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.

But why? That's a very hard sell and a very inefficient use of your time. At best you could convince some anarchists of the harm reduction argument, but you could never convince anarchists to be enthusiastic about voting for Kamala, which is what those very absurd memes seem to be trying to do.

Edit: And very ineffectively I might add. I still can't make heads or tails of what those memes are trying to say.

My issue with ground news is it doesn't give any weight to funding sources when making its' bias ratings, which makes it easy for billionaire-funded media conglomerates with a "neutral and unbiased" front to fly under the radar.

It's because they're strange. The message they're communicating is inscrutable.

Wtf

Didn't the MCU movies make a point to say it only matters if the person is worthy by Odin's standards? I guess it just means Magneto meets Odin's standards, whatever they are.

Alright, I'll play along.

Claim:

The document titled hamas human shields released by NATO Strategic Communications is propaganda.

Argument:

Merriam-Webster defines propaganda as-

the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

Let's break that down. To determine whether the NATO StratCom document hamas human shields meets the criteria for propaganda we need to answer the following:

Q: Does the item in question contain ideas, information, or rumor?

A: Without having to verify any claims you can still confidently state that the document contains at least one if not all of these. Statements of opinion can be classified as ideas, and statement of fact can be considered either information or rumor depending upon the amount and veracity of supporting evidence.

Q: Was the item in question spread for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person?

A: By posting the document on a public forum for the purpose of defending NATO's actions, you yourself fulfilled this criteria. Prior to that, NATO StratCom also fulfilled it, as they have an implicit interest in defending the actions of NATO (which this document serves to do)

For example: I can point to evidence that Tasnim News is propaganda.

I don't dispute this.

Unless you disagree with the meaning of the word propaganda then everything I said is a statement of fact, not a personal opinion. What do you mean when you say propaganda (and don't just give examples, actually define it).

All value is subjective. I happen to believe humans' ability to empathize across species is both beautiful and beneficial for the long-term sustainability of our species. Having empathy for other species helps us to understand the role nature plays in our lives, and to assert agency over the role we play in nature. Lacking empathy for animals allows us to see them as property, and humans tend to have an extractive and ultimately self-destructive disposition towards property.

there's nothing "propaganda" about NATO

You can't be serious. Everyone does propaganda, propaganda is everywhere. Just because you happen to agree with NATO propaganda doesn't mean it isn't propaganda. Your original comment is propaganda, the responses to it are propaganda, this entire comment section is full of propaganda. Anyone disseminating information reflecting the views or interests of any doctrine or cause is engaging in propaganda.

Edit:

I misread your comment, that's my mistake. I thought you were saying that trans rights no longer being under attack is why you wish you would stop hearing about them.

trans rights are no longer under attack.

Yes they are, you've just stopped hearing about it because the Democrats mostly stopped playing defense for them. Turns out a tiny minority has a very small voice when it isn't being amplified by people with access to power and privilege. It's similar to the way Democrats now support right-wing border policy despite paying lip service to leftist ideas about the border and immigration. It's just another cause the Democrats cynically co-opted until it was no longer convenient.

Brown is just desaturated orange. You can even make the same color appear either orange or brown by changing the color surrounding it. Brown exists only in our brains.

I would think that those types are better suited to research or other medical professions that don't interact with patients like imaging or something.

Oops, wrong arachnid. You are indeed correct.

I'm not saying Israelis are guilty or deserved the attack on civilians, but Israel is a settler-colonial state. So is the US, but I'm not going to call for every US citizen with colonial roots to be forced off the continent (especially since that would include myself, my ancestors - including recent ones - were awful people who did awful things).

You can acknowledge that the state of Israel is an illegal settlement without calling for genocide, just as you can acknowledge that the US is founded on stolen land without calling for death to all Americans.

My pet theory for these is that they're like a test of skill for metalworkers, and that they would be put on display as proof of their capabilities. They were often found in safes with coins, which I think supports this theory. You wouldn't want some rival metalworkers stealing your skills display and making it so nobody trusts them anymore.

Care to elaborate on that?

I don't reject relationships with other people, but I think they should be between independent individuals who associate with each other only because they both want to. (Violating this principle is sometimes necessary but always undesirable.) You appear to think otherwise, and I suppose that's a fundamental value difference that can't be resolved through debate

I also believe in autonomy, but everyone has relationships with people they did not choose to associate with due entirely to unavoidable circumstance. This doesn't just apply to family, but to everyone on earth to varying degrees. You are just as dependent on community as you are dependent on nature, a complex web of relationships of which you are a small part. Refusing to acknowledge that these relationships exist because you did not choose to enter them is childish, and it enables you to behave selfishly because you do not take responsibility for your externalities. This is the same pitfall that capitalists dive into to justify pollution and all manner of horrible things.

The bunker-building impulse demonstrates what's wrong with libertarianism very well, an irrational attachment to individualism in all things. Libertarians refuse to acknowledge the positive role of nature and community in their lives, instead focusing on the negatives and spending all their energy fighting the very thing that keeps them alive. How long do you think you can last alone in a bunker without any support?

Fun fact: in The Sims 3 you can give your sim the "insane" trait, allowing them to talk to themselves and fulfill both the "fun" and "social" needs bars.

In my experience it's not nearly as effective irl... :(

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.

As an anarchist this is me on a good day. I more often find myself in the middle getting shit on from both directions.

If you too want to get out of the liberal vs communist showdown and smoke weed on the side come to slrpnk.net where only our memes community has liberals and communists fighting in the comments.

Silicon Valley techno-libertarians (a group I identify with)

I hate to break it to you but these are definitely the worst ones. It's what the Gadsden flag waving canned food and gun hording preppers turn into if they end up with tons of money. These are the morons that build bunkers in New Zealand and try to brainstorm ways to keep their post-apocalyptic security guards loyal to them with remote-detonated bomb collars or holding their families hostage.

The idea of preventing private ownership and rent-seeking of communication platforms is.

Why are you so intent on keeping the conversation about the election? I'm trying to tell you your time and energy is better spent on other things. It's unproductive to respond to people complaining about how all our candidates support genocide by basically telling them to shut up and choose.

I respect it but if you're American and trying to take the word back, I'm afraid you're a little too late. It's a political party now and they're all-in on corporatism.

Every one of these recipes that involve gelatin would be better without the gelatin.

Lemmy is an inherently libertarian platform

This is an interesting perception, because if you mean American libertarianism then this doesn't really make sense. Lemmy's creators are communist and intended it to be anti-corporate. It is designed in a decentralized manner specifically to avoid situations where companies can own and profit from it.

The kinds of platforms I would see as being libertarian (in the American sense) are the diaspora of privately owned social media companies.

Electoral politics are not the only way to change things. In fact, it's a very poor way, as evidenced by the fact that genocide is now the only option. Every bit of progress that's been made has been achieved through mass movements; protesting, coalition building, engaging in direct action or civil disobedience... until the politicians are forced to appease them in order to keep hold of their power. Would electoral politics have ended segregation, were it not for the civil rights movement? Would women have been granted the right to vote, were it not for the suffragette movement?

You would not recognize the reality we'd be living in today if everyone from back then thought like you that all they can do about injustice is vote for the "lesser evil."

My take? Vote your conscience, or not at all if that's where your conscience leads you. I can't bring myself to fault anyone for refusing to vote for a "lesser evil". At the end of the day, electoral politics just isn't worth the amount of time and energy people give to it. That time and energy is better spent engaging in direct action, community building, and just general activism. I have long been disillusioned that electoral politics can bring about meaningful progress.

Would you prefer more or less genocide.

That this is the choice our "elected representatives" are asking us to make is sick beyond measure. I actually want to just thank you for cutting the bullshit and just asking the question directly so I can respond to it in the way any sane person should, by rejecting the premise that these are our only options. The answer is no, not more or less, none. I acknowledge that the third option of no genocide is not achievable through electoral means, which is why I support the protests, encampments, and uncommitted delegates.

This is a non sequitur. It doesn't follow that Allende choosing reform over revolution is what resulted in the US interference. The US has been known to interfere in revolutionary movements as well.

Why can't my state be near the top of a good list for once.

It baffles me that marxists will dismiss anarchist ideas using the exact same talking points that liberals use to dismiss communism.

Communism also failed to fend off capitalism - and before you say b-but actually the USSR lasted a really long time, ask yourself if the USSR at any point actually lived up to the ideals of the revolution. We should be focusing on finding new solutions that work, and being dismissive of anarchist ideas doesn't help.

It isn't just the wording that's problematic, it's the way Marx was dismissive towards the existing methods of collectivism and horizontal organizing. Yes, subsistence farming is a "primitive" mode of production, but the way peasants and indigenous people organized and collectivized resources is not irrelevant to modern industrial modes of production. Marx dismissed the way peasants and indigenous people collectivized resources as "primitive" and argued in favor of centralized power structures. I believe this to be a mistake.

Calling it communism may be a bit of a reach, but collectivist social organizing in a variety of ways was and still is a very common element of indigenous cultures around the world.

This link focuses on family and child rearing, but it's a good window into how Australian aboriginals express collectivist principles.

"Primitive communism" is a derogatory term with racist undertones. The dismissiveness towards existing methods of collectivism is IMO one of the biggest flaws of Marxist theory. The establishment of an intelligentsia is an idea rooted in this paternalistic arrogance. If Marx had acknowledged the Russian peasantry as an important political class the Russian revolution might have gone very differently.

Yes, cameras and security theatre at the entrance/exit that rivals airports.