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Security risks, like interacting with Chinese people and undoing decades of our propaganda
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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Funny how people downvote this even though it's honestly true lmao
The US government’s position on this can be summed up as “massive unaccountable US tech firms having all of your data and manipulating public opinion via their black box algorithms is okay, but Chinese companies doing that is a national security concern”. I call BS. The degree to which China is actually a US adversary is being massively overstated by the US government as they see this as a threat to US geopolitical hegemony and America’s ability to propagandize its own citizens. I have spent some time on RedNote (Xiaohongshu) and all I have seen is friendly cross-cultural exchange and discussion between these supposed ‘adversaries’.
I want to take it even further down, what effect does China harvesting my data have? I'm a poor white man working in a school in the Midwest with extreme left beliefs. I'm not privy to government Intel, I don't when go to school board meetings. All I watch is redstone tutorials and goblin-core videos. I'm not saying I'm a default demographic, but if you take the entire digital footprint of everyone I know, you're getting terrabytes of wasted space. You can't even use it to radicalize us because we use it for escapism, not news. Not that that's an option, I'd happy sell out this shithole for a stable job and dental, but I don't see China sending me any pizza parties.
US propaganda has been focused on telling people nonstpp how Muslims and Chinese are all just busy hating the US because of their "muuh freedom" and their greatest whishes is to take that "freedom" away. Also they are all underdeveloped peasants according to the propaganda.
The greatest danger to that propaganda model is normal people talking with each other and realizing people are just people with people problems. Doesn't matter where in the world you are. The average person will worry about paying their bills, their work, the health of their family and how their kids do in school.
People in warzones care about staying alive and overcoming their attackers, but even then most people who have been at the end of American barrels or barrels allied to the US just want to be left the fuck alone in their own countries. Very few actually want to destroy the US, despite having their family members murdered by the US or its Allies. (Same goes for people dealing with Russian, French or other foreign military attacks)
Everyone of us can be manipulated. If someone has your data, which gives indicators on how you think and act, that someone can manipulate you.
And manipulating citizens is a good strategy for foreign countries.
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The US government doesn't want us to see how well people are living in China off a mid income. How good their infrastructure is. How everyone is healthy and benefitting from their government instead of being repressed and used as a resource.
How good their infrastructure is.
and benefiting from their government instead of being repressed
Had my there for a second. I thought you were being serious.
Stop spewing more Chinese propoganda. “Benefitting from their government instead of being repressed and used as a resource”. You’re talking about China here? A totalitarian government with absolute control over everything.
Benefitting so much that they can’t even talk about politics or their own country’s dark history without being re-educated.
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Very simple, they can track a lot of your online activity (as well as of course what you watch on TikTok) and any of this could be used for future blackmail.
Or I'll spell it out. 15 years from now you are at middle management position in a defense contractor and some stranger reaches out to you and says they'll dump a bunch of insanely embarrassing shit from your 20s - think evidence of infidelity, porn playlists, etc - unless you do this simple thing, send them some plans now and then or pass along a password. Nobody will ever know.
No not you specifically, you're boring. Whoever is in positions they find interesting.
have spent some time on RedNote (Xiaohongshu) and all I have seen is friendly cross-cultural exchange and discussion between these supposed ‘adversaries’.
Nobody is saying the Chinese people and American people are enemies or adversaries.
I have spent some time on RedNote (Xiaohongshu) and all I have seen is friendly cross-cultural exchange and discussion between these supposed ‘adversaries’.
Do you really not understand the difference between "Chinese people" and "Chinese government"?
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Someone go make green note, blue note, yellow note, all the notes!!!!
Someone did. You can write words on them. They come in a pad. Sometimes sticky!
But they don’t have directions on how to 3d print a gun, and absolutely no references to Tiananmen Square!!
excellent to know so we are going to make and enforce privacy regulations so this pattern doesn’t keep repeating itself
… right?
It has Israeli investors so any pro-palestine content won't last long!
I doubt it. These things are controlled by the CCP and the CCP is loving the way Israel just keeps exposing Western hypocrisy.
I don’t understand, why are exactly are people moving to RedNote? I’ve never heard of it.
Probably as a protest move, but in a stupid way.
Some of it is ignorance. People see TikTok is banned, google "TikTok alternative," and click on the first sponsored result. They would need to know (and care) why TikTok was targeted in order to find something better. People hear that RedNote is the next app, so people go to RedNote, and therefore it becomes the next app.
Some of it is astroturf. Do the people telling you that RedNote has become popular have any interest in making RedNote popular? Is RedNote really exploding, or is it just interesting to talk about? Like is it going to snow heavily tomorrow, or is it good for weather services to get eyes on their content? Hype has its own inertia.
Some of it is real. RedNote was already very popular in China, and there is already a lot of content. People comparing it to Loops, for example, might find Loops sadly lacking in content and influencers. Influencers go where their audience is, and the audience follows the influencers. Nobody wants to be the last one on the new platform, and it's fairly simple to make the switch, so a whole lot of people jumped into RedNote at once because they don't care about CCP data mining or political issues.
Who, the people selling the Mandarin translator pens? Are they behind the Tiktok ban too?
people would rather have their personal data stolen by the chinese government than the US who poses much more of an immediate threat.
detractors describe this as astroturfing but that’s BS. congress brought this on themselves by making such a clearly self-serving gesture.
people would rather have their personal data stolen by the chinese government than the US who poses much more of an immediate threat.
Oh sure. Chinese living in the US telecom network for years isn't a threat. China compromising critical US infrastructure isn't an immediate threat.
And the issue is less about stealing your data (although that is an issue), it's about being shown pro-CCP and anti-American content by a Chinese app. It's about direct foreign influence by an adversarial county (the government, not the people, apparently that distinction needs to be pointed out to people here).
I see more pro China anti American content in one day on Lemmy than I have in my entire existence on TikTok and RedNote combined.
You are running off imagination, assumptions and vibes.
I see more pro China anti American content in one day on Lemmy than I have in my entire existence on TikTok and RedNote combined.
I don't have a reason to doubt this, although I don't see this (any I've never used TikTok). Lemmy being an open platform means that it's rife for propagandists to spread their views. No one said pro-CCP and anti-American content was exclusive to TikTok or RedNote. But Lemmy is far more neutral than most other platforms, which means both pro and anti anything content has an equal chance. It just comes down to the userbase.
And with that openness comes the possibility for people employed to promote pro-CCP content also.
You are running off imagination, assumptions and vibes.
You dropped a comma there.
But no, I'm not running off of imagination or assumptions.
Oh no, hypothetical biased information. How will our brains process it in the event that it appears.
I think we're already seeing how...
Not sure what you mean. We see the problem with FOX viewers. You look at the people using TikTok for news (myself included), there's actually strong media literacy because they're learning about what deceit looks like.
We see the problem with FOX viewers
Only a subset of Americans see Fox as trustworthy, and everyone outside the US (myself included) sees Fox as pure propaganda.
people using TikTok for news (myself included), there's actually strong media literacy because they're learning about what deceit looks like.
This hurts my soul so much. I think this just says a lot more about American education than anything else.
Frankly, if you were on TikTok at all, I don't think you were following who I was following. It's like YouTube. You can post stupid meme dance videos, you can post lectures by historians. I don't appreciate the condescension. When you are seeing things on there - primary source evidence, not any kind of propaganda - that directly contradict what you hear from conventional media, you're forced to develop skills to account for the disparity. Otherwise, without that info, you just stay in a bubble - which was precisely the intention of the ban.
Otherwise, without that info, you just stay in a bubble - which was precisely the intention of the ban.
Maybe this is an American-centric thing, but then the rest of the world does see the US as a strange place with strange ideas
The funny thing though, is that China is an even bigger bubble with thicker walls.
TikTok is a Chinese owned product, it's developed by people who live in China, and the Chinese government has a direct influence on the content and how it's presented to users. This isn't hearsay or an opinion. It's a fact.
Another fact, that people seem to always gloss over or ignore, is that TikTok isn't even allowed in the country that develops it. They have their own internal version called Douyin, which is the same as TikTok, and people outside of China aren't allowed to use it.
If China had one platform for everyone, this discussion wouldn't even be happening.
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Just one of those tic tok trends basically
Bruh
I bet it was because they saw propaganda on tik Tok telling them to. But I'm sure they all feel like it's their own choice and that they are sending a message to the American government.
The news tends to drive things like this, so I don't know how many people are really "flocking" to this Chinese application. This is also so artificial. Forces are driving this and people don't seem to notice.
Regardless of the number, I'm completely baffled. They don't even understand why the US government is doing this in the first place.
These folks are jumping off a sinking ship and grabbing steadfast to the first piece of flotsam that they found... which ironically suffers from the same exact problems that the ship did in the first place. It will inevitably suffer the same demise. It's crazy that those holding on don't seem to understand that.
If you want to keep TikToking or whatever it is people do on that platform, you should join the closest Western version, preferably owned by a multi-billionaire in the US. Their platforms will be protected no matter how much data is stolen and how much privacy is violated. The goal wasn't to stop the communist Chinese government, but ensure that Americans maintain a stranglehold over these vices so that they can benefit from them. People are being used and just don't care.
It sure would have been nice if more people join the fediverse in response to things like this, but alas... it's not quite mature enough yet. They can't look for something like Loops because it just isn't ready. They go to things like BlueSky, completely oblivious to the fact that it can't be what they really want. They don't even know what they want. They just follow the lemmings before them.
Someday this will change for the better. Maybe. Perhaps not.
I'll never personally understand short form video and influencers and everything else around that. But for others, it's a huge deal... at least that's what the media seem to be making it into.
I mean... perhaps this is unintentionally the begining of something good and they just don't realize it yet.
Good luck TickTockers. Even if the platform remains, you're still being taking advantage. The opportunity is now, and you're blowing it. Something completely entrenched has finally been disrupted. You could take advantage of something better, but you're choosing not to.
The goal wasn't to stop the communist Chinese government, but ensure that Americans maintain a stranglehold over these vices so that they can benefit from them.
Both. It can be both. And the influence by the CCP is absolutely real.
I feel like this can be true, but if it is... they're dropping the ball in so many other places that genuinely matter.
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