As someone in the US who has had their private data leaked multiple times (ive lost count) and is extremely careful when browsing you tube as to not be drawn into a conspiracy ridden rabbit hole, I’m not sure what the point of this tik tok ban is. To me tik tok is social media business as usual. If congress is going to go this hard on a social media company and privacy concerns they should be doing this with all the other companies that pry into our private lives and try their best to manipulate us as well (car makers, appliance manufactures, phone makers, wearbales, ect…) otherwise to me this comes across as the US congress extorting a single company to make billionaires richer. It has been shown time and time again that even US based social media companies are vulnerable to influencing conspiracy theorists and swaying the votes of thousands of people.I feel like we are at the pinnacle of technological ignorance here. Thoughts?
The argument so far seems to be:
That being said, I’m all for the TikTok ban, along with all the other social media platforms that have been proven to have negative impacts on the mental and physical health of our society (esp. with how much of it focused on kids).
With each year we spend less and less on the education of our children, while corporations exploit them and force feed junk into heads. Reduce their access to the shit stream, put in effort into their education instead of undercutting it, and we may actually have a chance at a bright future.
What’s fucked up is the real solution to the whole student loan debate is just extending k-12.
In the 40s only about half of Americans got a highschool diploma, most dropped out at 14 and started working.
But taxes still paid for education up to year 12. Those last four years was basically college back then. Sometimes people failed and quit, but they had the four years to get as far as they could.
Now we’re teaching a shit ton more science, math, history, not to mention how computers are a thing now.
And we just can’t cram it all into 12 years
That is absolutely not the solution.
Our main issue is that we don’t teach our children critical thinking. They’re taught to tests and end up retaining little. Critical thinking means they can teach themselves and end up learning much quicker and building upon foundations. We want a well rounded education and end up failing in that endeavor for most.
I hear ya. I’m dragging my heels on introducing social media to my kids. One of them is reaching a point where his friends are getting into it. Thankfully, so far he’s not really that interested. Also, my wife and I are taking the time to prime him about the dos and don’ts of social media, so hopefully he will have better awareness.
But between corporations and degenerate creeps preying on kids and teenagers (especially girls), it’s a troubling time to be a parent or guardian.
I’m fine with a ban on Tiktok. I think that platform adds nothing of significant value to society, and a lot of problems instead. But the bigger problem is that we need better accountability and safeguards for social media companies in general. And only targeting Tiktok because of their current ownership doesn’t get us there.