Americans are joining the Chinese social media app en masse to protest an imminent TikTok ban.

  • American users have flocked to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in defiance of security warnings.
  • Chinese and American users have engaged in surprisingly friendly conversations about each other’s lives.
  • The influx of American users could burden Xiaohongshu’s censorship mechanism, experts say.
  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Just proving US government right tbh.

    So, US said: “TikTok is too powerful and has too much influence” and then people continue to be influenced. I kid you not, most trending rednote tiktoks right now are about price comparison between China and US with topics like: “veggies are like 2$ in China when they are 6$ in the US” with absolutely zero awareness of how economies work:

    • median hourly salary in the US: 27 USD
    • median hourly salary in China: 5 USD

    Chinese vegetables are more expensive.

    You could attribute this to people just being financially stupid but I think there’s definitely some truth from US government pov that China has a lot of propaganda power over US citizens and I say this as non-american myself as it’s quite apparent as a 3rd party observer.

    Personally I still think low level laws that protect privacy of all americans is the way to go but America will never sacrifice free market money like that.

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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    4 hours ago

    Man, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts must be really shit if the TikTokers didn’t even consider them for a second lmao

  • Dupree878@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    I’m amazed at all the CCP dick sucking here. It’s like I stumbled into r/Sino

    操你中國政府

  • SpikedPunchVictim@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    This might have an interesting side effect. Western voices and opinions being shared enmasse with Chinese youths on platforms they’re comfortable with. It will be interesting to see how the Chinese government responds to this

  • passiveaggressivesonar@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    I thought the difference in humor would take a while to bridge but it’s very familiar. Day in the life of an american type videos with road rage, burgers, shitcoins, podcasts and pancakes

  • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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    15 hours ago

    The hexies are so excited about this too. They’ve got a thread up (erroneously) hoping that Americans will now stop believing that Chinese people are bad, because they can’t face the truth that Americans (who aren’t magats) only think the Chinese government is an authoritarian shit show and have no problem with regular Chinese citizens.

  • RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    It’s really cool. The people are super nice and welcoming. The cities are incredible. Their cost of living is leaps and bounds better than ours. Life is affordable there.

    They just got it better. The cold war propaganda we’ve been spoonfed from birth was all lies.

    We are the bad place.

  • john89@lemmy.ca
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    22 hours ago

    This is a fine example of how the american government doesn’t care about the interests of americans.

    The government only exists to serve the wealthiest among us. Some of those wealthy people are upset that Chinese aristocrats are getting all that money.

    This trade war only exists because rich americans want more money for themselves. It has nothing to do with national security and you’re a useful idiot if you think otherwise.

    • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      You don’t lift 800+ million people out of poverty by concentrating all of the profits among a small few. And China has increasingly been prosecuting their wealthy.

      Which is what they really don’t want us learning to do.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        15 hours ago

        Capitalists use the same exact argument for why outsourcing labor to the poorest countries is actually a good thing. For real, I’ve argued so many right wingers saying “searching for the cheapest labor actually helps the worlds economy because you’re lifting those poor people of _____ out of poverty! It doesn’t matter that it’s only pennies/day, because to them, that’s a lot of money!”

        Pretty goddamn gross behavior.

        • b000rg@midwest.social
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          14 hours ago

          Outsourcing is extracting wealth from another nation. How can you possibly compare that to lifting ones own citizens out of poverty?

          • NuclearDolphin@lemmy.ml
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            3 hours ago

            Exchange isn’t extraction. If you’re buying raw materials from Africa, yes. If you’re buying finished goods from China, no.

            This is precisely why the US had a sudden about face about China. They were hoping their entryism with capitalist exchange would result in the fall of the communist party, who number one priority is preventing the plundering of resources through unequal exchange.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            13 hours ago

            You can’t untangle the outsourcing of manufacturing to China from that.

          • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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            11 hours ago

            I wasn’t making a 1:1 comparison. I was saying that “but look how many people have been lifted out of poverty!” argument is a capitalist argument, because it completely ignores the reality of the situation. Have people been lifted out of poverty by outsourcing? Of course. But that doesn’t negate the core problem.

            As the other person mentioned, outsourcing manufacturing TO china is largely responsible for the manufacturing boon there. And then rich Chinese capitalists (though they use the cover of not being called capitalists) became rich middlemen between “western” businesses and the cheap Chinese labor. So outsourcing has absolutely contributed to it. You and the American capitalists are looking at the same thing, one is crediting American executive innovation, the other is crediting the CCP.

      • gubblebumbum@lemm.ee
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        13 hours ago

        You do it by exploiting the billions outside your borders from countries even more poor like mine where they sell their garbage low quality products that cant be repaired or recycled, from shitty earphones to bikes that start breaking down in a year, taking advantage of poor people who cant afford to buy anything of better quality. China isnt better than us when it comes to exploitation and inequality.

          • dirthawker0@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            Chinese manufacturers build according to budget. They are perfectly capable of making high quality products, and do. The problem is a lot of companies (looking at you, Walmart) demand their Chinese manufacturers build products for a pittance – the manufacturers won’t say no, but they’ll find a profit for themselves by using lower cost materials.

            Ask yourself – if you were a woodworker and someone offered you $250 to build a small stand out of wenge, you’ll probably do a good job of it. If someone offered you $30 to build the same stand, and you really needed that $30, you’d make it with pine and just paint or stain it to look like wenge. Chinese manufacturers are no different.

          • PlantDadManGuy@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            I think the Chinese businessmen are exploiting slave laborers to produce cheap goods and export them to most of the world. Would you call that a mutually beneficial relationship?

          • gubblebumbum@lemm.ee
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            10 hours ago

            Hold up. You think the Chinese are the ones deciding to manufacture low quality products, and not the capitalists who are ordering them that way?

            Chinese brands owned by Chinese capitalists operating with consent from the chinese state.

            spreading their wealth to those in need

            Using planned obsolescence and taking advantage of poor consumer and environmental protection laws to sell garbage to people trapped in a cycle of poverty isn’t exploitation? Also China ‘invested’ billions here too and we didnt get any hospitals. We got china flooding our markets with its shitty goods and chinese ‘businessmen’ running scam centers.

            They value mutually beneficial relationships

            they do have a mutually beneficial relationship with our dictators.

            • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              I love that capitalists attacking communists always end up accidentally attacking capitalism. Classic.

              • HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                10 hours ago

                China is a capitalist country with aspects of socialism. it’s not really communist anymore.

                No one here is shitting on communists, were shitting on you for a thinking the Chinese are any different than us.

              • gubblebumbum@lemm.ee
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                10 hours ago

                China is a capitalist shithole but for some reason its biggest defenders are always self proclaimed western communists.

                edit: we also have a few militant communists groups that like to blow up chinese nationals working for their govt every now and then.

    • pressanykeynow@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      It has everything to do with national security, they just don’t consider common people as part of their nation same as slaves weren’t.

      • inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        15 hours ago

        Yeah, national security for the rich, they don’t want us plebes getting any ideas about what real justice looks like.