• FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    since it’s just regulatory capture for Facebook

    Yes and no. Ultimately it will be that, but that’s not the reason. The reason isn’t the bullshit privacy concerns either. It’s the amount of influence the Chinese government can exert by tweaking the algorithm. TikTok already proved congress’ point when they had all those people call their congress person to protest the ban. Congressional offices got flooded with calls from people who had no idea what was going on, and many of which were too young to be voters. Having an adversary control the information of such a large portion of the population is a dangerous thing.

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      I agree but X, Facebook and Google wield even more power. Corporations aren’t loyal citizens - no company should have as much power as these companies have collected.

      In this election Elon demonstrated what so many of us have warned about for the past decade with the consolidation of media… and our traditional media outlets are all owned by billionaires (is the NYT guy technically a billionaire - he might just have hundreds of millions) so its not like traditional media will save us.

      • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        I don’t disagree about anything you said. TikTok is just an easier target and a more obvious threat because of its connections to China.

          • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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            8 days ago

            I wouldn’t. All corporations are bastards - a corporation based in a country with strict government controls is just as much a bastard and may be imbued with additional intent.

          • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            I’m more concerned about privacy from a US Corp, but not the controlling information element. US companies have at least some stake, however small that may be, in there being a US…