Technology

I find it funny that millions of people had no problem with an evil foreign government like the CCP, that's well known for collecting data for military purposes and spending mind boggling amounts on propaganda campaigns, controlling the app, but now draw the line at some Silicon Valley billionaire doing essentially the same thing.

I never liked the short content format so I never had an interest downloading TikTok, but I knew that I would never, ever download it when I learned that this Chinese app is actually banned in China. They a have a separate clone of this app that's exclusive to China that uses a different algorithm that promotes positive and educational content. The fact that billions of people use this shitty weaponized piece of Chinese spyware is depressing, especially when the Fediverse exists.

Vine used to be so fun and simple.

That was fucking eons ago.

Its replacement has so many issues on many levels.

I wish I could be part of this 150% but I’ve never used TikTok

psst hey kids. wanna try out some fediverse?

wait, so chinese spying is fine, but american spying is not? So why are so many people on faecesbook then?

China was spying on me in case I had any useful state secrets. America is spying on me because they are actively exploiting every data point in my life for profit and control.

My siblings were debating issues with it and about how willing they were to just deal with it.

I'm just shocked at how addicted everyone is to it that it could probably say "Trump is watching all users' front cameras while the app is open" and kids would still be like "hmmm what are the odds he watches me though?

But everybody's a zombie.

I mean I downloaded it, back really early, to take a peek. After 15 minutes, I decided I hated the short format, and peaced out.

It seems to largely be a generational thing. Millennials are (in my perception) mostly on it just to make money, zoomers just want that crack IV drip.

Obviously this is just a trend, and there are counter examples everywhere, but that seems to be more true than not. At least from the outside looking in.

And given it's totally obnoxious censorship rules, now I have to deal with hearing about people getting "unalived", or "adult fun time", and "p 3 dee oh" from creators that multistream. Even without being there, I'm forced to experience the cancer secondhand.

That's my main problem with it. None of the other problems affect me directly much since I've always avoided it, but that is smeared all over my shit.

MORE

I feel old every time I share that I’ve never installed TikTok and don’t have an account.

In many ways, I feel a bit like I am still forced to ambiently and peripherally use the app when interacting with the rest of social media and society. Because the damn format, and culture, and way of thinking and producing videos has seeped so deep into all aspects of our lives.

The whole mode of consuming media in an algorithmic flipbook like that weirds me out. I don’t understand how anyone can enjoy being enticed to watch videos in the way TikTok promotes.

If you are uninstalling, you can try the federated alternative: loops

Good. Fuck TikTok.

This is now a right wing propaganda machine. I deleted awhile ago.

Several social media posts pointed to language in the new policy that describes the types of data TikTok may collect, including sensitive information such as “your racial or ethnic origin” as well as “sexual life or sexual orientation, status as transgender or nonbinary, citizenship or immigration status, or financial information.”

Despite the social media uproar, that language does not appear to be new. An archived version of the policy from August 2024 includes the same provisions.

We will see 100% of tiktok users uninstall. Even 200%, 300% 400% up to 500% and more including 600%. Percents like no one has seen.

Meanwhile https://joinloops.org/ and https://joinpeertube.org/ keep getting better and better

Hopefully more creators will take notice and at least crosspost their content on better platforms too.

Deleted it. My wife then naturally sent me a DM of a thing asking if I could build it cheaper. Reinstalled to see the video, then deleted again.

There are a lot of content creators there I enjoyed but c'est la vie.