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.
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
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.
It's really cool. The people are super nice and welcoming. The cities are incredible. Their cost of living is leaps and bounds better than ours. Life is affordable there.
They just got it better. The cold war propaganda we've been spoonfed from birth was all lies.
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.
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.
Dumbest shit ever. let me run to the PRC for my entertainment. Like was TikTok really that good? I never used it, other than the time long ago when it was first getting traction and my coworker asked me to get into her 12 yr old daughter's account (super easy BTW) and see what she was doing on there. surprise! nothing but 30 year old men following her and watching her doing dances. I never touched it since.
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 saw people in some Chinese source saying XiaoHongShu is updating the algorithm to segregate Chinese users and foreign users (image 1) and hiring English Post Inspectors (image 2) to moderate English contents due to China’s policy
Image 1:
Image 2:
It’s kind of like why there are Weixin and WeChat, Douyin and TikTok, Taobao and AliExpress, Pinduoduo and Temu
Remember these people are ill. Social media addiction will be studied for years to come. Bashing these kind of people will only push them to these apps and worsen the problem. The more honest we are, the faster this will turn around. Call these people sick to their face and watch them writhe and squirm as they try and justify it. It looks ugly but it will do them a load of help compared to nothing.