TikTok users have been deleting the app at a higher rate since the company announced that its U.S. operations would be housed in a new joint venture.

The short-form video platform’s daily average app uninstalls in the U.S. have increased nearly 150% over the past five days compared with the previous three months, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower told CNBC.

  • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    I find it funny that millions of people had no problem with an evil foreign government like the CCP, that’s well known for collecting data for military purposes and spending mind boggling amounts on propaganda campaigns, controlling the app, but now draw the line at some Silicon Valley billionaire doing essentially the same thing.

    I never liked the short content format so I never had an interest downloading TikTok, but I knew that I would never, ever download it when I learned that this Chinese app is actually banned in China. They a have a separate clone of this app that’s exclusive to China that uses a different algorithm that promotes positive and educational content. The fact that billions of people use this shitty weaponized piece of Chinese spyware is depressing, especially when the Fediverse exists.

    • Rooster326@programming.dev
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      Well for starters - The United States government is kicking in doors in my local area right now.

      The CCP would have to travel many thousand miles to kick in my door.

      • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        That’s a false sense of security. The CCP doesn’t need to kick down your door to weaponize your data. It should be common sense to not trust an authoritarian regime.

    • epicthundercat@lemmy.world
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      Respectfully, the CCP has been less of a direct threat than the US government as of late and most dont trust the government so why would they trust the propaganda? This isnt to say the CCP isnt a problem but are they as much of a direct threat to American citizens than ICE and such?.. ICE has now murdered more than one citizen in cold blood.

      P.S. People need more education as to what the Fediverse is but until then they will always go with whats easier to use and access.

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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        60 seconds ago

        and most dont trust the government so why would they trust the propaganda?

        because visually it’s not coming from the government but “independent content creators”. and regardless of who says it, people will trust propaganda that says things they want to hear, then over time, start trusting those who say that

      • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        That’s such a nonsensical take. Because you don’t trust the US government, you’re go to thought is to hand over your data to an opaque authoritarian regime like the CCP? What kind of a bullshit false dichotomy is that? Fuck that, my data is my data. It doesn’t belong to any government, corporation, or anybody who isn’t me or someone that I explicitly give consent to use my data. That’s the principled take.

        • epicthundercat@lemmy.world
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          No, I am just explaining to you why people have used it. Humans do human things… being upset at it wont change the why. Citizens are terrified of the current threat. Not one miles away. Humans are wired to react to immediate danger.

    • MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      evil forefinger government

      Okay well first that typo is staying, second I used to be minorly involved in politics (by which I mean fundraising for a homeless shelter feels and smells a lot like politics even if your goals are more altruistic) and I learned one valuable thing. The right thing morally and the right thing politically are rarely the same, and when it looks like they are you should investigate closer and reevaluate because you’re probably missing something important. That’s why government is almost always evil.

  • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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    2 hours ago

    China was spying on me in case I had any useful state secrets. America is spying on me because they are actively exploiting every data point in my life for profit and control.

    • makingrain@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Worse than spying - manipulating politics and social cohesion. Many teens have died (example: pass out challenge), right-wing governments have almost been elected out of nowhere (Romania) and mentally ill people have been preyed upon heavily.

      • plyth@feddit.org
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        11 minutes ago

        Worse than spying - manipulating politics and social cohesion.

        Which could also be manipulation. Young TikTok watchers are only a fraction of the voters. The change in outcome could mainly be driven by excluding the right-wing candidate from the second election.

  • lechekaflan@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Vine used to be so fun and simple.

    That was fucking eons ago.

    Its replacement has so many issues on many levels.

    • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      That because Vine was designed to be fun and simple. Users only had 7 seconds to make a memorable video, and so people got really creative with it. You can’t possibly convey anything of value in such a short duration, so people just the platform for fun.

  • oopsgodisdeadmybad@lemmy.zip
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    5 hours ago

    My siblings were debating issues with it and about how willing they were to just deal with it.

    I’m just shocked at how addicted everyone is to it that it could probably say “Trump is watching all users’ front cameras while the app is open” and kids would still be like "hmmm what are the odds he watches me though?

    But everybody’s a zombie.

    I mean I downloaded it, back really early, to take a peek. After 15 minutes, I decided I hated the short format, and peaced out.

    It seems to largely be a generational thing. Millennials are (in my perception) mostly on it just to make money, zoomers just want that crack IV drip.

    Obviously this is just a trend, and there are counter examples everywhere, but that seems to be more true than not. At least from the outside looking in.

    And given it’s totally obnoxious censorship rules, now I have to deal with hearing about people getting “unalived”, or “adult fun time”, and “p 3 dee oh” from creators that multistream. Even without being there, I’m forced to experience the cancer secondhand.

    That’s my main problem with it. None of the other problems affect me directly much since I’ve always avoided it, but that is smeared all over my shit.

  • paraphrand@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I feel old every time I share that I’ve never installed TikTok and don’t have an account.

    In many ways, I feel a bit like I am still forced to ambiently and peripherally use the app when interacting with the rest of social media and society. Because the damn format, and culture, and way of thinking and producing videos has seeped so deep into all aspects of our lives.

    The whole mode of consuming media in an algorithmic flipbook like that weirds me out. I don’t understand how anyone can enjoy being enticed to watch videos in the way TikTok promotes.

    • Broken@lemmy.ml
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      1 hour ago

      I feel you on that. Even not being on xyz social trend of the day you still get exposed to the mentality of it by the people that are. To some extent that’s fine, but it can get old really quickly.

      I don’t want to doom scroll all day and night. I don’t want to socialize on media and follow people or have followers. Random people are not my entertainment. I don’t need my phone in my hand 24/7.

      My take is that I will live my life by my culture. If people see me be me and follow my example, great. If people think I’m a weirdo, oh well I’ll just go do my own thing.

    • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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      6 hours ago

      I don’t feel old.

      I just feel correct and justified in never installing a foreign weapon which exposes every contact, photo, nearby device, and message to an evil dictatorship that wants us all dead in a fire (up to 2 dictatorships now).

    • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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      6 hours ago

      Tiktok was lit until late 2020, when they really started clamping down on subversive content at the behest of the US.

    • Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I downloaded it. It’s very barren right now, no more than a few comments per post, if any. Hopefully it gains some traction

      • TheMadCodger@piefed.social
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        6 hours ago

        It was like that here when Reddit fell caused people to leave and look for something better. Give it time, and interact!

          • myserverisdown@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            I think its mostly because of lurkers, but also, I first joined on midwest.social then something broke the feed and caused a bunch of federation issues. Now this is my “alt” but I can’t see content from piracy@dbzero or whatever now

            • GhostlyPixel@lemmy.world
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              lemmy.world had blocked and then unblocked a bunch of piracy communities two years ago, that community being one of them

              But it looks like lemmy.world is currently not federating that piracy one specifically, maybe I missed another announcement

      • CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        I know it sucks but you’ve just gotta shitpost through it. No comments? Guess you gotta generate some content. We are the algorithm, and we are the bots, here on fedi.

      • ReptileVessel@lemmy.zip
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        6 hours ago

        Think of it as an exclusive club where your content has a higher chance of being seen by elite users

      • John@lemmy.ml
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        6 hours ago

        Kinda like fediverse in general. That’s the price of a non-corpo platform

      • sqw@lemmy.sdf.org
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        6 hours ago

        ive poked around on there over the past year or so. not much to see and often quite broken.

    • morto@piefed.social
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      5 hours ago

      It must be really demanding in terms of hardware and network to host video content like tiktok. I wonder if the fediverse voluntaries will be able to keep up with it if the userbase grows too much

    • hazeebabee@slrpnk.net
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      7 hours ago

      Cool to see how much loops has grown even just in the last year. It gets more and more viable as an alternative all the time. Love seeing the fediverse continue to grow

    • emb@lemmy.world
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      Oof, this still isn’t up on F-Droid or either main app store. That’s a shame, I thought this moment would be a great time for Loops to get some user base, but it seems like it’s still not ready for wider adoption.

      That said, it does look a lot better now than it did a few months ago when I last tried it. Here’s hoping it picks up some momentum. I finally tried TikTok last year, and was really impressed by the breadth of videos and how quickly it was able to start showing me things I enjoyed. With the recent change in ownership, I don’t know that I’ll revisit it much if at all. Would take quite a lot to replicate even a little bit of the zeitgeist TikTok had going. But like with Lemmy and Mastodon/Bsky, I’m hoping I can do my little part by choosing where to put my attention. Just don’t know that I’m going to find much there I care to see, for now.

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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    9 hours ago

    This is now a right wing propaganda machine. I deleted awhile ago.

    Several social media posts pointed to language in the new policy that describes the types of data TikTok may collect, including sensitive information such as “your racial or ethnic origin” as well as “sexual life or sexual orientation, status as transgender or nonbinary, citizenship or immigration status, or financial information.”

    Despite the social media uproar, that language does not appear to be new. An archived version of the policy from August 2024 includes the same provisions.

    • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
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      6 hours ago

      It was always a rightwing propoganda machine, it helped Trumo get elected.

      Now its 50% Blue Fascist in addition to the Red Fascist.

    • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
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      52 minutes ago

      Now you can see 30 of the same reposted tiktok spam blasting low quality live music instead of 10!

      Oh well I guess it doesn’t matter anyway because if you try to update the app anyway it just downloads an invalid APK lol

    • Butterphinger@lemmy.zip
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      7 hours ago

      …We can’t keep doing this, guys

      fingers to temples

      The fucking top is formatted right, then this lmao. We look like ass at first impression. I’m on a Oneplus 11. Is this fringe hardware?