News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads fro... by Talanes on Monday September 28, 2020 @06:40AM (#24615196)
> they’ve for instance chosen to omit the fact that the Wuhan Virus originated in China.

Any social media platforms using the term "Wuhan Virus" would be a bigger sign of governmental propaganda than the lack is.

Re:Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads fro... by Chakazul on Monday September 28, 2020 @07:16AM (#24615402)
For the record, "Wuhan Pneumonia" and "Wuhan Virus" were widely used by official news coverage in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and guess what, Mainland China, before the WHO suddenly dictated all people must use "Covid-19" or else you're racist or propagandist.

This trick is very effective in erasing the obvious link between the virus and its origin.

Re:Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads fro... by lalaland1125 on Monday September 28, 2020 @09:17AM (#24616301)
Yes, of course the goal is to erase the "obvious link" between the virus and the its origin. The thing is, people are irrational and will start discriminating in weird and unnecessary ways based on where a virus came from.

See https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/20/coronavirus...

Nobody is trying to erase "history" or anything. Anybody actually interested can always read about the origin location of the virus in Wikipedia. This is all about keeping things straightforward for the otherwise uninformed.

Note that this is a standard virus naming methodology. The Ebola virus was similarly intentionally named to avoid unintentionally creating a target for discrimination.

Re:Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads fro... by programmarchy on Monday September 28, 2020 @08:59AM (#24616147)
Would you say the names West Nile, Zika, and MERS are also signs of propaganda?
Re:Judge temporarily blocks U.S. ban on TikTok downloads fro... by Talanes on Monday September 28, 2020 @11:37PM (#24623958)
No, because those were all in common use.

It shouldn't matter whether you think Wuhan virus or COVID is the propaganda-name, a company just defaulting to the most common term for their market is not a useful sign of propaganda.

Using Tik Tok's Covid information as proof of propaganda is just looking at noise and pretending it's data.