[vanadium1st]

I was really pro open internet. I remember the old internet and feel nostalgia about it that probably won't ever completely fade.

I am Ukrainian, and when some years ago my government banned the most popular social network at our country - Russian-made VK, I felt strange about it. I kind of understood some of the security concerns, but didn't feel like they were enough to turn off my open internet fantasies and free-speech absolutism.

Now I totally get it and am happy that it happened sooner that later. Turns out that the security concern was as real as it gets. Russia gets info from VK to jail hundreds of people, and at least they one less weapon to use against Ukrainians.

And I have to admit that I've used VK and probably wouldn't stop doing it if my government didn't ban it. Now I am kind of hoping that they will do the same with TikTok. With all of this experience I still have no strength to quit it by myself.

[lannisterstark]

I mean, your govt is banning enough of the shit with some real questionable reasons(while keeping some actual questionable things/traditions alive) that being skeptical is probably still the best bet.

and let's not pretend that the UA govt has had a history of transparency lol. Being better than Russia has been a low bar in the eastern bloc. -30 is better than -70 but it's still far below 0.

[Max-Ganz-II]

> I mean, your govt is banning enough of the shit with some real questionable reasons(while keeping some actual questionable things/traditions alive) that being skeptical is probably still the best bet.

Such as?

> and let's not pretend that the UA govt has had a history of transparency lol. Being better than Russia has been a low bar in the eastern bloc. -30 is better than -70 but it's still far below 0.

Why bring up Russia here, and disparage by faint praise Ukraine?

This is not related to anything in the original reply.

I used to be on Twitter more (Masto now) and this type of reasoning is seen from the Russian Twitter farm accounts, and I note the account making this reply is new.

[Max-Ganz-II]

Addendum.

1. I did not write what I mean, to say the account is new : I mean to say, it has sprung into life, for this thread. Farm accounts can be brand new, and many are, but you also find accounts which have been around for a long time, and then start being used. I suspect Farms constantly make accounts, bank them, and then consume them however many months or years later.

2. Having read the comments from this account, I does not feel like a Farm account. However, I could be wrong. Farm accounts in my experience use different approaches - some are combative, some are mild, some use the usual twisted Russian or Chinese logic ("we had to invade Ukraine because of NATO!", etc).

[lannisterstark]

I am much more active on reddit than I am on hackernews. Not everyone opposing your POV is a "Russian bot account."

This also means that I only comment here on certain topics.

[manholio]

> I mean, your govt is banning enough of the shit with some real questionable reasons

I love advocates of democracy and freedom of speech always taking up the time, in the middle of a brutal war no less, to show us the righteous path.

Well guess what: war is the absolute worst enemy of democracy, there can be no polite debate and pluralism while the enemy is blowing your children up. A country defending from a aggression is a fascist state where everybody has an assigned post and maintaining the chain of command is an existential duty. Democratic armies do not exist.

It's no coincidence that all authoritarians and fascist tend to start wars or invent enemies, they long for this state of total control where the whole nation is forced to rally behind them. For Ukraine, that enemy is very much real and the resulting fascism is the only way forward as an independent nation. There is nothing "questionable" about it.

As for advocating for freedom of speech, yes, there is place for that after the Russian aggression ends. Or one could try to setup a booth in the Kremlin square and promote those ideas into a country that, allegedly, is not at war with anybody.

[concordDance]

This attitude leads to generals sabotaging the Christmas Truce and way more deaths than necessary. Very very few wars are against invaders who want to kill everybody.

[mannerheim]

What's the threshold on how many people invaders will kill, deport, and subject to second-class citizenship before that attitude becomes appropriate?

[concordDance]

Depends how bad the second classness is. Probably anything more than 1% death is worth fighting.

[manholio]

That's an insanely naive form of pacifism justifying acceptable genocide. If killing 0.99% of the population for geopolitical goals is acceptable, then 0.99% of the population of all states will get will get killed, currently roughly 80 million people. Because any country has at least one enemy with some geopolitical goal.

I cannot put into words how revolting this idea of yours is, and it's exactly people like you that need to be silenced in times of war for any chance of durable peace.

War is always and everywhere a result of insufficient deterrence - the enemy will only be dissuaded if they are guaranteed a response that far outweighs any potential wins.

[Yiin]

I see UA before Zelensky and after as two completely different countries politically. Most of the things UA gov was criticized for seems to be mostly an effect of Russia's influence.

[ChuckNorris89]

Out of curiosity, what has Zelensky done to improve Ukraine before the war, other than not being a Kremlin puppet?

As I understood it, before the war he was sliding down in the polls, becoming unpopular because there haven't been the massive crackdowns on corruptions he was campaigning for (like in his TV show), with him also being uncovered in the Pandora papers as having various hidden assets [1] and only his resistance to the Russian making him the most popular leader ever.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/revealed-anti-o...

[parineum]

There's a ton of white washing of Ukraine since the invasion. Just as with everything else, it's not enough to just think that one side is more correct, they must be completely exemplar.

[concordDance]

Combination of the halo effect and allegiance signalling.

[mschuster91]

> Out of curiosity, what has Zelensky done to improve Ukraine before the war, other than not being a Kremlin puppet?

Incremental progress. Getting rid of Kremlin influence and corruption is enough for one presidential term.

This is also why I hope for Zelenskyj to step down after the last Russian has been driven off Ukrainian territory. There is no greater feat a President can achieve than saving the country from such an aggression - if he steps down, he'll be remembered for the rest of his life in the glory he and the defenders of Ukraine deserve. If he stays in office, his legacy will be tarnished by the everyday muck throwing of politics - no matter if legitimate or not.

[selivanovp]

Ukraine under Zelensky is almost completely an authoritarian state, all opposition is banned and either jailed or left the country. All mass media are under government control or left the country. Courts are under total government control, well known murderers are freed from prisons as they were murdering people that were against current government. Business under total control and either does what’s told or gets taken away. You don’t like something and dare to voice your concerns? Welcome to the frontlines or a nearby forest with a 2m digged hole! You think there’s no more corruption? Have you noticed that more and more governments are concerned with all the weapon systems smuggled to their countries from Ukraine? Yes, they steal provided weapons and sell it for profit. You sent water and food aid to Ukraine? Local authorities are selling it to locals. Ukraine is a dystopian society. And no, it’s not just a result of war, all the processes started years ago and were just rushed as soon as the war started.

[nier]

It was surprising to me seeing the news with Ukrainian soldiers using TikTok out in the field.

[remarkEon]

It's interesting in and of itself that ByteDance allows this.

Perhaps PLA believes that bleeding Russia dry via America expending all of her reserve weaponry means that that American combat power can't be used in the Pacific. If you squint hard enough, it might actually be in CCP's interest for Russia to extend itself in Ukraine because it means that the Americans spend infinity dollars and burn through stocks of key weapons. It's Machiavellian but it makes sense.

[Max-Ganz-II]

I may be wrong, but to my eye, China has a direct interest in Russia being successful in its invasion of Ukraine : the invasion of Taiwan.

China is and has been - as Russia did, prior to its invasion - massively expanding its armed forces.

To my eye, there is absolutely no defensive need for this - India is not about in invade, for example. There is only one use for all this weaponry; Taiwan.

I swim a lot, and I meet people in the pool.

Two weeks ago or so I met a South Korean diplomat - in the pool :-) - and we discussed the situation. South Korea very much is looking to see that Russia is defeated, to discourage China from invading Taiwan.

[alwayslikethis]

China also has a direct interest in seeing Russia defeated. In the event of a full on Russian defeat, Moscovite power over the vast territories of Russia will weaken greatly, which can allow China to expand its influence in the Russian Far East. Russia has a lot of resources that China needs, such as natural gas, oil, and fresh water. Already, we are seeing Russia selling resources to China at below market rates. This is why I believe the US will take actions to prevent a full collapse of the Russian state.

[drumhead]

The west will never allow a break up of Russia, it serves as a useful bulwark against China. So they won't allow the Chinese to expand their influence to the Russian far east either.

[notahacker]

Don't see how Russia succeeding in a winning settlement of an artillery war on its land borders would greatly change China's chances of success using their much bigger army to wholly capture an island which the US might honour its commitment to directly intervene to defend. Russia having a horrible time of it is a reminder to China that military annexation of Taiwan wouldn't be easy, but the basic problems with trying (even a victory would involve absolutely levelling what they consider to be their own territory and kissing goodbye to most of their overseas trade, and the US might actively intervene to defend Taiwan) remain the same regardless of Russia's success or failure, as will their confidence their own army doesn't have Russia's weaknesses.

I suspect the Chinese are more bothered about the delicate balance of other consequences (strength and unity of West, central Asian nations prioritising China over Russia for alliances, Security Council implications, trade implications) and aren't necessarily sure which outcome will be best overall for them.

[bioemerl]

Russia's success in taking Ukraine, and eventually big parts of the EU, was somewhat hinged on the idea that nato, and to a lesser extent the EU as a whole, could be broken up by doing things like threatening Germany with a cutoff of natural gas.

This sort of breaking up of NATO cohesion would allow China and Russia to act more freely in the world without a unified opposition.

What China and Russia were betting on was that the EU would be weak in the face of tension, and realistically that was a pretty good bet because the EU looked pretty.

They attacked, that didn't turn out to be true, and all their best laid plans are going to shit before their eyes as the EU unifies in the United States pros like 10% of our military capacity at Ukraine and manages to make a tiny country of like 25 million people compete effectively with the country of 150 million that is like three times the size.

China still wants Russia to be a strong unified country, because they want a Russia opposed to the west so that the west is now divided between two fronts.

But aside from that, every single one of their plans has gone about as long as it possibly could have.

Russia was not able to take Ukraine but in a few days

The west did not fall apart

United States has gotten stronger economically.

Economic sanctions have been incredibly effective, without firing a single shot.

It has become clear that given a choice between security and economic progress, countries choose security. China was betting on the ability for their large experts and import market to prevent countries from standing against them.

People were claiming this was going to be the decade of authoritarians against waning democracies, but all of a sudden it looks like this is going to be the decade of strong democracies against waning authoritarians.

[Beldin]

It's about the international reaction, not (only) about the outcome of the fighting itself.

China can see the price the intensional community levies upon a war now, and, in case Russia accidentally wins, they can also see the price of occupying an otherwise independent nation.

Mind you: Taiwan isn't recognised as an independent nation by nearly as many nations as Ukraine is.

[drumhead]

You grossly underestimate the power and capacity of the US industrial machine if you think that.

[mschuster91]

> Perhaps PLA believes that bleeding Russia dry via America expending all of her reserve weaponry means that that American combat power can't be used in the Pacific.

They are seriously mistaken. Unlike Europe whose capacity in manufacturing anything from ammo to tanks and jets has gone downhill over the last thirty years and who haven't seen an actual fight since the Balkan wars and the early years of Afghanistan, the US has logistics nailed down and is in well-trained condition from the adventures of the last twenty years. Should China ever decide to enter war against the US, it won't end up pretty for them.

[thefurdrake]

I would be very hesitant to suggest that the engagement of limited artillery, ammunition, and side equipment in UA is remotely on the order of magnitude the United States is capable of mustering from its reserves alone. It doesn't make sense because manpower is more expensive to train and maintain than equipment, and the US isn't deploying manpower.

[bioemerl]

> Perhaps PLA believes that bleeding Russia dry via America expending all of her reserve weaponry means that that American combat power can't be used in the Pacific.

If this is their plan then this is a very poor plan. Russia is a land war, and most of the equipment we're giving to you crane is not the sort of equipment that we would ever use in a war anymore.

[jbigelow76]

It's value as a morale/propaganda tool might out weigh the security concerns

[rtkwe]

There's also just the fact that soldiers are often a bit crap at opsec it just doesn't always get them killed. I have doubts anyways that China would be feeding Russia strike targets based on tiktok usage anyways so they'd be stuck to using the videos to guide strikes based on the nation-state equivalent of GeoGuesser. That can be fantastically accurate but it's much slower generally.

[autoexec]

What does tiktok offer in that respect that youtube or just about any other social media platform supporting video couldn't also provide?

[monocasa]

It's something that GenZ actually uses that is run by a friendly state.

[philwelch]

China is a “friendly state”?

[sterlind]

relative to Russia, yeah? China isn't like, literally invading them. China could get ByteDance to pass location data to Russia, but it doesn't seem like China really wants to get in the middle of the war.

[DoctorOetker]

It's very rare to read such honesty on the internet.

While the internet has been in existence for a while, it is actually still quite young in the sense of affordable democratization of access to the internet. This does raise a lot of questions regarding long term effects of the internet.

While the current threat actors were relatively predictable, I wonder how in the long run nations can protect themselves from threat actors which are currently still seen as allies? On long timescales allies can become threats and threat actors can become new allies. Does this mean the concept of international companies and services will fragment? Currently Europe is trying to organize more domestic manufacture of semiconductors. Will the future see a race of nation states to be as self-reliant as possible? On the level of individual humans the prepper who wants to make his own shoes / computer / ... is ridiculed, while blocks / nation states / ... are taking steps in such directions...

Again, I thank you for your honesty, most people would just be embarassed for their past activity on foreign platforms, and not highlight it to others.

[eimrine]

Actually half of Russian internets went south. Do you, Ukrainian, want to google something on your mother language? Use Tor or wait tens of years while Ukrainian-speaking folks use to speak enough for you to be able to google anything on cyrillic languages. Seems like you, English speaker, do not help your not-English speaking nation a lot.

[precommunicator]

TBH, that applies to anyone. In any field, especially technology, googling in English gives you much better results than in native language. (except country-specific knowledge).

[eimrine]

Good luck searching anything about 1c database (maybe the best accounting software I have ever used). And this is only the top of my head, Russian culture used to be huge. A lot of country-specific knowledge get blocked and I very disappreciate that people who use to think that there is anything better than a free access to any information.

[colechristensen]

In the US I’m not really afraid of China. There are some people who should be, but I’m not. I’m annoyed at American companies who bow to their wishes, but I’m also annoyed at American companies who censor to advertisers so nobody says “fuck” on YouTube and my level of annoyance is about the same.

Some other places would do good to ban tiktok and people concerned about national secrets and the like sure should, but I’m just some dude leaking plenty of information plenty of places and china is among the least of my concerns.

[maria2]

TikTok is a massive platform that can be used to subtly influence popular opinion through its algorithmic feed. That should make you afraid, even if you don't believe you'll ever be targeted as an individual by China.

[deafpolygon]

Agreed. Plus have you NOT seen the crap TikTok put out these days? YouTubes Shorts are no better. It's like some hypno crap now.

[pueblito]

What’s the worst case? That China subtly influences the American youth to be less supportive of Washington’s wars? Because TikTok has tons of ‘ex’ CIA and FBI manning the Trust and Safety Dept just like the other socials

[mensetmanusman]

If you work for a company that could be punished by China, you should fear them. They can have you fired if your say the wrong thing.

[colechristensen]

That’s the kind of fight I’d like to have though. A good thing to stand up for.

I could also probably be fired for things i say on the internet with my real name, but i think it’s worth standing against that kind of thing and not being afraid of it even though it’s entirely possible. (I do on occasion say things which are very much not well thought out, rude, just to trigger good discussion, or because I’ve had too much wine or am feeling ornery… in other words I’m not ashamed to be human)

[mensetmanusman]

Even billionaires like LeBron James are afraid, I doubt there is hope for the little guys.

[filoleg]

Little guys don't have their mansions paid for with the money coming from China. So it makes perfect sense they would be less afraid than LeBron. They have less to lose here, and a way less likely chance to actually lose anything at all due to this.

[hef19898]

All those rich celebrities are not afraid of China per se, or any other rich totalitarian regime (the World Cup in Qatar comes to mind), they are just too corrupt to care about anything else then their huge pay checks. The same for companies so.

Makes sense, if you think about it. because it is just peak capitalism, unchecked by anything else then the need for money (the best approximation for power the west has).

[mensetmanusman]

Fear of not being a billionaire is still like most irrational fear, but it is still fear per se.

[fzil]

they are afraid because their yachts are on the line

[depereo]

They're afraid because their future, even larger yachts are on the line.

If they stopped working tomorrow they'd be rich for the rest of their lives. Just not 'even richer'.

[bioemerl]

If you work for a company that could be punished by China you should furiously work to get your company out of China so that they can't do this.

Keep your comments in the boardroom, but whatever influence you have, you use.

[bitwize]

I am afraid of China. China has developed missiles that can evade our ability to detect them until it's too late. Meanwhile our military is busy with initiatives like... declaring "Sir" and "Ma'am" as gendered language that should be eliminated.

The fact that American boys are increasingly preferring video games to sports should also worry you. There is a shortage of fit young American men for special-ops programs like the SEALs, etc.

[intern4tional]

The military is perfectly capable of solving more than one problem at a time. This issue is being dealt with in addition to the other items you read about in the news.

The USA, technologically and manpower wise is doing fine at the moment in addressing these external threats.

[chitowneats]

> The fact that American boys are increasingly preferring video games to sports should also worry you.

You should not worry about the fighting ability of the average Chinese man vs the average American man. U.S. has the most violence-ready population of young men on Earth, and it's not close.

Maybe Latin America or parts of Africa and the Middle East beat us in terms of willingness to commit violence, but we have much more resources, training, and equipment. China has none of this.

In fact, you should be worried about our young men choosing to exercise this violence against you here before you worry about some kind of military defeat at the hands of the Chinese.

[ChuckNorris89]

>U.S. has the most violence-ready population of young men on Earth, and it's not close

Can confirm. I have seen South Park.

[8f2ab37a-ed6c]

> I still have no strength to quit it by myself.

This sounds like addiction?

Just delete the app from your phone and move on?

You'd be surprised by perfectly fine life goes on without Twitter / Facebook / TikTok / Instagram.

[canadaduane]

"addiction" and "just ___" are kind of mutually opposing forces. It can be difficult to understand addiction from the outside, as the solution seems obvious, but the internal world is not straight forward to navigate.

[8f2ab37a-ed6c]

If the only way the poster is going to cure their social media addiction is through government intervention, I would suggest finding alternative means of addressing the issue.

[hakre]

Yes, this calling for the strong man looks really desperate and dangerous.

[papito]

I think even those who came into contact with addiction and substance abuse may fail to realize that social media dependence is a very similar thing.

We can get technical - drugs and booze are psychoactive, while social media is behavioral addiction. Even so, the habit-building loop and the compulsion that stems from it is effectively the same.

So, I don't think it's condescending to say "just quit it". I suspend my Twitter account from time to time when I realize I built a habit loop again, and the "urge" just goes away.

[Schroedingersat]

This is massively underselling the difficulty.

If you delete your facebook and twitter accounts you lose access to the only customer support channel in many places. If you delete faceboom you lose access to local second hand markets, you lose access to information about community events, you cannot participate in group chats, you get harangued at every social event if you try to share another contact channel.

[nanidin]

I haven’t found ostracism for using channels outside of Facebook. I have plenty of friends and acquaintances that I keep in touch with via Snapchat, email, and text.

[posguy]

I certainly feel ostracized for not having a Facebook account. Chambers of Commerce, Community Groups, and it feels like most queer people expect you to be on Facebook, and if you aren't your on the outside.

Its very similar to not being a blue bubble in some regards, but Facebook has a much broader scope than just being a messenger platform.

Excited for the EU to fix the closed messenger issue, then I can have 3rd party clients to bridge all my communications securely into one unified view, just gotta make sure that these large companies don't try and open up these platforms by hiding your end to end encryption keys on their servers :D

[autoexec]

I'm very much okay with being ostracized by people who don't care enough about me to stay in touch outside of social media. I actually prefer to be ostracized by anyone who'd judge me for bubble color.

[remarkEon]

I deleted my facebook during Lent in 2017 as part of a social media "time out" and never brought it back.

Interestingly enough, friends started calling again. Quitting social media cold turkey is great because you get to find out who is actually important in your life, and you find it out really fast.

[midoridensha]

>If you delete faceboom...

Is this a Freudian slip? I'll have to start using this term when referring to Facebook in the future.

[8f2ab37a-ed6c]

I agree. How does that apply to TikTok though?