TikTok Is a Symptom of a Larger Problem

March 17, 2023 at 10:30 PM
Category: Internet

I hate TikTok. It's one of the worst platforms to come to the internet in recent years. In its short, yet unrelenting growth spurt, it's rapidly degraded the well-being of countless telephone users, and has inspired numerous acts of robbery and stupidity. Like other platforms before it, TikTok has damaged the youth to an alarming degree.

So it comes as a shock to me that even after all this time, people are still talking about the prospect of it being banned. The U.S. government seems itching to go through with it, while domestic news outlets are sitting there relaying the grave concerns of broken spirits about how TikTok has become such an integral part of American culture or something. One user was so damaged that she blatantly said "I'm 18, let me share my information with China if I want to, I literally could care less".

On one side, yes, I want to see to it that TikTok is wiped out of my country. But have you noticed the rhetoric that's passed around in the news? Nowhere does the news mention the innate flaws of TikTok as a social media platform like any other. It's nothing but China this, China that, because the two countries have a beef with each other. What's going on in the minds of the politicians here? I wonder...

The Domestic Threats

Sure, it's a bad idea to be handing personal data over to another government that tries to tightly control its people and routinely commits human rights violations... but how is it any different to be handing the same data over to an American corporation? The psychological warfare waged by websites like Facebook and Twitter is what naturalized the idea that social media is all the internet should be in the first place.

What TikTok basically did was cash in on the exact same idea that a successful website is one that eats away as much valuable time as possible from users (which they call "ENGAGEMENT") and probes them up the ass to obtain personally identifiable information to sell to advertisers or whoever may be. This isn't a shocking revelation. To most of my people, the problem is that a Chinese company got in on it. (Is that also the real reason why Epic Games, owned by Tencent, got sued bigtime for milking parents' credit cards too much? Shit...)

Domestic companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook no wait I mean Meta are just as much of a threat to Americans as TikTok is. Look at how much Twitter corrupted everyone. It basically allowed itself to become a largely unfiltered political site, thereby sinking people down the wrong path with shit-tier memes and anti-contextual "gotcha" writings concentrated in a single linear feed. And don't get me started on these "viral challenges"...

This kind of bullshit would not have had as much room to grow if communities were not gobbled up by all-encompassing platforms like Twitter and TikTok - in essence, if we were still using smaller forums and creating websites. While I am willing to get behind a ban of TikTok, if the U.S. government is to follow through with it, they better go after domestic platforms next. Unfortunately, I do not think we can count on them for such a task.

Striving for a better internet is ultimately going to start with you. Delete as many social media accounts as you can, and unlearn the propaganda that social media induced. Start finding other ways to share your works online. The internet is not simply a few big websites where everyone goes to litter their wasteful horseshit; it was not meant to be that way. It was designed to put control in your hands, not the other way around!

If you still think I'm not serious about this, I had just initiated the motion to get my Discord account deleted a few days ago. It should be gone in a couple of weeks, and I think I will have plenty more to say about that by then.

Comments

Netz: I actually use Telegram daily since it is impossible for me to move the people I most contact with to something better like XMPP. What are your criticisms with the platform? As for the rest of those foreign social networks I actually want it to be heavily regulated at least since so many people here in Vietnam are becoming more stupid everyday through whatever "trends" running around on those platforms.

reply to everyone (part 5/3) (still) P.S.:

Internet in Russia is already fucked up (maybe) since early-2010's and it's got even more fucked up after 2022. Which foreign SNS's still work in Russia? My answer: Telegram (crappy messenger), YouTube (crappy videohost) and Reddit (Tencent's toy which can be banned in Russia on May 11th).

F-social network (considered to be an extermist lol) - banned,
I-photo social netwrork (also an extremist too) - banned,
Twitter (idk if it's also extermist) - banned (but they tried to unban since of recent things but Roskomnadzor said that it still be banned since they still have about 1000 of fobidden posts they not deleted),
TikTok - kinda "works" and "banned" at the same time, but you can't watch and upload videos.

Sorry for wasting your time.

reply to everyone (part 4/3) P.S.:

yes, i already heard about the abomination called "RESTRICT Act" (that thing is not just "banning TikTok" ...but also changing the whole internet) i thought that by making a personal Web1.0 site, would be accessable worldwide?

OK, let's imagine if Kugee allowed me to host my site on his servers, but in which i going to send him .html files if i live in Russia and will both of us take risk to host (by "RESTRICT" any software-related thing made in Russia would be considered to be fobidden in use in US)? Via burnt CD-Rs (or any other removable media) sent thru postal services? Via e-mail?

Both ways consider to put myself to the wormhole called "The Foreign Agent" (no, i not talking about a thing from US that i could get if i get a financial support from Russia in US for example, but a thing from Russia that i can get if i get my first payment from YouTube partnership (yes, still using that crap) or even from other way that i can't say here).

Kugee: I think I saw it on CNN or a blog somewhere. I read the article around 2021, so it's quite likely my memory's fuzzy. I think you needed to get the QR-code on an ID card, not a tattoo, now that you mention it. Searching "qr-code attendance in schools" yields mostly advertising and tutorials on how to display a QR-code on a projector or on an ID-card.


So my mistake, no QR-code tattoo requirement. I have spread DANGEROUSSSS misinformation! This is Crime and Ministry DISinformat ion board does Dislike.

wow so brave

I don't have anything against TikTok, but i can agree with u!... (srry for my english btw)

Netz: iNormie. [copies another Kugee's random phrases].

reply to AxelCuty (and others) (part 3/3):

Let me imagine the future that Toastytech would never thought for:

Let's imagine the """smart"""-glasses that became an abomination of not just a phone market, but also the pc market as well. Those """smart"""-glasses became a mega-mantatory worldwide (that in some countries they were used a weapon for controling the entire population of the country). They include literally all information of a user (including passport, various IDs and other country-required bullshit). If i want to break it or even put them away from me, i would a death sentice for damaging a goverment property. This would be a such a disaster to live in that future.

P.S. Remember, "Smart"-phones (or even any other thing with "smart" on it) should be an auxiliary devices, not a mantatory devices (, Apple that lost a meaning of "i" in the names of their """products""").

reply to AxelCuty (part 2/3):

Like the TikTok in worldwide, "VK Clips" in Russia get promoted literally everywhere. On buildboards, inside the metropolitian stations and trains (if i talking about the Moscow and Saint Petersburg), on TV and other places, and even inside VK's app (that i don't want to update it and even use it).

Speaking of "national replacements", Rutube is the next that came to my mind. Same massive promotion that came too far, i really hate that day that on one of TV channel they introduced a "Day-time super-takeover-show Rutube" (my translation btw). 1 hour (including ads) of soulless "bloggers" and sugary mess with (yet another) agressive promotion.

That's a reason why the Russian (earlier) millenials and (nowadays) zoomers are (still) stay in touch with the internet, instead of watching TV (or like Toastytech said "OAT TV") since it's already dead in Russia (like the cable TV).

reply for AxelCuty (part 1/3):
I didn't get in touch with TikTok since 2022 (thanks to the santcions lol), even tho i wasn't initially interested in TikTok since it's """launch""" (but actually it's a burning rebranding of musical.ly). Back then i just used YouTube (sorry), Miitomo (Ninten... i mean one of japanese gaming corporaton's abomination) and fewer sites (like Russian VK, which also became an abomination and made it's own TikTok bootleg called "ВК Клипы" (aka VK Clips)).

In a nutshell, "Clips" is just like TikTok, but it can be much worse abomination than other "TikTok-Klones" (like Shorts (i also hate it), Reels (by the company that considered to be an extremist lol and i won't name it because in which country i live), Kwai (dead abomination), Likee (i didn't if is still here) and others).

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