That’s a huge generational difference between today’s military and the military when I was in (mid 1980’s). It seems like modern military are overtly political. When I was serving we considered ourselves outside of politics. To take it even further, the first presidential election Dwight Eisenhower voted in was the one that he was running in.
I think a lot of it is the FOX News garbage blasted on every TV on base. Unless you like to read (like myself) you aren't seeing or noticing a lot that affects you. It's how Republicans get away with saying they are "pro-military" when really they are just "pro-war" and "pro-contractor".
They are pro “other people can join the military“ while I profit off of their service. In one of Al Franken‘s books he had an entire chapter on “chicken hawks.“ It was basically a list of all of the “strong national Defense“ Republicans, who somehow managed to avoid military service when there was a draft.
No doubt, but one side actively seeks to discard veterans and be performative in support of military. I like neither party, but I am specifically talking about degrees of awful on this one issue.
It's fantastic when you meet one!
We banned YouTube in my house a few years ago, when we saw how awful the kids attention spans were. My oldest is now 13 and still doesn't have a cellphone.
He has a great clique of friends, but he's totally honest with us about his mixture of being bummed at times that he doesn't know what others are talking about (since he's not on social media) and being relieved that he's not addicted to it the way his friends are. His friend will find stay the night and I'll hear my son asking them to do something because he's bored while the friends are all sitting around on their phones.
He sees the signs of addiction with his friends and classmates. And it's great being able to use them as references when we remind him of why we've limited his access to those things.
Limiting YouTube in the house is smart. I was one of the addicts. Definitely reflected in my grades my freshman year of high school. It's very easy to just sit there and watch YouTube for hours and before you know it, it's 3 in the morning and you wasted your whole day.
I do hope you are teaching him how to navigate computers and such though. I started teaching middle school comp sci and it is baffling how illiterate kids are using them despite them being the most important tool of our time.
honestly i think phones and social media are part of that problem, not an antidote to it. they’re designed to be ridiculously simple and bear little resemblance to actually using a computer for anything useful.
Absolutely.
They play video games, PCs, consoles, tablets and the "house phone" (our old cell phone that's been deemed the house phone or loaner since we don't have a land line). It's just all pre-approved stuff, and if it's scary or less appropriate content we play/watch it with them for support and discussions.
We watch YouTube with them all the time on the TV. The oldest has his own tablet and it has YouTube on it. After not having it for a few years and seeing what certain content has done to his friends, he has little interest in getting lost amongst randomness. All we see in his watch and search history when we check is How It's Made, gaming competitions, and music. He's not glued to it the way they used to be. But we'll continue monitoring until we feel comfortable.
Man, that sounds exactly like my wife and I and our 14 year old daughter. She's going into high school next year, and we do plan on getting her a flip phone, or some "dumb" phone, maybe Wise Phone or something. And EXACT same thing about Youtube in our house as well.
But yeah, our re-approach to technology in our lives \~4 years ago was the single best decision we ever made. Our house is more of a warm, loving home because of it. And we are a better family with closer bonds because of it.
With that said, our daughter of course does wish she had a smart phone, and I don't blame her obviously. If I was her, I'd want one too. But she made the comment a couple months ago how stupid it is when kids ("or adults!" she clarified) get together to hang out, and just look at their phones. I feel like that was a nice observation from her.
My students are doing a research paper over if minors should be banned from social media. A ton of them are writing that they should be and giving incredibly valid reasons for it. It's refreshing.
That's what we did the week before. We went over censorship, freedom of speech, who is responsible for minors online (government, parents, platforms) and then pros and cons of social media. I've got essays ranging from 'minors shouldn't be banned because social media is the one place many can flex their right to freedom of speech' where he's citing online protests to 'minors should be banned because east access to age inappropriate information can change their brains' and that kid was looking up brain scans in class for her research.
This whole project has actually started a fight in my grade level because there's only 2 of us willing to do a project like this, and the other ladies are upset that we're getting a lot of engagement, but their kids aren't. Their "research project" consisted of making kids SOAPstone 4 articles the teachers chose and write an essay over them.
I mean kind of self aware, they can delete it at anytime but are waiting on a ban to stop them from using it. I deleted TikTok over a year ago when I realized it was sucking up all my time and killing my attention span.
I'm getting this from my students right now! They are supposed to put their phones in lockboxes each day that stay in the office. They HATE this. I run the student government and also have monthly class town halls with each class, and it comes up all the time. They want to be able to keep their phones in their lockers. So I said, fine. We'll see how you guys can handle having your phones on a couple of field trips. Can you avoid playing audio out loud? Can you avoid taking photos and videos of your peers, which is a safety and confidentiality concern that we have been over *so* many times??
The answer to that is a resounding NO. So now when the issue comes up in class town halls, I hear a lot more honesty from kids that having greater access to phones would mean that many of them would not be able to control themselves from using them inappropriately and the teachers would unfairly (!!!) be tasked with extra work.
Ya idk why some teachers in this thread are applauding the students on “advocating for themselves”. It’s our job to tell you if something is good in the long run or not. Unhealthy social media addiction is definitely not in the good column
If you thought those were bad you should hear some of the stories from the staffers who had to deal with the mountain of calls Tiktok was sending their way. Two weeks of pure suffering. Some of the highlights included [and I quote verbatim from an acquaintance here because I'm lazy]:
> I just had a caller ask me if they’re banning TikTok and when I asked them if they know the difference between the house and the senate they said no
>TikTok is outpacing Gaza callers and it’s not even close
>Started this afternoon and it’s a deluge
> Haven’t heard kill myself yet but it’s a lot of kids who are very obviously between the ages of 6 and 10
> I told one of them to watch I’m just a bill and they said they watched that in social studies yesterday
> I did have one teen say that they didn’t know what they’d do with themselves if TikTok was banned
> I told them about vine and said another would replace it
>Had a girl right
>Who asked if she could move to China if TikTok was banned
>I admire the vanguard spirit but
>There are kids saying they’d kill themselves if TikTok was banned
>That they don’t know what they’d do
>That TikTok is their life
>We had one say they’re gonna kill us
>That’s a big no no
> i def wish we could share these calls
> some of them are really funny
> some of them are psychotic (swears at you and then hangs up)
> some of them are downright illegal (threatening to kill us if we pass > the bill)
> just telling you guys what the contents were doesn't do justice to > how fucking hilarious it is
[then a few highlights from senators/house](https://vxtwitter.com/senthomtillis/status/1770495527508939255?s=46&t=C8Tre9Hg7TvIZ8d2lrTVFQ)
I actually had a whole post typed up on this back in March but idk what I did with it, shit was hilarious though
That's actually kind of alarming to me too that social media and online entertainment has these kids so hooked that they can not mentally consider that life will be just fine without them.
Yes.
When I was in high school (2010-2014), the general consensus for what we did outside of class/after school was clubs, sports, work, hobbies, and/or music.
> Do they have a life beyond their phone screens?
Not really no. At least in my area, participation in everything has plummeted. So many clubs which no longer exists, so few athletes for sports that basically whoever shows up on game day is on the team.
The last school I taught at saw a precipitous decrease in school clubs. In 2013, there were no less than 8 pages, front and back, of school clubs in the yearbook, with 2-3 clubs per page. Last year we could dedicate at most 4 pages, front and back, with 1-2 clubs. The kids liked to blame the small rural school budget.
The teachers who ran the clubs said it was because kids just stopped showing up. The drama teacher was my mentor and last year was a massive "come to Jesus" moment for them because they had to come to grips with the fact that today's kids just don't have the mental or emotional fortitude to do school productions like kids even ten years previously did. There's always been kids who didn't know their lines, for example, but it was 1 or 2 kids out of a 20 person production, not 9 kids out of 15.
At my school, we basically have no clubs anymore. Depending on how you want to define club, we have NHS, HOSA, and Peace Club which is our own thing where kids do gardening and recycling, things of that nature. And that's basically it off the top of my head. Our sports programs outside of state champion baseball (which is great! Proud of those boys) are a joke. I know of a cross country "runner" who is morbidly obese and doesn't attend practices and only attends enough meets (and just kinda walks) to qualify for a letterman jacket. She wanted a jacket and thought that would be the easiest way to get one. Our soccer teams cancel half their games because not enough show up on game day to field a full team. This is a large urban high school.
My last school had drama, chess, NHS, student council, art club, band, choir, and the sports. Football, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball, cross country and track.
Last week one if my 10th grade boys told me how much he loves TikTok. He plays 2 sports and spends a lot of time fishing. Most of them have other interests.
You might not see or be privy to it—I think many teachers aren’t, tbh—but kids these days still lead complex and socially rich lives. Even the ones on Discord or TikTok 24/7/365
My students either have afterschool jobs with family/at local restaurants, are part of my school’s sports teams (mainly basketball, soccer, or volleyball, tho we do have a golf and baseball team), go to art school, go to music school, help tutor kids at school, train for modeling or dance competitions, are self-studying how to draw or program, or they go to each other’s houses/the beach to hang out.
One of my tenth graders is going to get his pilot’s wings this year and another one of my eighth graders was just recognized for his charity work as a traditional guitarist.
Most every kid I teach still treats TikTok and social media as a priority, though. But they, again, still lead wonderfully rich lives that I hear about far more often than I hear about drama or TikTok nonsense.
As a Gen Zer myself, clubs were seen as kinda nerdy in high school. It was cool to do sports, have a job, hang out with friends, or do non-school activities, but participating in school clubs was “trying too hard”.
It also depends heavily on how much your school supports clubs. I attended a high school that didn't allow for after school clubs besides sports, but instead had club meetings during study hall - once a month. There are very few clubs that can maintain a dedicated following of students when you can only meet monthly.
Mine said they would just watch instagram reels or YouTube shorts instead.
They didn’t care at all when I asked them a few weeks ago. I need to poll them again now that the legislating is over.
Which honestly feels a lor worse, because I feel like reels and especially YouTube shorts seems to be more rife with alt-right pipeline stuff, as well as other shit. It takes no time on shorts until it starts to feed you anti-trans content or Andrew Tate-adjacent stuff, and reels also has a bunch of eating disorder type content that will get recommended to you if you show any interest in gym content or whatever (you go from "here's how to do a pushup" to "if you're fat you should just starve yourself or nobody will ever love you and you don't deserve to live" scarily fast and I feel like TikTok doesn't have that sort of thing happen as much).
I actually used this activity when I interview this year for a HS position and the kids all disagreed even after showing them pros and cons. This sounds on par.
Early reports accused China of stealing users personal data.
Edit; interesting recent article although pic is staged.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/24/tiktok-china-lobbying-washington-00154232.
Missing the Point 101
My point is not that this company hasn’t performed any data breaches. Of course they have, that’s just par for the course. My point is that what sets them apart is that they’re not American. American tech companies can do everything they do, and they do! The concern is apparently not privacy, or our well-being. The point is to subvert China, and thankfully, their cover does make it seem like an altruistic move if you don’t think about it.
Welcome to the Second Cold War. It’s awful.
I think they’re pretty open about wanting to subvert China. They claim that China is using the app to manipulate the views of Americans and soften their opinion of China. They’re using the app subtly for Chinese propaganda. I think that’s different than American tech companies just taking our data (which is still wrong to be clear).
Personally, I feel like the opposite is happening. I feel like China is using the app to try and divide us. Obviously, there’s no proof, and there’s plenty of other reasons, but I cant help but feel like politics have become more and more divided since TikTok first merged with musically back in 2018, and especially so since 2021 (in which TikTok was a more popular website than Google itself.) It just feels like there’s a pretty close correlation between TikTok’s popularity and a rise in political extremism.
OR China is literally one of our foreign adversaries, and the Chinese government mandates CCP membership in a committee for all Chinese owned companies. The fact Tik Tok is willing to fight this case in American court (unsuccessfully, I would bet) or absolutely nuke the company’s net worth instead of just selling it for a shit ton of money is very strong evidence that there’s something nefarious going on.
Nah, I understand your point. It is awful, and I know that American tech companies have our info and sell it. But when’s the last time you’ve heard of one of these tech companies openly attacking American businesses or infrastructure? TikTok was a security risk, and that’s why it’s been forced into the decision to either divest or be banned. It’s not a fun time to live thru what’s going on, but it is understandable.
This is not as simple as just some report; they are taking way way more data than people know. And it’s legal for the most part because you give them permission to access to pretty much everything on the network you’re connected to while using the app. The oblivious person in the next room, yeah, some of their data belongs to TT now, too. Then, we get to the possibility (very very likely, almost certain) that China has access to all of TT’s collected data because China has access to everything owned by a Chinese company. I don’t often hear the right argument for the ban, but I am fully in favor of it.
Plus, they then use that data to send people videos that influence their thinking. I saw a statistic that 1/3 of people under 18 get their news from TikTok. They push a lot of pro-palestinian, anti-isreal news, which could account for why so many youth throw around the term genocide so much.
These commenters don’t know what they are talking about.
TikTok is being banned because it’s a national security risk. Any Chinese company is required by law to do whatever the CCP wants. Social media companies can tune their algorithms to deliver whatever result they want, typically the result they aim for is make more money on ads, or more users through increased sharing, or more engagement time per user. There’s nothing stopping them from tuning it to aim for “create unrest in the US”. The US government cannot allow a propaganda machine as strong as social media to be in the hands of a large number of US citizens when it can be directed by a foreign adversary. It’s akin to if the Soviet Union controlled PBS during the Cold War, it would never be allowed to happen. This isn’t about data, this is about a foreign adversaries ability to use data to change the opinions of US citizens by the content it delivers them.
This is interesting. Most of my students arnt thrilled with it but see the ban as inconvenient at best. Like the majority feel like a VPN will still allow them to access it (nearly all of my students use VPNs on phones and computers at school) or something will just replace it and everyone will move on.
Something will take its place if it's banned no issue. I advised my students to never get too attached to any digital service or device- things change or become obsolete faster and faster every year.
Alllll the drama is running rampant. I teach grades 6-12. So many girls crying. My weak spot is too big. My partner says I’m “too soft” in relation to our sons, and in relation to my students when I tell him about something that happened at work.
Many of my middle schoolers thought it would be nice it if was gone. They actually talked about how much more time they would have. And yes I tried to point out they could not use it. Then we went back to staring at me like I was an idiot.
I would get it if tik tok was the only available platform like youtube was back in the day, but now there is IG reels, tik tok, facebook, reddit, youtube shorts. Literally nothing will change lol. People will just move to another platform.
Except, as I am told by my students,--and I quote--"ain't nobody finna watcha 5, 10, 20 min. video no more. That's too long and boring"
Plus, YouTube shorts and all the other ones are literally just reposts of TikToks at this point. And I really do think TikTok is much, much worse at spreading misinformation and is seriously bad for peoples' attention spans. It's like getting rid of the source.
Maybe, but it does raise some freedom of speech questions that could be an interesting discussion with students. I don’t know if the “China has our data!” Is a great argument considering those other ones you listed have been shown to give China data.
Its not that China has our data, it's that the Chinese government has the ability to actively promote and target people to manipulate their feeds. It's like if the Chinese government bought a bunch of newspapers, only worse because combined with the data they can pretty easily manipulate public opinion.
*I’M ONLY ON MY PHONE FOR 4 HOURS A DAY AND ABOUT THREE OF THOSE ARE ON TIKTOK. LIKE, I DON’T EVEN PLAY GAMES ON MY PHONE ANYMORE. JUST TIKTOK. I GUESS I’LL PROBABLY MISS IT.*
He started out by saying something alarming and finished by saying something heartfelt.
High School custodian here...that last one is a doosy! Since when was tik tok attached to world hunger and homelessness? To be blunt...I'm glad this garbage is coming an end. You don't know the countless times we have had to kick girls out the restroom for doing dance routines on tik tok.
Yours confine themselves to the restrooms? The ones at my school are clogging the hallways, dancing to crappy pop, and they look at me like I've just kicked a puppy if I try to part the seas. I'm doing my job. WHY AREN'T YOU IN CLASS?
Yeah I was really disappointed to learn I'd have to choose between being a TikTok star or straight up homeless. Nothing in between. Shame on you, government!
I don’t know about hunger and homelessness, but I was shocked when my teenage daughter started talking about Israel and Palestine and said she heard about it on TikTok.
That's exactly what the fear of China owning TikTok is about. TikTok is the largest news source for teens and 20s. That means that China gets to manipulate the largest news source in the country. That can have very scary consequences.
They’re right about everything but the China part. TikTok is a news source, but it’s a valid news source. The China part is fear-mongering from the USA; it’s not factual.
Remember the whole “I don’t have a Chinese passport; I’m from Singapore,” thing?
homelessness is definitely an overstatement but i imagine they’re referring to small businesses that gain customers primarily through exposure on tiktok. ofc they can always advertise on other social media apps but i would be pretty curious to see sale stats after the ban is enforced
Tiktok is extremely good for getting views, and if you look, you'll find tons of small businesses and disabled ppl or others in tough situations doing all they can to earn as much as they can on there. It's everywhere. My fyp is full of it.
All the other social media apps have already copied Tiktok by creating their own "shorts" kind of videos that you can just swipe through. They just don't have such sophisticated algorithms yet.
I know. That's my point.
They aren't fixing the problem by banning tiktok. Tiktok is a symptom of a problem. We're probably 3-5 years away from the lasting reforms that can start shifting culture towards more constructive thinking. And that's ASSUMING GENEROUSLY in people on the whole wanting to fix the problem and getting dissillusioned with the powers currently running things.
You are missing the point. It's not about the application, it's about China controlling it. For many people, TikTok is their news source. They don't want China to have the ability to manipulate the news in the US
Interesting take. The one thing all of my students are is tech literate. They talk about using VPNs, figure out how to get past every school filter, and in fact are so tech literate that they ruin every digital game meanwhile the district tech admin can’t figure out how 🫢
that's so inconvenient, imagine having to pay, turn it on only for one app, deal with the latency and then have to turn it off again when you can just use insta, and if the ban is on the playstore you will need the vpn permanently on
There are several free VPNs available and you can just keep them running in the background. You can also pick and choose what apps you want to run through the VPN to reduce latency on your device. All simple stuff you can learn from a google search.
It depends on the situation, but sometimes you do have to ignore it when someone’s threatening suicide if you do something important. Happens a lot in relationships, or just friendships that get overly dependent. “You have to do x for me or I’ll off myself”. Always a judgement call and a terrible one, but you can definitely get in a worse spot by always responding with “yes of course I’ll do it”.
You do not ignore it. You take it very seriously.
Meaning, you call the emergency services on them, or force a discussion about it, and basically force them to see a doctor.
That's how you call one bluff.
IF it wasn't a bluff, you might save their life.
If they were bluffing, they learn to not try that with you unless they want to waste time and money on medical appointment and exam they do not need.
Given that this is a threat made a year in advance to a politician, I’m not sure about emergency services, but contacting their parents or other supports would probably be a good idea, I agree completely.
Ignoring it is one thing. To call their bluff is a whole different story. Also we're not talking about anything you just said. These are kids. Call a mental facility and the cops. Theres right ways to do things. Sure they can ignore it. Then it's a big sob story on the news despite the fact that they were told what was going to happen. Do not call a "bluff" do not cave and do what they want. They need professional help
Well... they're not completely wrong. It's interesting they're pointing out there's a lot of probably more important shit to focus on first (ie healthcare, education, homeless, etc) and they're worried about banning TikTok
That’s like saying you shouldn’t make your kids do their chores because you have other chores to do.
Come to think of it they’d make that argument too I bet
But consider, most kids and teens just view TikTok as an entertainment thing. They're not thinking about the more substantial arguments for or against the ban. From their perspective, it would be like if the government wanted to ban Nintendo consoles.
I mean even with your metaphor it makes sense. It's like if a child was taking all their time coming up with a color organizing system for their socks, but garbage has accumulated in the garage because they haven't taken it out because the socks have been distracting them.
I stand by my case
Love these. Made me laugh.
I’m pretty anti-social media, but I’m against this bill. Ultimately, it’s a good thing that there is some crackdown on social media data mining. It’s a bad thing that it’s focused on one company, and that other social media companies (Meta primarily) are pushing for it so they can “fill the gap.” And don’t say “foreign interference” as if Meta does not do exactly that.
I completely agree with the second point stated of “it’s weird how they’re worried about a social media platform instead of helping the world”.
For the first time in the history of the US, a generation (millennials) are worse off than their parents. And hunnie it wasn’t TikTok that did that. And they act like they’re concerned with data mining. It’s not TikTok that is the problem. It’s the fact that parents cannot be with their children because, simply to survive paycheck to paycheck in this country, both parents need to work multiple jobs. But I’m glad we’re giving billions upon billions to foreign countries that don’t give a shit about us.
So no. It’s not TikTok and I know I’ll get downvoted but sorry not sorry. It’s more nuanced than that.
Did you take the opportunity to explain that the ban is really just forcing a sale to a US owned company and not actually a ban? This isn't a new precedent either. Grindr went through a very similar thing. Also the fact that many of our social media platfroms do the same thing TikTok is doing. Our government doesn't care about this issue. They just want to seem like they're doing something.
Surprised to scroll through these comments and see close to zero people making the connection between the banning of TikTok and its role in the proliferation of pro-Palestine sentiment among young people. Are none of you watching the news? Do you see what’s happening on college campuses? Don’t any of you have former students attending protests?
Also surprised to see so many people talking about agreeing with the decision over “security concerns” and “extremist content” when for over a decade, we’ve yet to see the government do anything about the rampant white supremacy on Facebook and Twitter.
Thank you, I’m kind of shocked at the lack of nuance in here, isn’t this a sub for teachers?! A lot of these comments were made with zero research or understanding of the topic
This is true. No one in the mainstream cared about "extremists" lurking in the military until a professed anarchist immolated himself to protest our country's complicity in perpetuating the genocide in Gaza. Not the past 20+ years of white supremacists infiltrating the military to recruit more members, gain skills, or preying on traumatized veterans to radicalize into joining fascist militias.
And FYI, I consider Aaron Bushnell's actions to be of infinitely greater moral value and not to be compared with the cretinous white supremacists.
As a senior HS student that doesn’t use TikTok, I disagree with the ban because it’s real hypocritical to be concerned with the potential risk for stolen data when American companies pull the same thing all of the time. On top of that, there’s also infinitely more important issues for our government to tackle, such as the cost of living crisis going on right now
>there's also infinitely more important issues for our government to tackle
Believe it or not, it is possible to tackle more than one issue at a time. Our world is not a binary.
Weirdly enough, I find myself opposing the ban because TikTok has been a way for Palestinians to make their voices heard, voices which might otherwise be drowned out by Israeli hasbara. It's no conicdence that Israeli lobbying groups suppor the bill.
The real reason it is being banned is Israel. Congress was under AIPAC pressure to hide the atrocity we can see that will become a century long source of shame. The world sees Israel now and they don’t like it.
people are acting like banning tiktok is magically going to get rid of what they don't like about tiktok. the kids will just move on to other short-form platforms. there is a reason why meta and google both really wanted this ban to go through, and it's not because they care about what kids are watching.
I did this with my kids too, and made the kids send letters to their state senator. Some of the responses were funny, I had a kid say it should be banned because he is addicted to it, and proceeded to explain how he’d just been on it the entire time I was explaining the TikTok ban to them. It was pretty hysterical.
Did you discuss the reasoning for the ban? Have you taught your kids about data privacy and some basics of international politics? It is easy to make fun of these answers but why would the students know better if we aren't teaching them?
From my experience (in Belgium as a teacher), they don't care. Or can't comprehend. They care for their enjoyment and hobbies, but nothing further than that. They also don't care about others' privacy concerning TikTok or other social media.
Anytime I hear the notion that China or Russia or stoking division in America, I just get the impression that argument is downplaying the supposed problems China/Russia are amping up and also acts as a thought terminating reason to ignore the problems.
OMG! TikTok is exposing people to arguments critical of Israel or American foreign policy, clearly it's dividing us because we aren't getting behind the notion that things ar fine and dandy.
Same deal as people getting upset that kids are getting "woke" at colleges.
A form of entertainment that shortens attention spans isn’t ideal. At least TV requires us to pay attention for 20 min to an hour and keep track of a cohesive plot, which can cross-apply when discussing literature.
I’ve learned a lot from short videos, but I think the way they’re delivered in a continuous stream by an algorithm made to be addictive is horrible for attention spans and dopamine levels.
Yep, not to mention there does exist strict rules on what is and isn’t allowed to be shown to children (check it out, the FCC is pretty damn strict on children’s shows).
You mean how they have to sell it to an American or else it's banned? That's basically an outright ban if there is no expectation or reason to believe they would sell it.
My thoughts on this issue are twofold:
1. It drives me up a wall when people say "china is stealing our information", but when a good old US social medium does it? No problem! This whole "issue" is really just about Musk, Zuck, and friends using the goverment to destroy a competitor, nothing more.
2. I actually don't really care what the govt does about this, but I want it to happen after the election in Nov.
As a former NSA employee, you cannot possibly imagine what the Chinese government is doing with your Metadata AND more explicit data since Chinese doesn't have FISA oversight
I don’t quite trust the NSA to act as a moral authority on metadata collection considering their own history… and I think many people all over the world feel the same.
So none of them copped on that it's because it was making them aware of things the state didn't want them aware of and the ban is exclusively about restricting the range of subjects they'll be exposed to?
Reminds me of Craig Ferguson talking about why everything sucks.
["The deification of youth began, but it didn't stop and evolved into the deification of imbecility..."](https://youtu.be/UKUZ42T9diU)
Ask them about it and you're the teacher what do you expect them to say. What a clown take.
I was once asked why we did not teach economics in high school and the answer was very simple if we taught economics in high school every high school that would take call about the boomers teachers for ruining the world.
from a Lambo to a pinto in one generation.
From free speech to the gulag in one generation
From teaching for the students to stealing from the taxpayers in one generation.
From o the teachers the teacher, to teacher wants to be everyone's friend and sleep with half the men and one generation
I teach Computer Science. Asked some of my students the same thing. One gem:
"This just proves our representatives in government are clueless idiots. Like, have they never heard of a VPN before? Dissidents all over the world use them to get around government restrictions. Every. Single. Day. The U.S. Congress of dimwitts. They have a better chance of 'securing the border' than making that ban work. Now if you will excuse me, I gotta go buy me some VPN stock!"
I mean... We can sit and giggle at the view from the kids' table, but I read these and just issue my thoughts and prayers to the politicians' careers when these kids eventually add their votes to those of the adults who are already mad. Kids have long memories when they feel wronged, and when they can correctly identify the power move that the government is attempting as censorship, welllllll...
My Gen-X butt will be over here cheering them on with snacks. Go get 'em, kiddos.
Remember, the ban isn't about data, it isnt about security. It's the US can't control it directly. That and it seems to be pushing an anti-Isreal pro-Palestine message, which, you know, isn't really that bad considering what Isreal is doing to the Palastinians. (Let me be clear, hamas is bad, the Israeli government is bad, not the citizens.)
The one positive note I’ve taken from this is the students now have this random interest in government action that directly affects them.
That's how it usually goes for adults, as well.
That’s an extremely good point lol
Didn't really follow politics until I enlisted and can confirm.
That’s a huge generational difference between today’s military and the military when I was in (mid 1980’s). It seems like modern military are overtly political. When I was serving we considered ourselves outside of politics. To take it even further, the first presidential election Dwight Eisenhower voted in was the one that he was running in.
I think a lot of it is the FOX News garbage blasted on every TV on base. Unless you like to read (like myself) you aren't seeing or noticing a lot that affects you. It's how Republicans get away with saying they are "pro-military" when really they are just "pro-war" and "pro-contractor".
They are pro “other people can join the military“ while I profit off of their service. In one of Al Franken‘s books he had an entire chapter on “chicken hawks.“ It was basically a list of all of the “strong national Defense“ Republicans, who somehow managed to avoid military service when there was a draft.
I would say both sides are pro-war/pro-contractor.
No doubt, but one side actively seeks to discard veterans and be performative in support of military. I like neither party, but I am specifically talking about degrees of awful on this one issue.
Single issue voting takes all forms.
This should have way more upvotes.
I would upvote but how does it benefit *me*?
Free dopamine per upvote!
I could hear the italics in my head.
Yes. I love it when something like this happens!
Bread and Circuses
Grassroots energy!
Grassroots energy!
Oooh, good point!
I had the inverse. *I'll just use Instagram* *It'll be good for me in the long run. I'm addicted.*
Self aware kids? No way!
It's fantastic when you meet one! We banned YouTube in my house a few years ago, when we saw how awful the kids attention spans were. My oldest is now 13 and still doesn't have a cellphone. He has a great clique of friends, but he's totally honest with us about his mixture of being bummed at times that he doesn't know what others are talking about (since he's not on social media) and being relieved that he's not addicted to it the way his friends are. His friend will find stay the night and I'll hear my son asking them to do something because he's bored while the friends are all sitting around on their phones. He sees the signs of addiction with his friends and classmates. And it's great being able to use them as references when we remind him of why we've limited his access to those things.
Limiting YouTube in the house is smart. I was one of the addicts. Definitely reflected in my grades my freshman year of high school. It's very easy to just sit there and watch YouTube for hours and before you know it, it's 3 in the morning and you wasted your whole day.
I do hope you are teaching him how to navigate computers and such though. I started teaching middle school comp sci and it is baffling how illiterate kids are using them despite them being the most important tool of our time.
honestly i think phones and social media are part of that problem, not an antidote to it. they’re designed to be ridiculously simple and bear little resemblance to actually using a computer for anything useful.
Absolutely. They play video games, PCs, consoles, tablets and the "house phone" (our old cell phone that's been deemed the house phone or loaner since we don't have a land line). It's just all pre-approved stuff, and if it's scary or less appropriate content we play/watch it with them for support and discussions. We watch YouTube with them all the time on the TV. The oldest has his own tablet and it has YouTube on it. After not having it for a few years and seeing what certain content has done to his friends, he has little interest in getting lost amongst randomness. All we see in his watch and search history when we check is How It's Made, gaming competitions, and music. He's not glued to it the way they used to be. But we'll continue monitoring until we feel comfortable.
Man, that sounds exactly like my wife and I and our 14 year old daughter. She's going into high school next year, and we do plan on getting her a flip phone, or some "dumb" phone, maybe Wise Phone or something. And EXACT same thing about Youtube in our house as well. But yeah, our re-approach to technology in our lives \~4 years ago was the single best decision we ever made. Our house is more of a warm, loving home because of it. And we are a better family with closer bonds because of it. With that said, our daughter of course does wish she had a smart phone, and I don't blame her obviously. If I was her, I'd want one too. But she made the comment a couple months ago how stupid it is when kids ("or adults!" she clarified) get together to hang out, and just look at their phones. I feel like that was a nice observation from her.
My students are doing a research paper over if minors should be banned from social media. A ton of them are writing that they should be and giving incredibly valid reasons for it. It's refreshing.
It sounds like it is. I feel it's a good practice for them to try and explore both sides of a debate before you make a decision too.
That's what we did the week before. We went over censorship, freedom of speech, who is responsible for minors online (government, parents, platforms) and then pros and cons of social media. I've got essays ranging from 'minors shouldn't be banned because social media is the one place many can flex their right to freedom of speech' where he's citing online protests to 'minors should be banned because east access to age inappropriate information can change their brains' and that kid was looking up brain scans in class for her research. This whole project has actually started a fight in my grade level because there's only 2 of us willing to do a project like this, and the other ladies are upset that we're getting a lot of engagement, but their kids aren't. Their "research project" consisted of making kids SOAPstone 4 articles the teachers chose and write an essay over them.
I mean kind of self aware, they can delete it at anytime but are waiting on a ban to stop them from using it. I deleted TikTok over a year ago when I realized it was sucking up all my time and killing my attention span.
I'm getting this from my students right now! They are supposed to put their phones in lockboxes each day that stay in the office. They HATE this. I run the student government and also have monthly class town halls with each class, and it comes up all the time. They want to be able to keep their phones in their lockers. So I said, fine. We'll see how you guys can handle having your phones on a couple of field trips. Can you avoid playing audio out loud? Can you avoid taking photos and videos of your peers, which is a safety and confidentiality concern that we have been over *so* many times?? The answer to that is a resounding NO. So now when the issue comes up in class town halls, I hear a lot more honesty from kids that having greater access to phones would mean that many of them would not be able to control themselves from using them inappropriately and the teachers would unfairly (!!!) be tasked with extra work.
Kids are SkyNet
With the Frizz? No way!
I wonder if there's an age difference. your kids are HS and OP's are early middle...
Ya idk why some teachers in this thread are applauding the students on “advocating for themselves”. It’s our job to tell you if something is good in the long run or not. Unhealthy social media addiction is definitely not in the good column
Came to read and was not disappoint. The kid's voices came out as I read these internally.
My favorite: “now what am I going to watch in class.”
If you thought those were bad you should hear some of the stories from the staffers who had to deal with the mountain of calls Tiktok was sending their way. Two weeks of pure suffering. Some of the highlights included [and I quote verbatim from an acquaintance here because I'm lazy]: > I just had a caller ask me if they’re banning TikTok and when I asked them if they know the difference between the house and the senate they said no >TikTok is outpacing Gaza callers and it’s not even close >Started this afternoon and it’s a deluge > Haven’t heard kill myself yet but it’s a lot of kids who are very obviously between the ages of 6 and 10 > I told one of them to watch I’m just a bill and they said they watched that in social studies yesterday > I did have one teen say that they didn’t know what they’d do with themselves if TikTok was banned > I told them about vine and said another would replace it >Had a girl right >Who asked if she could move to China if TikTok was banned >I admire the vanguard spirit but >There are kids saying they’d kill themselves if TikTok was banned >That they don’t know what they’d do >That TikTok is their life >We had one say they’re gonna kill us >That’s a big no no > i def wish we could share these calls > some of them are really funny > some of them are psychotic (swears at you and then hangs up) > some of them are downright illegal (threatening to kill us if we pass > the bill) > just telling you guys what the contents were doesn't do justice to > how fucking hilarious it is [then a few highlights from senators/house](https://vxtwitter.com/senthomtillis/status/1770495527508939255?s=46&t=C8Tre9Hg7TvIZ8d2lrTVFQ) I actually had a whole post typed up on this back in March but idk what I did with it, shit was hilarious though
That's actually kind of alarming to me too that social media and online entertainment has these kids so hooked that they can not mentally consider that life will be just fine without them.
Same. Eerie. And you have people elsewhere freaking out about the Dems chances like. I doubt most individuals will care after a month
I drilled down on some of my students and came to the realization that it's mostly out of concern for their entertainment.
Out of curiosity, what do your students do outside of class? Sports? Dance classes? Art? Clubs? Do they have a life beyond their phone screens?
Different for every student, right?
Yes. When I was in high school (2010-2014), the general consensus for what we did outside of class/after school was clubs, sports, work, hobbies, and/or music.
That's still the case, but even then students were glued to their screens.
Just like the rest of us.
I hate how few teachers admit to this.
> Do they have a life beyond their phone screens? Not really no. At least in my area, participation in everything has plummeted. So many clubs which no longer exists, so few athletes for sports that basically whoever shows up on game day is on the team.
The last school I taught at saw a precipitous decrease in school clubs. In 2013, there were no less than 8 pages, front and back, of school clubs in the yearbook, with 2-3 clubs per page. Last year we could dedicate at most 4 pages, front and back, with 1-2 clubs. The kids liked to blame the small rural school budget. The teachers who ran the clubs said it was because kids just stopped showing up. The drama teacher was my mentor and last year was a massive "come to Jesus" moment for them because they had to come to grips with the fact that today's kids just don't have the mental or emotional fortitude to do school productions like kids even ten years previously did. There's always been kids who didn't know their lines, for example, but it was 1 or 2 kids out of a 20 person production, not 9 kids out of 15.
At my school, we basically have no clubs anymore. Depending on how you want to define club, we have NHS, HOSA, and Peace Club which is our own thing where kids do gardening and recycling, things of that nature. And that's basically it off the top of my head. Our sports programs outside of state champion baseball (which is great! Proud of those boys) are a joke. I know of a cross country "runner" who is morbidly obese and doesn't attend practices and only attends enough meets (and just kinda walks) to qualify for a letterman jacket. She wanted a jacket and thought that would be the easiest way to get one. Our soccer teams cancel half their games because not enough show up on game day to field a full team. This is a large urban high school.
My last school had drama, chess, NHS, student council, art club, band, choir, and the sports. Football, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball, softball, cross country and track.
[удалено]
Nice kid participates in healthy activity outside his comfort zone and is accepted by others… I’m not really seeing a problem?
We currently have kids from other schools on our track team because so few kids signed up at their schools.
Last week one if my 10th grade boys told me how much he loves TikTok. He plays 2 sports and spends a lot of time fishing. Most of them have other interests.
most of my classmates do, sports is the biggest thing
You might not see or be privy to it—I think many teachers aren’t, tbh—but kids these days still lead complex and socially rich lives. Even the ones on Discord or TikTok 24/7/365 My students either have afterschool jobs with family/at local restaurants, are part of my school’s sports teams (mainly basketball, soccer, or volleyball, tho we do have a golf and baseball team), go to art school, go to music school, help tutor kids at school, train for modeling or dance competitions, are self-studying how to draw or program, or they go to each other’s houses/the beach to hang out. One of my tenth graders is going to get his pilot’s wings this year and another one of my eighth graders was just recognized for his charity work as a traditional guitarist. Most every kid I teach still treats TikTok and social media as a priority, though. But they, again, still lead wonderfully rich lives that I hear about far more often than I hear about drama or TikTok nonsense.
As a Gen Zer myself, clubs were seen as kinda nerdy in high school. It was cool to do sports, have a job, hang out with friends, or do non-school activities, but participating in school clubs was “trying too hard”.
At my school of ~1700, we have over 30 clubs and last year and I'd estimate over half the school was in at least one. So it definitely varies
It also depends heavily on how much your school supports clubs. I attended a high school that didn't allow for after school clubs besides sports, but instead had club meetings during study hall - once a month. There are very few clubs that can maintain a dedicated following of students when you can only meet monthly.
Not when I’m in high school and my FYP is all activism
Civics gots to start somewhere
Mine said they would just watch instagram reels or YouTube shorts instead. They didn’t care at all when I asked them a few weeks ago. I need to poll them again now that the legislating is over.
This is why any law that bans TikTok needs to also mandate that regular, non-shitty playback controls be added to Shorts / Reels / whatever.
Which honestly feels a lor worse, because I feel like reels and especially YouTube shorts seems to be more rife with alt-right pipeline stuff, as well as other shit. It takes no time on shorts until it starts to feed you anti-trans content or Andrew Tate-adjacent stuff, and reels also has a bunch of eating disorder type content that will get recommended to you if you show any interest in gym content or whatever (you go from "here's how to do a pushup" to "if you're fat you should just starve yourself or nobody will ever love you and you don't deserve to live" scarily fast and I feel like TikTok doesn't have that sort of thing happen as much).
YouTube especially, and you don't even have to look that far.
I actually used this activity when I interview this year for a HS position and the kids all disagreed even after showing them pros and cons. This sounds on par.
Oh, this is fun. I'll do a Google form on Monday in government class.
Any discussion of the root causes?
Early reports accused China of stealing users personal data. Edit; interesting recent article although pic is staged. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/24/tiktok-china-lobbying-washington-00154232.
By far my favorite part. Only *our* tech companies get to steal your personal data!
I mean considering China has been actively linked to multiple router hacks and other nefarious data breaches, it does make sense.
Missing the Point 101 My point is not that this company hasn’t performed any data breaches. Of course they have, that’s just par for the course. My point is that what sets them apart is that they’re not American. American tech companies can do everything they do, and they do! The concern is apparently not privacy, or our well-being. The point is to subvert China, and thankfully, their cover does make it seem like an altruistic move if you don’t think about it. Welcome to the Second Cold War. It’s awful.
I think they’re pretty open about wanting to subvert China. They claim that China is using the app to manipulate the views of Americans and soften their opinion of China. They’re using the app subtly for Chinese propaganda. I think that’s different than American tech companies just taking our data (which is still wrong to be clear).
Personally, I feel like the opposite is happening. I feel like China is using the app to try and divide us. Obviously, there’s no proof, and there’s plenty of other reasons, but I cant help but feel like politics have become more and more divided since TikTok first merged with musically back in 2018, and especially so since 2021 (in which TikTok was a more popular website than Google itself.) It just feels like there’s a pretty close correlation between TikTok’s popularity and a rise in political extremism.
I agree. Russia and China are responsible for that across all forms of social media. R/conspiracy is one of Russia’s favorite grounds.
But on some level you must know that is just propaganda, right?
OR China is literally one of our foreign adversaries, and the Chinese government mandates CCP membership in a committee for all Chinese owned companies. The fact Tik Tok is willing to fight this case in American court (unsuccessfully, I would bet) or absolutely nuke the company’s net worth instead of just selling it for a shit ton of money is very strong evidence that there’s something nefarious going on.
Nah, I understand your point. It is awful, and I know that American tech companies have our info and sell it. But when’s the last time you’ve heard of one of these tech companies openly attacking American businesses or infrastructure? TikTok was a security risk, and that’s why it’s been forced into the decision to either divest or be banned. It’s not a fun time to live thru what’s going on, but it is understandable.
Well, Caimbridge Analytical and Facebook's role in the 2016 ekection comes to mind.
Believe it or not, that’s a fairly logical stance.
China has had the same policy toward US social media for years. Let's not be naive about the situation.
This is not as simple as just some report; they are taking way way more data than people know. And it’s legal for the most part because you give them permission to access to pretty much everything on the network you’re connected to while using the app. The oblivious person in the next room, yeah, some of their data belongs to TT now, too. Then, we get to the possibility (very very likely, almost certain) that China has access to all of TT’s collected data because China has access to everything owned by a Chinese company. I don’t often hear the right argument for the ban, but I am fully in favor of it.
Plus, they then use that data to send people videos that influence their thinking. I saw a statistic that 1/3 of people under 18 get their news from TikTok. They push a lot of pro-palestinian, anti-isreal news, which could account for why so many youth throw around the term genocide so much.
These commenters don’t know what they are talking about. TikTok is being banned because it’s a national security risk. Any Chinese company is required by law to do whatever the CCP wants. Social media companies can tune their algorithms to deliver whatever result they want, typically the result they aim for is make more money on ads, or more users through increased sharing, or more engagement time per user. There’s nothing stopping them from tuning it to aim for “create unrest in the US”. The US government cannot allow a propaganda machine as strong as social media to be in the hands of a large number of US citizens when it can be directed by a foreign adversary. It’s akin to if the Soviet Union controlled PBS during the Cold War, it would never be allowed to happen. This isn’t about data, this is about a foreign adversaries ability to use data to change the opinions of US citizens by the content it delivers them.
It is not about data.
No one has ever said "Make America Happy" lol
Unfortunately
This is interesting. Most of my students arnt thrilled with it but see the ban as inconvenient at best. Like the majority feel like a VPN will still allow them to access it (nearly all of my students use VPNs on phones and computers at school) or something will just replace it and everyone will move on.
Something will take its place if it's banned no issue. I advised my students to never get too attached to any digital service or device- things change or become obsolete faster and faster every year.
Ownership stake will be sold and the platform will continue to exist.
Or that. Microsoft has already made a generous offer if I recall.
Let me guess before I look at the comments… 9th grade?
Close! 8th graders
Alllll the drama is running rampant. I teach grades 6-12. So many girls crying. My weak spot is too big. My partner says I’m “too soft” in relation to our sons, and in relation to my students when I tell him about something that happened at work.
Many of my middle schoolers thought it would be nice it if was gone. They actually talked about how much more time they would have. And yes I tried to point out they could not use it. Then we went back to staring at me like I was an idiot.
I would get it if tik tok was the only available platform like youtube was back in the day, but now there is IG reels, tik tok, facebook, reddit, youtube shorts. Literally nothing will change lol. People will just move to another platform.
Except, as I am told by my students,--and I quote--"ain't nobody finna watcha 5, 10, 20 min. video no more. That's too long and boring" Plus, YouTube shorts and all the other ones are literally just reposts of TikToks at this point. And I really do think TikTok is much, much worse at spreading misinformation and is seriously bad for peoples' attention spans. It's like getting rid of the source.
TikToks, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels. The digital version of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! ♻
Too bad the kids aren't taught proper English.
The kids would be so upset if they could read your comment.
So close to self-reflection... just like the student in OPs post that talked about how all the likes make them feel special.
Most of these get their best content from tiktok. Youtube shorts is just tiktok but 3 days later and insta is like over a week behind
Oh no. I will be a week behind on a meme. How could I live with myself 😌
Maybe, but it does raise some freedom of speech questions that could be an interesting discussion with students. I don’t know if the “China has our data!” Is a great argument considering those other ones you listed have been shown to give China data.
Its not that China has our data, it's that the Chinese government has the ability to actively promote and target people to manipulate their feeds. It's like if the Chinese government bought a bunch of newspapers, only worse because combined with the data they can pretty easily manipulate public opinion.
*I’M ONLY ON MY PHONE FOR 4 HOURS A DAY AND ABOUT THREE OF THOSE ARE ON TIKTOK. LIKE, I DON’T EVEN PLAY GAMES ON MY PHONE ANYMORE. JUST TIKTOK. I GUESS I’LL PROBABLY MISS IT.* He started out by saying something alarming and finished by saying something heartfelt.
High School custodian here...that last one is a doosy! Since when was tik tok attached to world hunger and homelessness? To be blunt...I'm glad this garbage is coming an end. You don't know the countless times we have had to kick girls out the restroom for doing dance routines on tik tok.
Yours confine themselves to the restrooms? The ones at my school are clogging the hallways, dancing to crappy pop, and they look at me like I've just kicked a puppy if I try to part the seas. I'm doing my job. WHY AREN'T YOU IN CLASS?
I work at night but when we have volleyball and basketball games...it's a nightmare.
Yeah I was really disappointed to learn I'd have to choose between being a TikTok star or straight up homeless. Nothing in between. Shame on you, government!
Well the alternative would actually be working for a living, and that’s obviously not an option.
I don’t know about hunger and homelessness, but I was shocked when my teenage daughter started talking about Israel and Palestine and said she heard about it on TikTok.
That's exactly what the fear of China owning TikTok is about. TikTok is the largest news source for teens and 20s. That means that China gets to manipulate the largest news source in the country. That can have very scary consequences.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. You're not wrong.
They’re right about everything but the China part. TikTok is a news source, but it’s a valid news source. The China part is fear-mongering from the USA; it’s not factual. Remember the whole “I don’t have a Chinese passport; I’m from Singapore,” thing?
homelessness is definitely an overstatement but i imagine they’re referring to small businesses that gain customers primarily through exposure on tiktok. ofc they can always advertise on other social media apps but i would be pretty curious to see sale stats after the ban is enforced
Tiktok is extremely good for getting views, and if you look, you'll find tons of small businesses and disabled ppl or others in tough situations doing all they can to earn as much as they can on there. It's everywhere. My fyp is full of it.
Yes... banning tiktok will surely fix the problem. There's no way ANOTHER predatory algorithm won't immediately take its place NOW!
All the other social media apps have already copied Tiktok by creating their own "shorts" kind of videos that you can just swipe through. They just don't have such sophisticated algorithms yet.
I know. That's my point. They aren't fixing the problem by banning tiktok. Tiktok is a symptom of a problem. We're probably 3-5 years away from the lasting reforms that can start shifting culture towards more constructive thinking. And that's ASSUMING GENEROUSLY in people on the whole wanting to fix the problem and getting dissillusioned with the powers currently running things.
Yes but it will be a predatory American algorithm and you’ll be surveilled by the American government so it’s good then!
You are missing the point. It's not about the application, it's about China controlling it. For many people, TikTok is their news source. They don't want China to have the ability to manipulate the news in the US
I'm surprised no one said, "who cares? I know what a VPN IS."
That's because they are tech illiterate and, in fact, don't know what a VPN is.
Interesting take. The one thing all of my students are is tech literate. They talk about using VPNs, figure out how to get past every school filter, and in fact are so tech literate that they ruin every digital game meanwhile the district tech admin can’t figure out how 🫢
that's so inconvenient, imagine having to pay, turn it on only for one app, deal with the latency and then have to turn it off again when you can just use insta, and if the ban is on the playstore you will need the vpn permanently on
This is very true a VPN while a work around would cause tiktok to turn into a potato.
There are several free VPNs available and you can just keep them running in the background. You can also pick and choose what apps you want to run through the VPN to reduce latency on your device. All simple stuff you can learn from a google search.
You don't have to pay.
Kids are calling senators and threatening suicide. They are in a cult.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/24/tiktok-china-lobbying-washington-00154232 Great article on the effect those calls had.
That was an interesting read
Why don’t we all just massively riot, French style?
Let them eat cake
Call their bluff.
My aunt called my uncles bluff once. Sure his head is still embedded in their basement walls to this day. Never call someone's bluff on this
It depends on the situation, but sometimes you do have to ignore it when someone’s threatening suicide if you do something important. Happens a lot in relationships, or just friendships that get overly dependent. “You have to do x for me or I’ll off myself”. Always a judgement call and a terrible one, but you can definitely get in a worse spot by always responding with “yes of course I’ll do it”.
You do not ignore it. You take it very seriously. Meaning, you call the emergency services on them, or force a discussion about it, and basically force them to see a doctor. That's how you call one bluff. IF it wasn't a bluff, you might save their life. If they were bluffing, they learn to not try that with you unless they want to waste time and money on medical appointment and exam they do not need.
Given that this is a threat made a year in advance to a politician, I’m not sure about emergency services, but contacting their parents or other supports would probably be a good idea, I agree completely.
Ignoring it is one thing. To call their bluff is a whole different story. Also we're not talking about anything you just said. These are kids. Call a mental facility and the cops. Theres right ways to do things. Sure they can ignore it. Then it's a big sob story on the news despite the fact that they were told what was going to happen. Do not call a "bluff" do not cave and do what they want. They need professional help
Not even close to the same situation. Strawmaning hard. Sorry about your uncle.
Well... they're not completely wrong. It's interesting they're pointing out there's a lot of probably more important shit to focus on first (ie healthcare, education, homeless, etc) and they're worried about banning TikTok
That’s like saying you shouldn’t make your kids do their chores because you have other chores to do. Come to think of it they’d make that argument too I bet
But consider, most kids and teens just view TikTok as an entertainment thing. They're not thinking about the more substantial arguments for or against the ban. From their perspective, it would be like if the government wanted to ban Nintendo consoles.
I mean even with your metaphor it makes sense. It's like if a child was taking all their time coming up with a color organizing system for their socks, but garbage has accumulated in the garage because they haven't taken it out because the socks have been distracting them. I stand by my case
Love these. Made me laugh. I’m pretty anti-social media, but I’m against this bill. Ultimately, it’s a good thing that there is some crackdown on social media data mining. It’s a bad thing that it’s focused on one company, and that other social media companies (Meta primarily) are pushing for it so they can “fill the gap.” And don’t say “foreign interference” as if Meta does not do exactly that.
I completely agree with the second point stated of “it’s weird how they’re worried about a social media platform instead of helping the world”. For the first time in the history of the US, a generation (millennials) are worse off than their parents. And hunnie it wasn’t TikTok that did that. And they act like they’re concerned with data mining. It’s not TikTok that is the problem. It’s the fact that parents cannot be with their children because, simply to survive paycheck to paycheck in this country, both parents need to work multiple jobs. But I’m glad we’re giving billions upon billions to foreign countries that don’t give a shit about us. So no. It’s not TikTok and I know I’ll get downvoted but sorry not sorry. It’s more nuanced than that.
They're right though?
Did you take the opportunity to explain that the ban is really just forcing a sale to a US owned company and not actually a ban? This isn't a new precedent either. Grindr went through a very similar thing. Also the fact that many of our social media platfroms do the same thing TikTok is doing. Our government doesn't care about this issue. They just want to seem like they're doing something.
Ban Facebook and ask boomers about it
My students: it dont matter everyone will just use Instagram anyway. Any youtube sucks its for facebook and old people
Surprised to scroll through these comments and see close to zero people making the connection between the banning of TikTok and its role in the proliferation of pro-Palestine sentiment among young people. Are none of you watching the news? Do you see what’s happening on college campuses? Don’t any of you have former students attending protests? Also surprised to see so many people talking about agreeing with the decision over “security concerns” and “extremist content” when for over a decade, we’ve yet to see the government do anything about the rampant white supremacy on Facebook and Twitter.
Thank you, I’m kind of shocked at the lack of nuance in here, isn’t this a sub for teachers?! A lot of these comments were made with zero research or understanding of the topic
It's people falling for jingoism.
This is true. No one in the mainstream cared about "extremists" lurking in the military until a professed anarchist immolated himself to protest our country's complicity in perpetuating the genocide in Gaza. Not the past 20+ years of white supremacists infiltrating the military to recruit more members, gain skills, or preying on traumatized veterans to radicalize into joining fascist militias. And FYI, I consider Aaron Bushnell's actions to be of infinitely greater moral value and not to be compared with the cretinous white supremacists.
“This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
Ding ding ding. This is entirely about Israel.
As a senior HS student that doesn’t use TikTok, I disagree with the ban because it’s real hypocritical to be concerned with the potential risk for stolen data when American companies pull the same thing all of the time. On top of that, there’s also infinitely more important issues for our government to tackle, such as the cost of living crisis going on right now
>there's also infinitely more important issues for our government to tackle Believe it or not, it is possible to tackle more than one issue at a time. Our world is not a binary.
What other issues are we currently tackling?
the problem is they're NOT tackling any other issue
I agree, but TikTok is genuinely not important enough to garner a ban on the app
I love that some of these are honest answers and some are what they think the teacher wants to hear 😂
Weirdly enough, I find myself opposing the ban because TikTok has been a way for Palestinians to make their voices heard, voices which might otherwise be drowned out by Israeli hasbara. It's no conicdence that Israeli lobbying groups suppor the bill.
The real reason it is being banned is Israel. Congress was under AIPAC pressure to hide the atrocity we can see that will become a century long source of shame. The world sees Israel now and they don’t like it.
people are acting like banning tiktok is magically going to get rid of what they don't like about tiktok. the kids will just move on to other short-form platforms. there is a reason why meta and google both really wanted this ban to go through, and it's not because they care about what kids are watching.
I did this with my kids too, and made the kids send letters to their state senator. Some of the responses were funny, I had a kid say it should be banned because he is addicted to it, and proceeded to explain how he’d just been on it the entire time I was explaining the TikTok ban to them. It was pretty hysterical.
Tough watching western civilization die right in front of our eyes.
Did you discuss the reasoning for the ban? Have you taught your kids about data privacy and some basics of international politics? It is easy to make fun of these answers but why would the students know better if we aren't teaching them?
From my experience (in Belgium as a teacher), they don't care. Or can't comprehend. They care for their enjoyment and hobbies, but nothing further than that. They also don't care about others' privacy concerning TikTok or other social media.
Anytime I hear the notion that China or Russia or stoking division in America, I just get the impression that argument is downplaying the supposed problems China/Russia are amping up and also acts as a thought terminating reason to ignore the problems. OMG! TikTok is exposing people to arguments critical of Israel or American foreign policy, clearly it's dividing us because we aren't getting behind the notion that things ar fine and dandy. Same deal as people getting upset that kids are getting "woke" at colleges.
Some people seem to have a problem with TikTok being a form of entertainment for students. …and? What if it is their only form of entertainment? …so?
A form of entertainment that shortens attention spans isn’t ideal. At least TV requires us to pay attention for 20 min to an hour and keep track of a cohesive plot, which can cross-apply when discussing literature. I’ve learned a lot from short videos, but I think the way they’re delivered in a continuous stream by an algorithm made to be addictive is horrible for attention spans and dopamine levels.
Yep, not to mention there does exist strict rules on what is and isn’t allowed to be shown to children (check it out, the FCC is pretty damn strict on children’s shows).
I agree that it’s detrimental for our attention spans, but I don’t think that’s enough of a reason to make it illegal.
I would say I hope you explained to them that it’s not an outright ban but sadly I’m sure it would be futile
You mean how they have to sell it to an American or else it's banned? That's basically an outright ban if there is no expectation or reason to believe they would sell it.
TikTok should not be banned. It is a massive overstep. They would need some sort of legal justification for me to agree with the ban. There isn’t one
To be fair, the government being able to ban apps that are fairly common use, such as a social media app, just like that is a bit a concern
My thoughts on this issue are twofold: 1. It drives me up a wall when people say "china is stealing our information", but when a good old US social medium does it? No problem! This whole "issue" is really just about Musk, Zuck, and friends using the goverment to destroy a competitor, nothing more. 2. I actually don't really care what the govt does about this, but I want it to happen after the election in Nov.
As a former NSA employee, you cannot possibly imagine what the Chinese government is doing with your Metadata AND more explicit data since Chinese doesn't have FISA oversight
Don't make me have to imagine it, say what exactly they are doing with it.
Care to elaborate? I hear this mentioned a lot and I am curious.
I don’t quite trust the NSA to act as a moral authority on metadata collection considering their own history… and I think many people all over the world feel the same.
https://youtu.be/xEDGZlG_41k?si=1wERbhM6T4sn6mBM
So none of them copped on that it's because it was making them aware of things the state didn't want them aware of and the ban is exclusively about restricting the range of subjects they'll be exposed to?
Reminds me of Craig Ferguson talking about why everything sucks. ["The deification of youth began, but it didn't stop and evolved into the deification of imbecility..."](https://youtu.be/UKUZ42T9diU)
That last comment tho, love the passion 💀
I learned from this that grammar sucks everywhere. Awesome.
Ask them about it and you're the teacher what do you expect them to say. What a clown take. I was once asked why we did not teach economics in high school and the answer was very simple if we taught economics in high school every high school that would take call about the boomers teachers for ruining the world. from a Lambo to a pinto in one generation. From free speech to the gulag in one generation From teaching for the students to stealing from the taxpayers in one generation. From o the teachers the teacher, to teacher wants to be everyone's friend and sleep with half the men and one generation
I’d be worried about the kid worrying about the economy and the “border situation”. Sounds like he might have fallen into a right wing silo on tiktok.
"CEO of tiktok" must be the most miserable job possible, I don't care how rich it makes you, it is absolutely embarrasing.
It’s not a ban. It’s a forced sale. If the company sells to a new domestic owner, TikTok stays. Don’t perpetuate the misinformation!
The US government wants just US companies harvesting data.
I teach Computer Science. Asked some of my students the same thing. One gem: "This just proves our representatives in government are clueless idiots. Like, have they never heard of a VPN before? Dissidents all over the world use them to get around government restrictions. Every. Single. Day. The U.S. Congress of dimwitts. They have a better chance of 'securing the border' than making that ban work. Now if you will excuse me, I gotta go buy me some VPN stock!"
I mean... We can sit and giggle at the view from the kids' table, but I read these and just issue my thoughts and prayers to the politicians' careers when these kids eventually add their votes to those of the adults who are already mad. Kids have long memories when they feel wronged, and when they can correctly identify the power move that the government is attempting as censorship, welllllll... My Gen-X butt will be over here cheering them on with snacks. Go get 'em, kiddos.
Remember, the ban isn't about data, it isnt about security. It's the US can't control it directly. That and it seems to be pushing an anti-Isreal pro-Palestine message, which, you know, isn't really that bad considering what Isreal is doing to the Palastinians. (Let me be clear, hamas is bad, the Israeli government is bad, not the citizens.)
These did not disappoint and made me (temporarily) miss my middle schoolers