• rational_lib@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Here’s how this works:

    1. Network is created that doesn’t discriminate on speech.
    2. The left wins debates and it becomes increasingly liberal over time.
    3. Far right billionaires buy it to stop those process.
  • PeacefulForest@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Yeah I just hope it kills the app, which I’m sure it will. I never began using it in the first place but seeing it take over all of my fellow Gen Z, you know, the same ones who have admitted to thinking politics don’t matter, won’t be very happy when their favorite app turns to even more utter trash

    Hopefully this wins more minds away from social media and even more people can wake the fuck up here in Amerikkka.

    • edgyspazkid@lemmy.wtf
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      10 hours ago

      I think people won’t care, at least this demographic fellow Gen Z. They still gonna use the app. Arguemnts such as “oh everyone uses this to send funny tiktoks to themselves it’s not that big of a deal” it will be just more shit to go through. Similar thing to Twitter. Everyone is so pissed at Elon because more bot accounts, you can’t or couldn’t block him and other shady stuff but still uses the twitter (X) because… everyone uses it.

      But I also hope it will kill the app.

      • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I’m seeing people moving to sky (or whatever it’s called). It takes time for people to switch social media platforms.

  • F_State@midwest.social
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    18 hours ago

    Unsurprising that a guy collapsing the Republic into a fascist dictatorship says that TikTok should be a mouthpiece for the Government. It’s time for someone in a country that ISN’T the US, Russia, or China to start a TikTok rival for people to switch to.

  • REDACTED@infosec.pub
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    15 hours ago

    I’m sure it really depends on where you live, but here in East Europe I’ve noticed tiktokkers slowly turning into Z’ers who start accepting Russian disinfo as facts. Meaning, it’s already pro-MAGA

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
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    23 hours ago

    So, Trump effectively nationalized TikTok, valued at $300b. He sells it to friendly oligarchs for $15b. So far, this is basically the post-USSR playbook, and how Roman Abravmovich, Alisher Usmanov, Vladimir Lisin, etc. got so rich.

    But it might piss off his oligarch buddies if he drives all the users off TikTok making what seemed like a steal into something worthless instead.

    • bigfondue@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      I think that just like Elon with Twitter, the value is not in revenue but controlling the narrative.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        2 hours ago

        That only works if people use it.

        For some reason, people have stuck with Twitter. But, the users of TikTok are not the same as the users of Twitter, so who knows, maybe they won’t stick with it.

    • normalexit@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      This will be truth social again with a pre-existing user base and better algorithms. People will drop off, but they will probably boil the frog slowly to keep people around.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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      23 hours ago

      In ex-USSR that happened as something destructive, but in USA honestly it’s normal, using institutional pressure to help friendly businesses. Trump is unusual only in how grotesque he is in his position, but history saw Talleyrand.

      And US sanctioned Japan just because some of its businesses couldn’t compete, which didn’t kill Japanese car industry, but hurt Japanese computer industry, and sent Japan into recession from which it didn’t quite recover.

      About driving users off - that doesn’t really happen unless you intentionally break everything. VKontakte be the experiment showing this, except TG was later made based on VK makers’ experience with social stuff, and was very successful, and is now basically the most convenient messaging\social platform. When something FOSS manages to reproduce the experience of TG, then FOSS messaging and social systems stand a chance. So - some of the life moved from VK to TG, but it’s more of VK’s experience stagnating and being too complex and overloading, not of people fleeing it.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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      23 hours ago

      He bankrupted a casino, he knows what he’s doing.

      I suppose that’s why the people paying for his campaign chose him, to bankrupt a nation you need someone this talented.

      Why do they need said nation bankrupt I don’t know, maybe to make it fail while the failure will still be not too gigantic to recover from, and maybe for yet another pump-and-dump scheme, except this time with a country and not an industry. Depends on how optimistic you are about their motives.

      • 4am@lemmy.zip
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        22 hours ago

        Trump has wanted to destroy the United States since we captured Epstein in 2011 and shut down the best of his trafficking ring. It was never the same after that and that’s why he was suddenly so outspoken about Obama.

        Take away a narcissist’s toys and they’ll just vow revenge at all costs. He doesn’t care that he’s destroying millions of lives - we took away his favorite thing; underaged “playmates”.

        The rest of them are just assholes who think they can get rich and in some cases, have.

        • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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          22 hours ago

          Russia is 1) not that powerful by far, 2) its elites, those very ones spoken about when expressing these conspiracy theories, are pissing hot water from a mere hint of being friends with any US administration.

          They have sort of an inferiority complex, there was recently a damned TV report, apparently, about an American diplomat visiting a cafe and ordering a cheburek (Central Asian street food). It’s so much bootlicking that one can confidently say Russia’s elites are much bigger US fans than Russians in average.

          They might be unintentionally making the effect you described upon the US, while trying to somehow become part of its processes, but it’s a small nudge compared to the more serious reasons.

          I think this is because the people who are now Russia’s elite came to power in the 90s, a lot of ex-Soviet people looked at the situation pretty simply - as in “we were the losing superpower in this cold war thing, now it’s ended and we are friends, so we are going to become like America in those movies with white middle class people all owning cars and houses”, and those of them who were doing politics, apparently, wanted to have their own political system as “cool” (or whatever, some immeasurable feeling) as the American one.

          The Iron Curtain was a huge mistake, people who put it in place were thinking in 30s categories when the 30s were long gone. People inside thought that they only put barriers before you to protect something you’d want to have. A generation of Soviet people grew with that feeling, where everything Soviet was boring and bad, and everything Western magical and good. It wasn’t even about freedom or morality. Just about “coolness”. People breaking the USSR in the 80s and 90s knew that the world around it isn’t virtuous and kind, but they thought it’s “cooler”. Everyone thinks they’d do well when put into an adventure, when safe. Nobody thinks they’ll be some guy who gets eaten by a crocodile on the second page, or a coward, or an idiot, or a sucker.

          So. When the Russian “wide mass” realized that for the West it consists of suckers and crocodile fodder, it became disillusioned and the wound healed, except for some rare idiots who kept believing into that picture, not being exposed to reality.

          When the Russian elites realized that, they just decided to lower the bar, and be content with playing US sometimes, and getting US citizenship for themselves and their children, and being there often, and playing with US politics. I don’t think it’s directed at somehow corrupting and undoing the US, simply not enough power. They are just regularly touching in the shop something they can’t afford to buy.