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Re:TikTok goes dark in the US by rayiner on Sunday January 19, 2025 @09:31AM (#42757308)
This is 100% what it is. The establishment types are upset that they can’t just lean on a handful of major media organizations anymore to maintain a uniform narrative (e.g. Iraq having WMDs).
Re:TikTok goes dark in the US by willmadden on Sunday January 19, 2025 @10:11AM (#42757655)
Isn't it funny how our "freedom of speech" is situationally optional?
Re:TikTok goes dark in the US by jp_nc on Sunday January 19, 2025 @10:36AM (#42757890)
You are trusting your “freedom of speech” to an entity controlled by a government which blocks US companies from penetrating the great firewall? Try googling tank man in China…you can’t because google is blocked and tank man is prohibited content.
Re:TikTok goes dark in the US by johng on Sunday January 19, 2025 @10:16AM (#42757709)
Freedom of speech has nothing to do with a privately owned platform controlled by a communist country.
Re:TikTok goes dark in the US by motorest on Sunday January 19, 2025 @10:37AM (#42757903)
> The establishment types are upset that they can’t just lean on a handful of major media organizations to maintain a uniform narrative (e.g. Iraq having WMDs).

This is obviously false.

Go check TikTok to see what shows up in searches for Tiananmen square or Uighur genocide, or even anyone of the many small catastrophes that go against the CCP's narrative.

You're claiming that consuming propaganda from a totalitarian regime that actively engages against your security, stability, and best interests is somehow better than consuming hypothetical propaganda from your own democratically elected government. Make it make sense.

Re:TikTok goes dark in the US by rayiner on Sunday January 19, 2025 @11:26AM (#42758434)
Americans have no reason to care what happened in Tiananmen Square. That’s Chinese domestic politics. But whether Iraq actually had WMDs does affect Americans, as the people who financed that war based on the failures of the U.S. government.

Foreign propaganda is much less dangerous than domestic propaganda because domestic propaganda is more likely to relate to issues that actually matter to citizens.

Re:TikTok goes dark in the US by motorest on Sunday January 19, 2025 @12:47PM (#42759381)
> Americans have no reason to care what happened in Tiananmen Square.

It's not about what you care or don't care. It's about using China's social media service to discuss the very topics that China wants to censor. Again, go to TikTok or whatever alternative service provided by China and try to refer to the Tiananmen massacre or Uighur genocide. See what your paragons of free speech treat that.