It’s because this isn’t about privacy at all, it’s about a popular social media platform being outside the control of domestic intelligence agencies. The US is unable to control the narrative on TikTok the way they do on American social media, which allowed pro-palestinian sentiment to spread there unhindered. It had a huge effect on the politics of the younger generation (IMO a positive one) by showing them news and first hand accounts they wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Edit: And yes, China is able to control the narrative on TikTok and that is a potential problem, but so far they’ve had a fairly hands-off approach to US TikTok aside from basic language censorship. I figure the way China sees it is that an unmoderated free-for-all will do more to sow divisions in the US than a carefully controlled (and therefore obvious) pro-China narrative ever could.

Oops, wrong arachnid. You are indeed correct.

It’s a vinegaroon, which a lot of people may recognize as the poor creature that mad-eye moody demonstrates the cruciatus curse on in Harry Potter.

Edit: was wrong, it’s actually a tailless whip scorpion that got tortured by crazy eyes.

https://www.letswatchstartrek.com/tng-episode-guide/

For starters, all liberals have Reddit and Lemmy.world, which are large. Where do leftists have?

I agree that lemmy.world is a primarily liberal instance, but I haven’t seen the same level of censorship on lemmy.world as I have on hexbear, though I’m open to evidence to the contrary. You can create a space for a specific ideology without resorting to such an extreme level of censorship and lemmy.world is proof of that. Also see my home instance slrpnk.net, we’re a primarily anarchist instance and we haven’t had to resort to extreme censorship to achieve that.

Secondly, this comment is indistinguishable from concern-trolling. I’d have to read through your post history or go back and forth with you to know if you were an honest actor or just a troll.

By what method do you distinguish concern-trolling from legitimate concern? Concern-trolls generally want to shut down discussion, and the whole reason for my concern is that censorship shuts down discussion.

Thirdly, most of us know your views, and have rejected them.

They’re not my views, did you miss the part of my comment where I said I disagree with the comments that got them banned?

We don’t live in a tame world, lots of people have deeply problematic viewpoints. When someone who expresses such viewpoints is otherwise well-intentioned it’s better to address them directly and potentially change some minds (or at least plant the seed) than to shun them and further entrench them into a problematic worldview.

I disagree with those comments, but they seem pretty mild to have been banned. I just don’t see how it’s productive to ban all liberals the moment they try to explain their views. All that does is push people away who could potentially have been a future ally.