10mo ago

It's true.

144 comments

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
- Yeah I was on board until the tik tok part
- 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
  
  Bingo. That and people upset about losing money but honestly if it's gone for everyone the market will fill the void on Instagram. See: Reddit vs Lemmy
  
  I wonder how much of the internet support for the bill is just astroturfing by facebook/twitter/insta.
- 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.
- Tiktok has DMs and livestreams, which can kind of shake out to be about the same.
- TikTok live does have a multistream actually

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.
- 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.
  
  Why are parks miserable?
  
  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.
- Tiktok spun up the Chinese disinformation bots
  
  TikTok suggested that its users should petition politicians and the public to prevent its punitive purchase. It’s just kids with degenerating attention spans.
- 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.

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
- For real. It's one of about a dozen social media apps. It also happens to be one of the biggest pieces of spyware and is legit controlled by the Chinese State. Like, people....just because it's full of candy, puppies, and people dancing, doesn't mean it has good intentions.
- ...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.

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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.

What a fucking braindead take.

This is fucking braindamaged, 3rd spaces are dying because of social media not some conspiracy to destroy them in order to make kids work.
Jesus christ, you really can tell when someone just hasn't suffered enough in their lifetime.
- While money and car centric infrastructure plays a role, people being addicted to their phones robs them of the desire to overcome the car and being poor in order to spend time with their friends!

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.

I don't think that's what a meme is.

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
- It's because it actually is a security risk with the Chinese government having the ability to do who knows what with a frightening amount of data. There is also the option of selling the company to one that isn't related to the Communist Party government, but no one seems to be talking about that option.
  The only slippery slope is more apps owned by a foreign government that is not exactly our friend.
  If the app was owned by North Korea, would you be cool with it too?They aren't banning Instagram and Facebook.
  
  If they were regulating Instagram and Facebook, I'd actually be happier about it. It's not like the US is some bastion of digital privacy, and TikTok is bad because the data use is unregulated. Our own wholesome homegrown data brokers spy on us just as much, and they too do who knows what with the data.
  American data brokers are no better, and are happy to sell data to foreign powers. Biden had to make an executive order about it recently. Blatant privacy invasion has become a standard practice in the tech industry, and there are a million different companies trading your information around. That's the real issue at play here, and TikTok is just one of many fish in the sea. My data might even be more valuable to American companies than Chinese ones, because the American ones stand to exploit me for more profit. Or they'll sell it to government (s), which... Yeah.
  And of course TikTok could be sold. That's exactly what I was talking about with strongarming—sell your platform to a corporation in our jurisdiction, or else we cut you off from a huge part of your userbase. It's not really an option, it's an ultimatum. It'd be one thing if we regulated the use of that data, but we don't really—we don't have meaningful data privacy laws here, at least not that apply in this circumstance. We're being spied on just as badly. Forcing them to move here would just mean American agencies and companies would have more control over the platform, and more access to the data it generates, neither of which they've built much trust in their ability to do ethically.

Capitalist society is socially isolating by design. To take back our autonomy we have to collectively organize in our local communities
- 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
- 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.
- This is true.

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.

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
- Also the new law is not taking tiktok away it's just forcing the app to be sold to an american company
  I can't help but feel like all the "tiktok ban" discussion is straight up disinformation trying to scare kids

I grew up in a time where you couldn't loiter, I had no money to spend, and social media didn't exist. I still managed to have a lot of fun. Why are people acting like TikTok is some kind of life necessity that they'll die without?
And I'm certain that if TikTok is banned, an American-based competitor will pop right up.
- Why are people acting like TikTok is some kind of life necessity that they’ll die without?
  Some of them are paid to act that way, the others are just following the trend. It's how marketing works now, especially if you have zero ethics.

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.

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.

Hehe, there's someone fearing about losing their dopamine source. Typical addict behavior.

The confusing part of this is that they think this is a teen issue, like they see adults loitering everywhere. There's logic behind why you don't see them doing it because they have their own homes to hang out at but if four adults were hanging out by the door of a shop they wouldn't get special treatment.
In most places adults gather outside of their homes you also need to pay for outside of parks

Where are kids banned from hanging out? When did this happen???
- A group of unsupervised teens probably can't just hang out in a Wal-Mart. That's probably the kind of thing this is about.
  Why you'd want to hang out in a Wal-Mart is something I don't understand, but different people have different ideas of fun.
  
  I could see hanging out at Walmart if at least one of them is buying something. I don't think anyone is allowed to just hang out in a store if they're not buying something though lol
  
  They would not have been possible 20 years ago either

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.

That's why I'm raising my kid in the woods.

What a little drama queen.

Teens are allowed to hang out literally anywhere the general public is allowed to be except for bars and strip clubs.
- Station a group of teens outside any storefront and count how many minutes it takes for someone to come over and hassle them. In most cities you won't even need both hands.
  
  People don't generally hang out outside storefronts. There's parks, malls, community spaces, places designed for people to spend time at.
- "What do you want to do today? Oh, I know, let's just stand around in front of the 7-11."

"School to prison pipeline"? Is this person smoking meth?
Or are they just some stupid teenager that thinks "omg school is just like prison, I hate it here"? Which considering how hard they're going to bat for tiktok is highly likely.
- Most nonviolent prisoners of any country to ever exist. Constitution says you can use prisoners as slaves.
  🤔
- It's about the low quality of education and poor job prospects. Poverty = crime
- The school-to-prison pipeline is a real thing. The ACLU website has information on it
  
  Okay, fair enough, but to insinuate this is a problem for all teens and not just certain minorities and low income students is a but dishonest. Also banning tiktok has nothing to do with this.

144 comments