TikTok is reportedly planning a total shutdown of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app when the law requiring a ban or sale of the app takes effect on Sunday.
The roughly 170 million US users who try to access the app will be greeted with a pop-up message directing them to a website with details about the ban, according to the Information.
Users will also be given the option of downloading their data from the app, sources familiar with the plan told the outlet.
I wouldn’t be surprised if China locked out US users before the US even banned it. Chinese are already telling US users that they are saying things that DEFINITELY should not be said on the app.
Here’s a little Nostradamus… “I had the most best chat with Xi. He told me that Americans are superior to the Chinese, so they don’t want to see us on RedNote anymore. But don’t worry, I told you I would save Tiktok… introducing Trump Talk”
A torrent of Western chauvinist trolls does seem inevitable, if my experience as an Lemmy mod is any indication.
Personally, I suspect the bigger problem for their platform will be handling the contrasting values of Western social media norms against their own.
Even sinophobic reactionaries have been pointing out for years that “[Douyin] Chinese TikTok is Wholesome, American TikTok is Corrupting our Youths!” with product influencers/grifters, rampant sexualization up to and including pornography, etc., albeit the reactionaries are interpreting the difference from a conspiratorial moral-panic viewpoint claiming it’s weaponization by The Chinese Government to corrode Western society, rather than the difference being that the US TikTok is social media with liberalist freedoms combined with the capitalist pursuit of profit above society, and is in line with the content on Xitter, reddit and other familiar social media.
The point being, that people rise to the top of TikTok through sexual suggestion, flashing symbols of wealth and other normalized habits which I’ve heard are banned on Lil’RedBook (which sounds like a great decision!).