• firadin@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Apparently TikTok sent out push notifications telling users to call their representatives. Minors were being provided instructions with their representatives’ phone numbers and contact info, but didn’t even know who they were calling and were asking basic questions like “What is Congress?”

    Kind of shows the amount of power TikTok has over American youth.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I love how they demonstrated they aren’t influencing people by sending out a mass message telling people what to do. It doesn’t get any more comical than that.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Malign influence. Telling people to participate in democracy isn’t a bad thing.

        • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Yes but telling an army of thirteen year olds doing dance videos to call representatives is worthless, if anything it hurts TikToks argument since it proves they’re doing the influencing of Americans that the government wants them not doing

        • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          You missed the entire point. They declared 1) We are not doing anything of that sort, then: 2) they did exactly things of that sort. It’s like a slap stick comedy show.

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      And facebook tells its users to vote. Encouraging people to make their voices heard and engage in the democratic process is a good thing.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I’d say absolutely, if Cambridge Analytica wasn’t a thing. I’d honestly rather have people not vote than be motivated to go vote because they think the liberal communists are putting fluoride in water to make frogs gay.

        It’s somehow always the organizations and individuals who are trying to manipulate people that seem to care the most about people’s voices being heard in politics. Churches, social media, daytime TV, that crazy uncle you don’t like to talk to at family gatherings…

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Hey some of us are the crazy cousin saying you should vote while also advocating pissing on the floor when your job tries to deny bathroom rights.

          • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I’d prefer to have you as my cousin instead of the one I have who hates brown people and believes Trump won the 2020 election.

            • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              Only if ya can deal with ranting about how modern cars suck due to overuse of electronics and half crazed rants about guns and how we should bring back neighborhood militias.

      • Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        “Vote to participate in democracy! Here’s some local voting resources”

        vs

        “Vote to protect our interests! Tell your representative that they are killing free speech if they don’t listen to me”

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Rival is better than enemy, but yes. We’re as friendly with China as we are enemies. It’s complicated, but I don’t want the simple version to be the narrative.

          • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            They’re not a rival. They’re a hostile power.

            We are both dependent on each other because that’s how the global economy works, but we are not friends and there is no possible path to friendship unless one of our countries has an extremely bloody revolution and completely changes our mechanism of government.

            Our core ideologies are not compatible.