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.



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.
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.
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.
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.
I still disagree with that notion. That’s not normal human behavior. You’re making it sound as if people can only process the top immediate threat and disregard the rest. But that’s not humans work. Humans are able to have and process multiple threats at once. If what you’re saying is true then nobody would care about what’s going on in Ukraine, Iran, or Gaza because these conflicts are so far away… yet so many people do even though they face problems in their home countries that are much closer, more imminent, and have greater impact on their daily lives… like inflation or climate change or increased government tyranny.
The point is that it doesn’t make sense from a logical point of view to reject a shitty government for being authoritarian and then disregard another shitty government that’s also authoritarian, if not more so. A rational person does process both as being threats for similar reasons. That’s a consistent and principled take. The one and only reason why one would cozy up to one over the other is because of ignorance, which is precisely what I think is going on here.
Based on recent evidence, maybe the CCP > US Government.
People on here are unfortunately very ignorant on the doings of the CCP. People here don’t realize that the US hasn’t lapsed China in tyranny, they’re merely catching up. The CCP has mastered authoritarianism to the point where they’re in a league of their own.
Regardless, it doesn’t matter either way because it’s not a competition. If we walk down the path choosing between two evils, we’ll quickly find ourselves racing to the bottom, and we all lose. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way, we can simply reject tyranny in its entirety regardless of country, ideology, or regime.