And most news papers were acquired by the same handful of media companies. In turn these companies ravaged local markets and there’s just no coverage of the actual truth, even on local happenings.
There’s an article about my hometown covered by NY times or something (I forget, it’s been a few years). We had a flourishing newspaper that employed a decent amount of the community, when that article came out (2010ish) the same company had 3 reporters and 5 staff. The newspaper would cover legitimate issues locally and nationally. They had amazing journalists that promoted great things happening too (local studies, non profits doing the hard work to benefit the community, etc). Basically, the boring stuff that isn’t flashy enough for social media. And now it’s all gone.
I legitimately have a difficult time finding news stories on any platform that I can trust.
mozz@mbin.grits.dev 5 months ago
Yeah. Twitter back in the day actually used to be a usable substitute for print journalism, without the editorial bias and selective coverage. If you paid attention to who to follow, you could actually get a lot better picture of the world from Twitter than from almost anywhere else.
I don't think the US government is alone in wanting that gone so they can control the narrative instead, but they're definitely one party that was happy about it.
And this is where you went straight off the fuckin deep end.
I do not know a single person who gets their picture of the world from Tiktok whose viewpoint isn't reliably dogshit takes on literally every single issue. (Specific e.g. antivax and "BLM protestors are just running around beating people up, they have to be stopped.") Maybe there's an accidental alignment of pro-Palestine-protestors news from Tiktok right now, but it's not like that viewpoint is just un-heard-of in any MSM news or other social media. The whole landscape at this point is Palestine flags as far as I see, and the other platforms are usually a lot more nuanced and informative.
I don't know why you'd object to an algorithm controlled by Elon Musk or the US government or just a lawful-evil alignment to sell advertising and hook people to dopamine loops and nothing else (all very good things to be suspicious of, yes), but all of a sudden when the Chinese government's involved, you're like "finally someone trustworthy to put in charge of public opinion, no way this can go wrong."
jarfil@beehaw.org 5 months ago
TikTok is a weird beast. It can at the same time show the destruction in Gaza, Israeli soldiers poking fun at it, ASMR videos, mindless looping footage, fake AI idols, underage girls asking for payment from strangers, and siphon engagement data to train Chinese propaganda bots.
It’s the closest thing to “shove everything into a bowl, then shake”…
orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 5 months ago
It’s not about trusting TikTok. It’s about understanding that we have a terrible tech company, vs a terrible government. But at the same time, it has helped radicalize and inform so many in the ranks of Gen Z, amongst other generations. Even if you skip past the 24/7 stream of Gaza coverage ( which we absolutely need since Israel has murdered something like 121 journalists in Gaza), you’ll find videos of Gen Z and other folks making videos that layout documented history, protest methods, agitprop, and their own amateur journalism to others. That has value, even if the source is just in it for the notoriety and money. It’s an awkward position where it becomes a tool to the revolution, because it’s in opposition (for its own gain), but is never trustworthy.
mozz@mbin.grits.dev 5 months ago
I know when I think of people I know who get most of their news from TikTok, I'm like "damn that person is super well informed and I'm always happy when I talk to them about politics and world events"
Out of all the platforms, every single other one of which including the one you're on right now and the elephant one and Usenet and ZMag and Hackernews and all the rest
I do not know which reality you inhabit where TikTok invented people knowing about Gaza, but I promise you that there are better platforms, where you're allowed to talk about drugs or alcohol or use the word "blood", or "Uyghur"
orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 5 months ago
It didn’t invent it. It just caught on at the right time and amplified that knowledge. It’s also a network. I don’t get TikTok but I’ve seen how popular it is in the new generations. This isn’t new knowledge; it’s just new packaging for a plugged-in-since-birth generation.