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

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

      False dichotomy, they aren’t the same. There is no ‘social media’ just how we communicate right now. Right now at best it’s innocent stealing of our data for enormous profit, at worst - it’s influencing us to destroy ourselves or each other.

    • VintageGenious@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      It’s not the same category of social media though.

      You’ve got (sorted by best to worst)

      • content sharing/streaming (Youtube, Netflix, Spotify, Soundcloud)
      • “private” messengers (WhatsApp, Signal, FB Messenger)
      • public messengers (Discord, Matrix, Telegram)
      • forums (Reddit, Stackoverflow, Lemmy)
      • microblogs (BlueSky, Twitter, Mastodon)
      • personality cult (Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin)
      • infinite scroll (Tiktok, IG reels)
      • etc.

      Each of these can be called social media, but they serve different purposes and some are more harmful than others