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.
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.
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.
Wow that sounds like a fun way to bankrupt another company
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.
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.
Russia wanted the us bankrupt and as corrupt as them.
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.
I knew this shit would be abused eventually. A year and a half and this publicly though. With how bipartisan support for this there was in congress and publicly, an instance of leaopards eating their face for those certain that safeguards would work/future bills would pass to improve the safeguards (how often does that ever happen? Post-9/11?)
Had to leave Twitter when it became a Nazi site, I can leave TikTok to I guess.
You know, given how exploitative and harmful TikTok has been from the start, it might have been better never to use it at all.
I’m guilty of being on TikTok too, mainly used to keep up with a few artists I listen to, but at the end of the day, the platform is just another exploitative data-harvesting machine.
I uhhh never used it to begin with so I’m good boss
I never used either. Never really understood the culture of gormlessly scrolling through mind-numbing content.
But then I also gave up broadcast TV before even Netflix was popular. Just spent a small fortune on bargain bin DVDs instead.
me nervously doom-scrolling on lemmy via voyager 👀
Never really understood the culture of gormlessly scrolling through mind-numbing content.
It was less a “cultural thing” and more a functional drift. From the RSS feed to Web2.0 timelines to feed by preference to The Algorithm of ad-promoted content.
Like with email, it wasn’t always just a fountain of spam. Our systems have been deliberately and predatorially enshittified.
There’s a great deal of real news that goes through the app. It’s the majority of the content I see.
I’ve been averse to trends like this, but I did get on Facebook and Insta this summer at the urging of some friends (I run a nonprofit so it’s useful to network). By last week I had both apps on my phone and was just numbscrolling through Insta videos. Realized my mental health had gone to absolute shit in weeks. Deleted the apps andI’m feeling myself again.
It really is dangerous what they’ve created, if I didn’t have ambition, I would be right there zombified.
It’s mainly the kids and low information adults who are on Tiktok, that’s why it’s popular.
Maga should totally mess around with social media censorship, worked out great in Indonesia
Even better in Nepal.
Man, I just thought about the AI deep fakes. I never had a Tiktok (and left any remaining social media a long time ago) and I applaud anybody who is jumping ship right now. But the brain drain is extremely dangerous with the AI stuff.
The open corruption, clear as day illegal and unconstitutional moves, and his overall smugness is embarrassing.
The GOP has gone insane to allow this man to continue like this. They are all sick with power and are hoping to “get theirs” next from daddy trump.
They are ALL traitors and should be charged for allowing the crimes to continue.
“Jesus this”
You voted for Trump
“Free market that”
You voted for Trump
But they don’t have the fucking power. They’re letting Trump do whatever he wants, and eroding their own authority in the process.
“I don’t want real power, because with real power comes real responsibility, and I don’t want any of that shit. I just want the money. And the illusion of power. And puss.”
If that’s what it takes for people to stop using that stupid a** social media, I’m all for it.
glad you bend over so easily. Saves whoever the cost of lube even.
deleted by creator
Bend over for what? We need to fight for the braindead app for idiots.
In other words, trump says “Stop looking for the Epstein files!”.
He isn’t even trying to be an American president. Only to his lie-loving MAGA.
Tiktok was China’s soft propaganda because they suppressed unfavorable content rather then promote favorable content. Trump going full MAGA with it would kill the platform because people use tiktok to stop thinking about distressing things. Not be exposed to more of it.
What can be done to let https://loops.video/ profit from this even more than mastodon profited from the end of Twitter?
I’ll just leave this here.
Goddamn this is dark. Just when can i expect people to ever start actually fighting back in any sort of tangibly productive manner? We are so fucked.
Just when can i expect people to ever start actually fighting back in any sort of tangibly productive manner?
Never. Fighting takes strength and the typical american is chronically burned out.
Makes me rage that millions died defeating that megalomaniac.
