquehanna International Group (majority shareholder Jeff Yass)"
The fact that Yass is an asshole buddy of the Fulvous Flatulence is probably *the* reason that he thinks he should be given the opportunity to create a "deal" that would allow TikTok to remain in operation in the US:
"He’s also grown closer to Jeff Yass, a libertarian poker player with big pockets and an investment in not only the app but also Trump himself." https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-cozy-relationship-billionaire-mega-202303428.html [original behind Fortune Mag paywall]
Question: what gives Mooseballs Mussolini the right to try to renegotiate a bill passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by Pres Biden? His "mandate" says nothing about being able to second guess recently enacted laws. Fortunately, this appears to be one case that the SCOTUS won't roll over and play dead for the Amber Ardipithecus ramidus:
"The Supreme Court seemed likely Friday to uphold the law that could ban TikTok, with most of the justices appearing to take seriously the national security risks posed by the wildly popular app whose parent company is based in China." https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-supreme-court-what-to-know-b1d59e7bb1c16fc96498cf8f555ea1f5
-----
"Sounds most likely that “people familiar with the matter” was Elon"
Elmo is exhibiting an ingrained trait very similar to one of the Sociopathic Marigold Swamp Monster when he prefaces his bovine scat with qualifiers of "I've heard" or "I've read." The latter is impossible unless Melania translated whatever into a Fifth Grade reading level for him (it seems as if she has a better grasp of the English language than her hubby). IOW, “people familiar with the matter” is another way of saying "I'm making this shit up to make a point" like the Hillbilly did on the campaign trail.
-----
"because I won youth by 30 percent. All Republicans lose youth. I don't know why. Maybe it's changing. And last time we were down 30 percent with youth. This time we're up 35 percent with youth"
So, which is it: 30% or 35%?
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" Ralph Waldo Emerson We all know that the stable genius' mind is larger than anyone else's and constantly growing.
-----
"Also notable, the end of TikTok will mean the end of income for millions of content creators and revenue for about 7 million small businesses on there"
I'm sorry but I find this argument a tad disingenuous. There is *nothing* preventing the content creators and small businesses from migrating to other social networks, and bringing their subscribers with them. There are other networks that already monetize their platforms for users, i.e. Xitter, Facebook, or even here on Substack. Plus, there are new ones cropping up, like Bluesky.
Ms Jones, if the ban is upheld I'll commiserate with you and cry for you, but it isn't the end of the world as we know it. If one's life is too fixated on social media then you're not really living, and that fixation, IMO, is another form of addiction.
-----
As an aside, there are too many Americans who use social media as a source for news:
"More Americans are flocking to TikTok for news and information, but they aren't necessarily following media organizations or journalists on the platform, according to a new report from Pew Research Center.
Why it matters: Instead, they are relying on *creators, entertainers and influencers to deliver the news* — even as mis-and-disinformation campaigns continue.
State of play: More than half of Americans say they at least sometimes get news from social media platforms, according to Pew.
> Among those who use TikTok, 52% regularly get news there, up from 22% in 2020.
...
Less than 1% of accounts with U.S. followers on the platform were journalists or media entities."
[emphasis added] https://www.axios.com/2024/10/08/tiktok-content-creators-news
This should be more than just concerning, it is downright dangerous. These "news consumers" are getting the info they base their lives on from some rando with little to no outside verification.
fnord
The move to eliminate TikTok is bipartisan. Members of each party have been trying to outdo each other to prove their hostility to China. As Ms. Jones points out, TikTok is no more a Chinese company than Meta or Nvidia, but that's not the point. The point for the politicians is to show how anti-China they are.
The real reason behind the bipartisan effort? Twitter/X, Meta, Google and Microsoft spend good money to buy government power to eliminate their competition. The Youngs like TikTok, not the other companies' offerings. So the companies want the government to use the power they bought fair and square.
Whether the user data is stored in China, or hoovered up by US spy agencies, or both; irrelevant. I'm sure it's all stored on Amazon Web Services servers anyway, like damn near everything else.
It's only "bipartisan" because White Democrats are weak and short-sighted and conflicted about retaining their own white supremacist privilege
As the commenter above you in the thread observed --
"Just what the US needs: another social media platform that Elmo the Man-child could take through ensh*ttification like he has done with Xitter"
Because that ^^ worked out so well when the SEC refused to stop it
And the incoming SEC is not going to even make the attempt
https://youtu.be/JYfv-HSOFTA?si=aytt5oMy9QMutAmr
But shitter is a foreign adversary owned app.
Unfortunately, "foreign adversary" is defined by the country and not the hostile individual actor
And since apartheid was OVERTURNED in the country of SA, they're no longer so classified by the United States (if they ever were, because we should never forget that Hitler got what he considered his "best" ideas from the closed fascist state that was codified in Jim Crow)
The definition doesn't cover the example of white supremacists who still yearn for codified apartheid because they left SA when it collapsed
I first downloaded it when king baby said he wanted to ban it. I have used it less than a dozen times since then. And I updated it today.