Americans are joining the Chinese social media app en masse to protest an imminent TikTok ban.
- American users have flocked to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in defiance of security warnings.
- Chinese and American users have engaged in surprisingly friendly conversations about each other’s lives.
- The influx of American users could burden Xiaohongshu’s censorship mechanism, experts say.
Just proving US government right tbh.
So, US said: “TikTok is too powerful and has too much influence” and then people continue to be influenced. I kid you not, most trending rednote tiktoks right now are about price comparison between China and US with topics like: “veggies are like 2$ in China when they are 6$ in the US” with absolutely zero awareness of how economies work:
- median hourly salary in the US: 27 USD
- median hourly salary in China: 5 USD
Chinese vegetables are more expensive.
You could attribute this to people just being financially stupid but I think there’s definitely some truth from US government pov that China has a lot of propaganda power over US citizens and I say this as non-american myself as it’s quite apparent as a 3rd party observer.
Personally I still think low level laws that protect privacy of all americans is the way to go but America will never sacrifice free market money like that.
Man, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts must be really shit if the TikTokers didn’t even consider them for a second lmao
Are they allowed to talk about tiananmen massacre I wonder.
This might have an interesting side effect. Western voices and opinions being shared enmasse with Chinese youths on platforms they’re comfortable with. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese government responds to this
I’m amazed at all the CCP dick sucking here. It’s like I stumbled into r/Sino
操你中國政府
That backfired real good, didn’t it?
Good for them. People should be free to live their lives.
Not really surprised. Most Tik Tok users are braindead.
I thought the difference in humor would take a while to bridge but it’s very familiar. Day in the life of an american type videos with road rage, burgers, shitcoins, podcasts and pancakes
This is a fine example of how the american government doesn’t care about the interests of americans.
The government only exists to serve the wealthiest among us. Some of those wealthy people are upset that Chinese aristocrats are getting all that money.
This trade war only exists because rich americans want more money for themselves. It has nothing to do with national security and you’re a useful idiot if you think otherwise.
You don’t lift 800+ million people out of poverty by concentrating all of the profits among a small few. And China has increasingly been prosecuting their wealthy.
Which is what they really don’t want us learning to do.
Capitalists use the same exact argument for why outsourcing labor to the poorest countries is actually a good thing. For real, I’ve argued so many right wingers saying “searching for the cheapest labor actually helps the worlds economy because you’re lifting those poor people of _____ out of poverty! It doesn’t matter that it’s only pennies/day, because to them, that’s a lot of money!”
Pretty goddamn gross behavior.
Outsourcing is extracting wealth from another nation. How can you possibly compare that to lifting ones own citizens out of poverty?
You can’t untangle the outsourcing of manufacturing to China from that.
Exchange isn’t extraction. If you’re buying raw materials from Africa, yes. If you’re buying finished goods from China, no.
This is precisely why the US had a sudden about face about China. They were hoping their entryism with capitalist exchange would result in the fall of the communist party, who number one priority is preventing the plundering of resources through unequal exchange.
I wasn’t making a 1:1 comparison. I was saying that “but look how many people have been lifted out of poverty!” argument is a capitalist argument, because it completely ignores the reality of the situation. Have people been lifted out of poverty by outsourcing? Of course. But that doesn’t negate the core problem.
As the other person mentioned, outsourcing manufacturing TO china is largely responsible for the manufacturing boon there. And then rich Chinese capitalists (though they use the cover of not being called capitalists) became rich middlemen between “western” businesses and the cheap Chinese labor. So outsourcing has absolutely contributed to it. You and the American capitalists are looking at the same thing, one is crediting American executive innovation, the other is crediting the CCP.
You do it by exploiting the billions outside your borders from countries even more poor like mine where they sell their garbage low quality products that cant be repaired or recycled, from shitty earphones to bikes that start breaking down in a year, taking advantage of poor people who cant afford to buy anything of better quality. China isnt better than us when it comes to exploitation and inequality.
you don’t lift 800+ million people out of poverty by concentrating all of the profits among a small few.
This is false attribution.
There’s no way to verify how other political system would have worked for China. Maybe it would have worked even better? Taiwan for one is richer, stronger and happier than China per capita so does that mean dictatoriship -> democracy is a better system? Do you see the flaw in this attribution logic now? So, unless you have a time machine…Yeah you do it with slave labor, genocide, mass aborting baby girls, and IP theft.
Did you lift this straight out of a State Dept press release?
Why would I need to, these things have been known for decades?
Don’t get me wrong, capitalists (ex apple) love to collude, but it doesn’t make china some magical perfect land.
Yes, the intelligence orgs have been spreading lies for decades.
China isn’t perfect, but most of the scandal news we hear about it is fabricated by our government. Even our own government has now admitted they made up the Uyghur genocide claims.
Huh. Care to link the last one?
What they were actually trying to combat was China preventing the US from continuing to radicalize and use the Uyghurs as a front for regime change operations.
It has everything to do with national security, they just don’t consider common people as part of their nation same as slaves weren’t.
Yeah, national security for the rich, they don’t want us plebes getting any ideas about what real justice looks like.
The hexies are so excited about this too. They’ve got a thread up (erroneously) hoping that Americans will now stop believing that Chinese people are bad, because they can’t face the truth that Americans (who aren’t magats) only think the Chinese government is an authoritarian shit show and have no problem with regular Chinese citizens.
yap dollar
I don’t believe it.
Is it that surprising that your average person in another country is easy to get on with? I’ve been to a fair few different countries and the everyday people you interact with are lovely (except France).
It’s the fucking politicians you’ve got to look out for, and not just the foreign ones.
Lmao “except France”
I’m English, so I’m sure the feeling’s mutual. ;-)
Well I mean obviously.
Are they really that unwelcoming? I’ve heard a bunch about this, fortunately never got to experience it first hand.
Here’s the thing - the french motto is Freedom, Equality, Fraternity
They’re massively into the equality thing. Whether someone’s a waiter, a cleaner, a doctor or a judge, you must treat them with the same amount of respect
The only types of people that I’ve ever seen saying that the french are rude are the types that think cleaners are beneath them, and that everyone speaks English if you say it loud enough
This is kinda of my experience. The type of people that I see getting mistreated are the “I am le touriste, entertain me!” kind.
Americans especially tend to fall into this category a lot, they tend to be loud, brash and self centered, especially towards staff.
Look here you pot of lard, you bought a 2€ croissant, not my fucking soul. You want something, ask nicely and I will gladly help you. Act like you own me, I’m gonna piss on your food.
Admittedly the Brits are just as bad, and think the same way
This is one of the two factors for the bad reputation of France from US, the other one is the cultural shock that French people prefer genuine conversation and hate small talk, they’d find random american’s conversation superficial and faked.
I am neighboring France and we have kinda similar culture, though people here tend to dislike some French people for their lack of patience or accountability and their pride, though it’s a stereotype, as always.
I have only ever had great experiences visiting france, but then again I avoided Paris for the most part
Yes, they are
I spent one day in Paris, let me give you the highlights…
- We arrived, left the train station, and were immediately accosted by like 5 people trying to sell us friendship bracelets, or little string bracelets
- We left the area and walked to a local Metro station to get across the city, we wanted to check something, so we went to the nearby information section, where the lady refused to speak any English, despite the signage indicating that English was spoken there
- We figured it out on our own and entered the station, which smelled exactly and completely of piss
- We got off the train and walked along the river for about 10 seconds before being accosted by a conman pretending we’d just dropped some jewelry. Apparently it’s a common con. We ignored him and moved on.
- We had an ok time for the rest of the day trip, until we got back to the original train station, where we sat in a café beside a family who decided to change their kid’s diaper at their table, and then threw the used one to the nearest bin like they were playing cornhole
I’m not in a big rush to go back.
You just described any big city
“I went to Paris, interacted with basically nobody French, hated it and so now I hate the French”
😂
That’s not the only foreign city I’ve ever been to. Paris was the worst one I can think of, or at least top 3.
I’d prefer to go back to any of these:
- Cluj
- Riga
- Prague
- Emden
- Frankfurt
- Brisbane
- Singapore
Paris goes on a list with Jakarta and that’s about it.
It’s funny that I’ve never had bad experiences with the French and most of my visits to France were to Paris.
Then again I do speak French and try and take advantage of being over there to exercise my language knowledge in it as much as I can.
In my experience people almost everywhere (well, not in English-speaking countries, probably because English is the present day lingua franca so it’s kinda expected that you can speak it) generally appreciate you trying to speak their language even if you’re pretty bad at it and just trying to learn the local “good day”, " goodbye" and “thank you” will get you a lot of goodwill.
Except in the Netherlands, where your risk a response of “I’m not your Dutch teacher, we will speak English”. (Actually happened to a former colleague of mine.)
I’ve lived in The Netherlands and they’re “complicated” if you’re used to, for example, English-style of politeness or even Mediterranean-style exuberance.
They tend to be very direct, objective-oriented and seemingly cold/closed towards strangers (they open up more with friends and family), so for example if you’re in a work environment and one person’s trying to do things in broken Dutch is hindering the actual accomplishment of the work objectives (for example, in a work meeting), that will probably be pointed out to them, though I’ve never seen it done so rudelly.
They also tend to be pretty proud of their English-language speaking abilities and when you’re just learning Dutch and try to speak to them in it, often switch to English when they spot (from the accent) that somebody comes from an English-speaking country (so for me, who am Portuguese, they didn’t tend to do it and I could just silently ignore it when they did because they couldn’t be sure I actually knew English, but I had friends and colleagues over there from Britain, US and Australia who constantly got that and for whom it was a lot harder to learn the local language), though I don’t think that applies in your example.
It bet that happenned in a professional environment or some kind of professional situation.
That said, that specific telling off would be considered rude even in Dutch terms: if a person’s attempts at using Dutch are hindering doing the work, one is supposed to tell them that as the reason to switch to English (say, “other people are waiting behind you in the queue” or “we don’t have time to do this meeting in Dutch”, though one will probably not get a “I’m sorry but” or “I’m afraid that” or other such decorations to soften the blow which you would get in most other countries. In that quote of yours the other person making it about themselves “I’m not your Dutch teacher” and just bossing the other person “we will”(!), would be considered rude even by Dutch standards IMHO.
Personally (and note that I lived over 8 years in the Netherlands and do speak the language), had somebody told me off like that my reaction would probably be to not give a shit and carry on speaking Dutch since that person made it about themselves and I’m just as entitled to do it the way I see fit as they are to do it their way and I very much suspect (can’t be totally sure) this reaction comes from that part of me that are the elements of the Dutch mindset I’ve taken in from having lived there so long (certainly the whole “I’m just as entitled to my preferences as you to yours” feels very Dutch).
During the period when I was starting to learn Dutch on various occasions the other person switched to English (probably because my Dutch was really bad or I was having trouble following them) and I just kept on speaking Dutch, and I think I was once or twice told off for trying to say something complex with my really broken Dutch whilst buying something and I was holding the queue, but they simply pointed out I was holding the queue.
By France, do you mean Paris? They’re the worst.
Lyon ain’t much better.
And guess who’s in Paris? People from all over France (and the rest of the world) who came there to work.
Yeah, Paris specifically.
Youtube and Instagram tried for years to lure in Tiktok users, and they failed so badly that even with Tiktok potentially getting banned, people would rather switch to a different potentially sketchy Chinese app.
I can see the logic. If I used these apps I’d rather have a different sketchy government spying on my than my own.
My understanding is that nobody actually cares about the data collection, its more of a rebellious move to punish the government for, in their opinion, overreaching.
For the record, I don’t agree with that - its just what I’m seeing.
That they specifically went to another sketchy app is what gets me the most.
I could name tons of social network alternatives that are decentralized, give users control but for some reason those are sidelined as everyone suddenly wants an account on app they never heard off a few weeks ago and its main selling feature is that is at least as insecure and censored as tiktok…
They’re looking for a “fuck you” to the US government more than they’re looking for a new social media. Maybe it will stick as a popular platform, but I suspect it was chosen more for its name and ties to the CCP than any actual features.
I joined specifically for the fuck you.
I’m staying because I have found the most adorable content ever on there. This one guy does a dead on Trump impersonation and is hysterical, and there is an imperial dynasty of cats on there in full costume that i’m fascinated by.
I wasn’t even this fascinated by tiktok but i’m shocked how much better this is than american social media.
Some people are saying it’s for a particular rational reason. I personally doubt it. It’s all the articles saying “people are fleeing TikTok for…” and then they go to that thing. It only took one misleading sponsored article that looked legit to get things moving, then the reporting becomes accurate.
China playing 5-D chess ♟️.
Name them!
Your catching me off guard but uh sure
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loops is a new tiktok like app for the fediverse. And probably most relevant. I say probable because i am still uncomfortable with this type of social media so i dont know what people expect or want from it.
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odysee. Similar algorithm based video scrolling but have not tried it.
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lemmy, bet you heard of this one before.
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mastodon, a similar trend of today. People left twittercorp shithole. Had to make a choice between established actual alternative or brand new and empty twittercorp shithole 2.0
If these event thoughts me something its that people actually have no problem changing platforms and websites. Which i previously thought was the case. Its just seems unpredictable what actual sets a digital migration in motion and to where people will flock.
Odysee is more of an replacement for YouTube than TikTok, it has more wider videos, usually more than a minute.
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It’s genuinely superior to tiktok though, the algo rewards like 1% of the ragebait, uncredited reposts, and deceptive posts that tiktok does. If they reverse the ban, I’m not going back.
Sketchy Oligargh Billionaire App VS State-Run-Sketchy Party-Official-Billionaires App…
Idk… Sounds like loose loose…
Party official billionaires are much better than sketchy “self made” billionaires.
Party officials owe their fortune and allegiance to the party, and we’ve seen some high profile cases of billionaires being brought to their heels very quickly.
Capitalist billionaires are the end result of a selection process that chooses the most self serving, greedy, ruthless bastards.
I’ll take #1. Fight me.
It’s the Worker’s Billionaire, you western imperialist dog! Stalin did nothing wrong! Dengism forever! I am very normal!
closes hatch on tank and drives away
I take almost any Chinese party official over an American Billionaire. Rich people had their chance to prove capitalism works, it didn’t…
China has shown it jails Billionaires, so their Justice system works better than the one in the US.
China has jailed billionaires for going against the communist party’s doctrine and gaining power, not for any actual crimes.
Yes … but they ARE jailed (or worse). And they all know the Party has shit on them and they still chose to rise. That’s their game… what’s the western equivalent? Be born rich, cause literal chemical natural disasters by lobby work and shitty investment decisions and what happens?.. correct… In china they be ded…
Between a choice of “you will never be arrested for anything, ever, no matter how heinous” vs “You can be arrested at any time for any reason or no reason, at the whim of your government” I cannot say with confidence which of those is worse.
Well luckily the straw man you’re assigning to China only exists in your head.
Who arrests more people China or the US?
Out of my perspective, one system punishes overlords and the other doesn’t. I know what you mean regarding the prohibition on critics of the system / important people / journalism / science … but if we strictly compare the US with China in terms of billionaire punishment, China wins…
And regarding the massive steps the USA takes towards an autocracy, I would say the other aspects of the argument won’t hold up much longer.
It seems like we need to go through this shit to finally get our star trek future.
Party officials made their fortune first and were then forced to join the party, the party doesn’t make their fortune. They don’t care about people, unless they get either rich or influential, and then uses their red book to reel them in.
China is the most capitalist country on the planet. The only thing they openly worship is money.
Please spend some time there and we talk afterwards, if you stick to your opinion.
China is the most capitalist country on the planet
What the hell did I just read?
You’ve obviously never been there, then. Give it a try and get back to me.
LMAO. I have actually. I even have family from China.
Try again.
Propaganda.
If China were capitalist, they wouldn’t have lifted a record number of people out of poverty, continually be spending on improving public services, and prosecuting their wealthy. Simply participating in markets doesn’t make a country capitalist- it’s how that wealth is distributed or not.
But we’re fed this Sinophobic propaganda in the hopes we won’t notice that China is passing us by, and the average person there is living a far higher quality of life.
I’m not being fed sinophobic propaganda, I lived in China for 7 years, speak Chinese, and an married to a Chinese.
Quality of life is by and large alright, but there’s a huge disparity between the so called middle class and the actual working class that’s in violation of everything Marxist you’ll ever read about.
They absolutely have a lot of room for improvement, and their leadership has openly acknowledged they need reforms to move towards a truer implementation of communism. They’ve already implemented some of those reforms.
But hats off to them for what they’ve accomplished so far. Unrecognizable from the country they were 30 years ago.
China is the most capitalist country on the planet. The only thing they openly worship is money.
I disagree. What matters is power, and money does grant a lot of it, but in China especially this isn’t as direct as it is in the US for example because of party politics.
Party officials made their fortune first and were then forced to join the party, the party doesn’t make their fortune.
That’s a very broad assumption, and in some cases is true, some it is not. China has over 1 000 billionaires, over 100 of them are in the parliament, so it’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing, they go hand in hand because of the power thing.
Please spend some time there and we talk afterwards, if you stick to your opinion.
Yeah walking the streets of Beijing will give me ample opportunity to meet & greet Chinese billionaires and CCCP top brass.
Supposedly they’re doing it on purpose as a protest. Not just one sketchy Chinese app, but any sketchy Chinese app they can find. In the hopes that Meta and Google will miss them, and the federal government will capitulate to stop them using those apps.
Because apparently they haven’t read the bill in question and think banning these apps too will somehow be “unsustainable”.
It’s still an act of protest. Even if it will only last a week.
However, XHS has gone through 3-4 major revisions in the past 4 days, they clearly are anticipating sticking around.
It would be so hilarious to me if they build a VPN directly into the app to sidestep the Great Firewall of America
This is not true at all.
deleted by creator
Ban Instagram, Discord and iOS first, anti-libre software.
They never will. This ban was never to help us.
They do not give a fuck about me or you!
This ban was never to protect user privacy. It is to protect the federal government from what users willingly give away to foreign social media companies (and only those companies that are in the control of US adversaries). It was never about you and if you assumed that based on what the government said, you deserve to be disappointed. They give only fucks about what the average user can do to hurt them.
Because Chinese intelligence doesn’t trawl YouTube, Meta, and X?
Sigh. That’s a whataboutism argument and I’m over it. You do not have to agree.
Not really. It demonstrates that this is useless and probably not the real intent.
And ban smart TVs!
And ban hardware firmware!
And shipping and receiving software!
And proprietary ore mining operation software!
All of it! They don’t give a fuck!
Lmao IOS? Next is Windows then?