I dont really understand this. Does tiktok have a group call feature now? Or are they equating short form videos of strangers to “hanging out”?
Yeah I would consider Discord as more of a space people can “hang out” in.
I use discord but I didn’t realize how much others used it till I got new roommates. They basically have it perpetually open on the side, a perpetual portal to their friend network
It’s one of the easiest ways of calling and texting friends without exposing your phone number.
I rarely open discord on my PC, but I have it as an app on my phone which is always connected.
Yeah I was on board until the tik tok part
It’s less about hanging out and more about occupying the time I guess. Teens hang out in a third space being social because it burns free time and releases dopamine. When you can achieve that by sitting in your room, getting dopamine by watching tiktok and sending them to your friends wordlessly, the need for the third space drops
I kind of get what the Twitter post was trying to get at its just written poorly. Anything that’s not them participating in the economy is considered bad.
The death of the third place predates tiktok.
I wonder how much of the internet outrage about the bill is just astroturfing by tiktok.
I don’t believe people are astroturfing on Lemmy yet
Probably not, but this meme didn’t originate here. It was put here by someone who either legitimately agreed with it or just wanted content to post, but that doesn’t mean the original was legitimate.
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Here… On Lemmy?
Fuck Tik Tok, ban all social media for all I care, the internet was much better with old forums and IRC.
ban all social media for all I care
Exactly. My problem with the bill isn’t banning Tiktok. It’s that it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Make all social media companies turn off algorithms in their feed, or make them make those algorithms open source so we can see how they’re manipulating us.
As far as I understand it’s the media’s portrayal of the bill that’s wrong, it’s not aimed at TT directly but puts rules in place that TT can’t respect as long as it’s owned by a Chinese company.
Correct me if I’m wrong, that’s what they were saying in Canadian media.
The bill very specifically names TikTok and its owner, Bytedance, in its text.
In the town where I grew up, there was a tiny park downtown where all the weird kids hung out. It was a funky little park which had a lot of character. Then they renovated it and I never see anyone there anymore when I go back.
Of course, they took out all the benches and they took out the trees and walls that gave a modicum of privacy.
There were always paranoid kids who thought the cops were watching the park from other buildings such as one of the bars across the street (college town) but getting rid of everything that made the park theirs and taking way any feeling of privacy killed it.
My daughter is 13 now. We’re in another town. There is so little for kids to do. She spends most of the time talking to her friends on Discord.
Boomers:
Kids don’t do anything anymore. They just sit on their phones inside all day.
Also boomers:
Hello, police? Yes, there is a group of teens at the park. I think they have drugs or sex stuff.
Does no one remember what being a kid was like? Most people, especially teens, don’t care enough about you to be plotting against you. Let people live their lives.
I forgot to say that the cops raided the park one day. The whole town was outraged, but it definitely didn’t help matters.
Are kids disallowed from hanging out in parks, school clubs, or others’ homes now? What’s changed?
Nothing, it’s a ridiculous argument as a rationalization for arguing against the tiktok ban. I’ve seen a number of posts today trying to paint it as some attach on democracy or youth culture. The fact is that tiktok captures a giant amount of data and is directly accessible by a hostile foreign government. The ban makes sense.
The ban makes sense because companies in the US tried and failed horribly to gain traction in their youths. And it was critical of western governments being complicit in war crimes in Palestine.
Tell me, before tiktok, how many war crimes US commited were conveniently swept under the rug without consequences?
Can’t have public be aware of that, can we now?
But US wants to shape the narratives for the rest of the world with facebook, instagram and twitter and others. Failing to do that in their own country, they want to ban it as a last ditch resort. Can’t have narratives that don’t align with their propaganda and be critical of their military industrial complexes.
But you do you. I have no horse in the race but I love the outrage when people are on the receiving end of “foreign influence in social media”. Not like social media companies in the US were surveilling rest of the world for the last decade.
And it’s not like US hasn’t done this to Japan when it was going to become a better economy before.
Cope.
Wow, what a bunch of crap. Are you really, really holding up tiktok as a bastion of truth? Are you not aware of the many was crimes that US soldiers have been involved with that have sparked global outage, way before tiktok existed, because there really is a free press?
The US doesn’t have soldiers in Gaza, it’s not commiting war crimes there. You can make a good case that the arms were providing to an ally are being used to commit a genocide, which is plenty bad enough, but don’t weaken the term “war crime” by using it inappropriately. And it’s not like people are only finding out about it through tiktok. Go read NPR and you’ll see quite a lot about it. Read AP. Read Reuters.
But sure, go trust a site whose algorithms are controlled by the Chinese government and think that you aren’t being manipulated. You do you.
Exactly… if you want news - go to the sources of news. If you want funny dances and horribly acted skits - go to social media
Parks are miserable, school clubs are worse, and it seemed like when I was a kid everyone was too embarrassed to have someone at their house.
Yet somehow the garbage dispensary known as tictok is preferable? Fuck off.
Parks are not miserable. It sounds like you’re the miserable one.
parks
A bunch of teenagers hanging out in a park will probably have the cops called on them
school clubs
The budgets for clubs have been cut. Also, there’s no school in the summer
others’ homes
If you don’t drive there’s no way to get there.
Glad to see someone pointing this out.
There are so many beautiful parks that are within walking distance or a short bike/bus ride.
How about libraries or all of the game shops that host free events for everyone to join?
Get your head out of your phone and see the life around you!
I think it’s very regional. Libraries and parks are going to get the first cuts when local government tightens its belts, they’re often save havens for the unhoused or those otherwise let down by society, and together that means in many areas they’re seen as maybe not unsafe, but not places overprotective parents want their kids going.
Absolutely. In fact, I have found that areas with the most disposable income also get the best city funding. So the people who can afford to pay for third spaces (restaurants, clubs, golfing) also have the nicest local parks and public spaces.
In my city, the low-income area local parks are literally paved with concrete and next to train tracks, busy streets and/or factories. It’s utterly bullshit
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My man, you are completely Reddit brained. What are you even saying?
Because tiktok is the only social platform that exists. Because libraries don’t exist. Because teens never go to the movie theater like their parents did.
My sibling in Christ you posted this on a social platform used by minors that is not under threat by the government
Some people just want to be angry.
Because teens never go to the movie theater like their parents did.
From OP:
if they’re spending money
Movie theathers are also stupid expensive. Not something the average teen can do on a regular basis
…and going to a park, the beach, hiking, swimming…
A bunch of teenagers hanging out in a park are definitely going to have the cops called on them, no matter what they’re doing.
Where is this the case? Unimaginable here in Canada.
Clearly it’s a US-only thing, but even back in the 90s when me and my nerdy friends decided to brave the sunshine and hang out in a park we’d have the cops pull up and ask us to leave.
All of the parks in my area cater to parents of kids under 10, so anyone who’s not there with a child of that age is immediately suspicious, especially to nosy Karens. Hell, I’d get nasty looks from moms when I would take my own kids to the park.
That’s why I’m raising my kid in the woods.
As much as I don’t like TikTok, I don’t like the idea of the government censoring arbitrary apps under vague notions of “national security”.
It would be one thing if they were passing legislation about surveillance in apps, but it’s clearly not about that or 99% of American apps would be under the chopping block (they’re selling data to arbitrary buyers, so the data can be obtained by “foreign adversaries” anyway). Instead, they’re just handing the executive power to strongarm any app into American control, or lose the huge American market.
I feel like proponents of this are getting too distracted by their hatred of TikTok, and this nonsense about third spaces isn’t helping. TikTok is just the beginning, and a convenient one because it’s such a hot topic right now.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/congress-should-give-unconstitutional-tiktok-bans
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Simply different people expressing their opinion when they’re the ones concerned with the change happening at the moment.
I still hate TikTok and am glad for the ban if it makes you feel better. Basically, what the other person said. It’s spyware trash that uses the way it controls opinions to control opinions on this topic too
coughs
Biggest online ad company is an American. Their job is to create and manipulate general public opinion for companies
Ok you win this round. Let’s agree to compromise - can we break up, ban, or regulate all of them?
Absolutely, now how do we go about that?
Violence
I still hate it for that, but I also hate that the US government only cares if our privacy is violated by foreign actors and not a bunch of Silicon Valley dweebs.
Yeah I think no one stops to ask who those silicon valley jerks sell our data to. The answer is anyone. Including big brother who otherwise cannot legally collect it - but it’s legal now because a company did it and we bought it!
Astroturfing
Jesus Christ not everything is fake, it’s one of thy most popular apps in the world of course there are people like it.
You really need to try and get back in touch with reality
One of the things the USA desperately needs is benches.
We eliminated all our benches in an attempt to get homeless people to disappear, but lo an behold they still exist.
It’s time to bring back public benches.
This idea is called a “Third Place”. Your first place is home, the second place is work, and the third place is another place that isn’t the first 2. There used to be more of these like malls, plazas, parks, and others. In the last few decades, these places have gone away, had funding cut, or otherwise died. And like OP is saying, there are places that have been created to fill this gap, but they have been monetized :(
I realized that I treated Reddit as a third place. It was somewhere I felt like a community existed that I could talk to people and just hang out. It wouldn’t surprise me if people felt the same about Tik Tok or Facebook. So when one of those places is threatening to leave, it makes sense they feel there will be a void created.
Not sure what a good solution would be as this is a complicated issue.
Tbc I understand the sentiment here, but it’s not a very well thought out take. Plenty of advertising revenue is being generated by teens’ presence on tiktok. They are being exploited monetarily by an extremely hostile and repressive foreign power.
I get that there are nuances to this but it’s not “oh look the teens’ one free place to just be is being taken away!” It’s not free in any way.
Like yeah, we should be building community infrastructure to allow for teens and humans in general to have meaningful engagement with each other. In no way is any social media platform a solution for that deficit and it’s dumb to pretend it is.
IMO it’s pretty sad for anyone to think that using a social media app is equivalent to hanging out with friends. You’re filtering your entire reality through a corporate controlled micro-computer basically.
It’s also a myth that teens don’t have anywhere to hang out. They could just go out and do it if they wanted to, people most likely won’t give a fuck if they see some kids hanging around somewhere. There are parks, libraries, malls, streets, alleys, underpasses, etc. (Adjusts the onion on my belt) … Back in my day we just went out and walked or biked or skated somewhere and did random bullshit wherever.
It’s not like Tik Tok is doing things out of the kindness of their hearts, kids. They’re making money off of you. I bet if there was a meatspace location that tracked all your conversations and pushed ads to you they’d let you hang out there for free, too.
mmmmm…meat space.
What if I told you that having absolutely no community third spaces is a result of car dependency?
Ever heard people complain that it’s impossible to just meet new people in real life because everyone everywhere is busy? It’s because we don’t have third spaces anymore, and one really big reason for that is car dependency. People really don’t like to drive, for the most part, and they’re generally not going to go drive to hang out somewhere; it becomes both dangerous and a special pain in the ass if alcohol enters the equation, as it does for many (but not all) third spaces. In short, if people go to a third space, it’s usually going to be one inside their own hyper local community or they won’t bother. These are all generalities, of course; miss me with anecdotal exceptions. Well, we keep our cities badly zoned and low density so that you don’t really have hyper local third spaces, you just get weird, semi-local, sanitized big box “third spaces” (massive sarcasm quotes) like Chili’s or Starbucks that don’t actually fill that role. They just want you to spend money and get out, there’s no actual tie to the community.
Having an outdoors that’s so utterly lifeless and hostile to anything that’s not a car that kids “hang out” on social media is neither normal nor desirable, unless you’re a tech exec, I guess.
The decline in religion is more responsible for lack of third spaces than car centric cities.
That can be more or less true depending on the community. I imagine in the central and southeastern US, the decline of religion has been especially devastating in that regard. However you don’t see that pattern replicated in much more secular western Europe. In fact, they’re doing just fine for third spaces.
What if I told you that having absolutely no community third spaces is a result of car dependency?
Then I’d suggest that if your only tool is a hammer, then every problem is going to look like a nail.
Like, I get it, fuck cars, but North American culture has been car dependant while having history of having the some of the highest third space membership, even in my own lifetime. While I accept it as a factor of the erosion, it’s unlikely to even be the primary factor.
Yeah a big part of third space culture where I grew up was things like “let’s go to x” followed by six people getting in a car with two seatbelts because the nearest “x” was like 20 miles away. And the car itself could be a meeting place if someone who barely interacts with your group hears about a trip and asks to jump in the car too
Yeah that works great assuming you have an already-established friend group within walking distance and parents that either have the time and will to chauffeur you around everywhere, or friend’s parents willing to do so with your own parents giving you the “freedom” to be driven around by people that are more than likely near-to-complete strangers to them. Which, in the age of helicopter parents, is a dying breed, and the first option almost completely excludes children of young, single, low-income, and otherwise struggling parents.
You must be an alcoholic.
I actually love to drive and wish I had a car to get to the games shop in a reasonable fashion for D&D or MTG where I’m only really expected to spend money for tournament entry because kicking ass isn’t free.
Barely touch the stuff myself, but I do consider myself practical. A lot of people like to drink in social settings, that’s neither endorsement nor criticism, but reality. I prefer taking my bike or walking so much more than driving, and it regularly bothers me that anywhere I could want to go is out of range or impractical/unsafe to reach by bike or pedestrian infrastructure. I don’t like driving, I find it expensive, a general pita, dangerous, ecologically damaging (not just CO2, driving just one kilometer can produce up to a trillion microplastic particles in the form of tire dust), and just really not that fun. But hey, to each their own. I just kinda wish we hadn’t built our urban environments to the exclusion of everyone but drivers.
We didn’t built our environments to exclude specifically non-drivers. We are all competing and driving is simply a massive advantage. It also means that places generally don’t have to be super close together to have business traffic and therefore benefit more from cheaper real estate.
Nah. Because car transportation is massively subsidised and the automotive industry is so influential, modern cities were built for cars instead of people.
Sure, we weren’t “targeting non drivers”, but we were exclusively building for cars.
We’re now reaping what we sowed - cities are now hostile to pedestrians.
yes that is why our suburbs are condensing into chains and big box stores and can barely support themselves, because driving is such a massive advantage to all businesses everywhere.
All sarcasm aside, please just watch this video: Not Just Bikes - How Suburban Development Makes American Cities Poorer [STO2]
If that interests you at all, I highly recommend watching the rest of the strong town series of videos from not just bikes
Capitalist society is socially isolating by design. To take back our autonomy we have to collectively organize in our local communities
Everything out there for teens to do costs money… except the public library, which often has teen services.
Yet another reason to support your local public library.
Which is the fourth type of alienation Marx talked about.
The theoretical basis of alienation is that a worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of themselves as the director of their own actions; to determine the character of said actions; to define relationships with other people; and to own those items of value from goods and services, produced by their own labour.
For all the non-clickers
Nothing about this is true what the heck? Kids aren’t just banned from ever being anywhere, my friends and I hung out in parks and at restaurants and at eachothers’ houses all the time. And anyone who’s been on social media and thinks it’s an appropriate place for kids is very sus or naive. Even the most squeaky clean of sites are cesspools of bullying and grooming and right wing propaganda, and any use beyond looking at memes and catching up with irl friends should be supervised to some extent.
This post acts like we live in a dystopia where kids aren’t aren’t allowed to do anything and need social media to have any friends, which is only the case in really shitty circumstances where a kid is super lonely irl or somehow lives somewhere with no park or library or other good hangout spots. The banning of one specific app (which you can just get around with a vpn) isn’t going to disenfranchise all zoomers overnight, it’ll be a minor inconvenience people get over when they get a vpn or go to a different site. I just wish the people pushing to ban tik tok would apply the same pressure to American companies also pushing propaganda and doing shady stuff with your data
What a fucking braindead take.