this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2025
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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 97 points 5 months ago

All privately owned and controlled social media are all already right wing propaganda machines

This takeover of tiktok is just another cog in the giant right wing propaganda machine that's already been running for decades

[–] DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone 48 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Tik tok will die and become a cesspit of far right people. Honestly just a way to burn billions of dollars in a year.

[–] Drewmeister@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I mean, I hope so, just like I hoped so for Twitter.

Evidently a lot of people can't give up whatever is the biggest social platform of its type

[–] aarRJaay@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago

I wonder if the demographics will change things. TikTok (I don't use it but from what I assume) is full of liberal people of different ages, genders (LGBTQ+) whereas Twitter was for mostly middle aged white people.

[–] TheseusNow@lemmy.zip 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

You would think people could come together and find something else and just let it be an overpriced thing oracle buys. Need a fediverse clone.

[–] PDFuego@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

That's Loops iirc

[–] shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Fediverse is great but if its not going to pay "content creators" a large number of people won't move to it. Those with the highest engagement generally expect to get paid now and for some of them its their livelihood.

[–] TheseusNow@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 months ago

There is things like Patreon, and others like that. Perhaps some kind of addition to the app that makes it easy for advertisers to find you, and you get the added option on blocking advertisers who you don't agree with or something? That could actually mean cutting out the middle man and making better profits, or if using a middleman there could be several advert companies you can patch into your vids.

Just thinking out loud. There should be a model to make it work and far better than it does now.

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Turning it into another X would be the dumbest strategy. Their best strategy is to shadowban both liberal and fascist rhetoric, and amplify the "apolitical" noise that everyone already uses it for. Make them feel like it's a platform connecting them, but don't let any real conversation happen. They have the power, now all they need is bread and circuses, and they will pay for them using oppression they keep hidden.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

TikTok already doesn't that kind of low-key suppression of content. I remember there was a big hubbub a few years back when it came out that TikTok had been actively suppressing content from disabled creators (as well as other groups). They apologised, and I think they said they would no longer do it, but I frequently hear people who continue to say that whenever they make posts that involve their disabilities, it feels like TikTok is still actively suppressing those posts.

In some cases, it appears to me that there isn't much evidence to support their suspicion — aside from the fact that we know for a fact that TikTok used to do this, and we have little reason to trust what TikTok claim when they are incredibly opaque at the best of times. It unnerves me that I don't know what to believe. Pretty much all big social media are terrible for transparency though, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 months ago

Yeah, that's basically what I was getting at. Tiktok can just be the same slop farm it already is, be as useful as the right need it to be, and remain just as successful. The decision to drive Twitter into the ground was made by an individual whose intelligence is an extreme outlier. We shouldn't assume they'll make the same blunder with Tiktok.

[–] Godric@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

Wrong, TikTok will become a right wing propaganda algo aimed at people Fox and OAN wouldn't ever reach.

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I'm not sure how the members of Congress of both parties who voted for the (imo unconstitutional, despite what the court says) TikTok ban expected government control of which media companies are allowed to operate in the US to end in any other way. Did they have fantasies of an apolitical forced takeover? Forced takeovers aren't generally apolitical things.

[–] Zephorah@discuss.online 19 points 5 months ago

They didn’t. This is the Peter Theil future. The filthy masses controlled by social media manipulation.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago

Neoliberals and Republicans/maga all just assumed that they'd be personally handed the keys and get to enforce their own biases.

It's the same way they both controlled what their respective billionaire owned media said in private, then publicly complained about the other side doing it in public.

If you want a politician to do the ethical thing. You need to start looking at progression Dems.

Neo liberals have always just been conservatives who want to be popular. They think alike, that's why for decades there's been such a disconnect between Dem politicians and Dem voters.

Neoliberals don't represent Dem voters.

[–] laalaa500@kbin.earth 18 points 5 months ago

I never had a tiktok. Left other social medias a long time ago. If you have accounts, I'd delete them. Be wary of how other websites might change or censor certain things.

[–] toast@retrolemmy.com 10 points 5 months ago

Anonymous, if you're listening...

[–] MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

TikTok to transition? Ironic.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I actually think that is surprisingly in line with the development of the internet in general.

In 1960, the US military funds the internet to help spread ideas among people. There's a fair bit of christian philosophy behind this seemingly technical development, namely that the medieval christian worldview was heavily influenced by ancient greek guy named plato, who said that "heaven" is the set of all ideas (Theory of forms), where ideas are "timeless, eternal forms" of which any real object is an instance. So it's the set of all forms, where a form is an information construct, similar to a blueprint for how to build/do things. This obviously should be compared to the internet, which can be understood as the realm of all ideas. So, funding the internet is the practical application of philosophical concepts founded hundreds of years earlier.

According to some commentators such as Hegel (link), The state is the actuality of the ethical Idea. That means that it's the state's responsibility to strive towards what is ethically good, especially if individual humans or companies could not achieve those goals. So, if a bigger development is considered ethically good but too expensive to carry out by individuals, the state can finance and carry through such operations. That, in combination with the above paragraph, is why i believe that the US government had a directive to implement computing technology to improve the ethical value of the world.

Evidence that the US government did not one but multiple research programs into how to improve the performance of the human brain can be seen by research programs as diverse as MKUltra which did not only develop interrogation techniques but also researched into how drugs affect human consciousness in general and what modes of operation the brain has available. Such insights could be used to find appropriate pharmaceuticals to stimulate human brain activity towards higher performance.

Tools like the internet, which has a direct military precursor (ARPANET), could be used to speed up human information processing and sharing, which can lead people to strive for new ways of life, which can even lead to revolutions in the way of life around the world, such as in the Arab Spring movement. I would say that from the point of view of the US military, that is in general a desirable outcome.

The fact that Trump and his loyalists are now using the internet to spread ideas through the population that make them act in certain ways to change the political system in one way or another is kind of the core essence of the internet in general. The internet exists to facilitate the spread of ideas which causes people to change their way of life, and Trump and his loyalists are merely using that tool for exactly that purpose; Just that they realize that what is happening in society is not only dictated by people's opinions being distributed but largely by political power and the ability to sway people's opinion in one way or another based on profit motifes. I think that under the Trump administration, the internet will be a tool to make people act in line of thought with wealthy individuals who will try to profit a lot by steering society in a certain way.

[–] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago

Yes it is definitely in line with the sick american fascist plans for things. Hopefully articles like this will show the fascist, child rapist, convicted felon for what he truly is and enlighten.

More articles calling things out for what they are please.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I mean. Thats sorta hilarious.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 5 months ago

because just how technology is and its relevance. Its not like you fill it with propoganda and everyone just eats it up. It turns into a bot circle jerk like X and real people go elsewhere. I mean you might grab so clueless low hanging grandma type fruit which they likely already had just with faux news (and I noticed news nation trying to act like old fox news. oh totally balanced over here. its like they are presenting it as the other side to faux news while being the same but with a lighter tone)

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Correct me if I'm wrong......but Loops is the only tiktok clone in existence, right?

[–] scintilla@crust.piefed.social 13 points 5 months ago

Basically the every social media site has a TikTok clone built in.

[–] bubblybubbles@lemmy.ml -2 points 5 months ago