This is not a bug, but a feature. Tiktok operates on the behest of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

There’s much evidence for this. See, for example, a study by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University (pdf).

The report details how TikTok, owned by the Chinese-based ByteDance, amplifies and suppresses content based on whether it aligns with the geopolitical interest of the CCP.

The CCP’s interest is, among others, to destroy democracy. It is supporting Germany’s AfD -e.g., we saw several AfD staff arrested in Germany over suspicion of spying for China last year, and AfD head Alice Weidel has strong ties with China, she is fluent in Mandarin and lived in the country- as well as other right-wing politicians in Europe with Tiktok being a major tool for this.

As one report from July 2024 says:

• Germany’s huge TikTok market is vulnerable to extremists’ tactics, which have gained major traction with young voters. Our cross-border investigation proved that you can easily buy virality on social networks.

• In Romania, reporters showed that the social network was a key platform for emerging far-right political figures.

• Similarly, in Poland, the TikTok champions of the European Parliament elections were the far-right, who are now heading to Brussels.

• In Slovakia, TikTok served as a fertile ground for conspiracies about the attempted assassination of Prime Minister Robert Fico.

• Meanwhile, in the Czech Republic, reporters found that the platform’s algorithm was pushing users into a bubble of disinformation.

• Estonians were exposed to fear-mongering related to war that was propagated through TikTok.

• In Hungary, Russian narratives flow to TikTok via public media.

It’s time that Europe awakens. The Chinese government’s dictatorial policy isn’t good for the Chinese people, and neither for Europeans.

The first link in my comment (here again: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44870508) tells more or less the same story as the video, but I don’t know of a text version for the video unfortunately.

It would be a bad idea to follow China …

Addition - it’s more than three years old, but worth remembering now:

How Tim Cook Surrendered Apple to the Chinese Government (YouTube link)

Here is an alternative Invidious link – (12 min video)

Apple is making billions of dollars integrating into countries with authoritarian regimes. Even if it means helping to cement the power of the ruling elite or enabling egregious abuse of human rights. And there doesn’t seem to be anything Apple wouldn’t do for the sake of growth and expansion. Apple cites compliance with local laws as the reason for giving human rights abuse a go. But the actions of the most valuable company in the world go far beyond compliance with the law.

👍

Please be careful when saying things like “half of Austria is a proxy of Russia”. We should not pigeonhole half a country.

[Regarding the Wirecard case: You might refer to the former Wirecard CFO Jan Marsalek, who was/is an alleged Russian spy and is now wanted by Western authorities. Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun has been arrested in 2020 with court cases pending.]

I congratulate you, too :-)

Die chinesischen Investitionen in Spanien scheinen zu wirken, wie Peking das sich vorstellt.

@Stephen Darby

Congratulatoins for your first post. You are right, whataboutism is widespread here on Lemmy.

As an addition:

Modern slavery in China

Since 2018, evidence of forced labour of Uyghur and other Turkic and Muslim majority peoples has emerged in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region). […] Forced labour imposed by private actors is also reported, in addition to forced marriage and organ trafficking, with vulnerability primarily driven by discriminatory government practices. While China demonstrated some efforts to tackle modern slavery through sustained coordination at the national and regional levels – including by adopting a new national action plan for 2021 to 2030[…] – its overall response is critically undermined by the use of state-imposed forced labour.

As an addition:

Modern slavery in China

Since 2018, evidence of forced labour of Uyghur and other Turkic and Muslim majority peoples has emerged in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Uyghur Region). […] Forced labour imposed by private actors is also reported, in addition to forced marriage and organ trafficking, with vulnerability primarily driven by discriminatory government practices. While China demonstrated some efforts to tackle modern slavery through sustained coordination at the national and regional levels – including by adopting a new national action plan for 2021 to 2030[…] – its overall response is critically undermined by the use of state-imposed forced labour.

Das Problem ist, dass Shein, Temu & Co. sich nicht an die europäischen Vorgaben zum Verbraucherschutz halten und dass die auf ihren Plattformen angebotenen Produkte oft weder legal sind noch den EU-Sicherheitsnormen entsprechen. Die Inhaltsstoffe der Produkte sind etwa krebserregend und fortpflanzungsschädigend und “hundertmal giftiger als erlaubt”.

Aber ja, die Inhalte sollten geprüft werden, was nur Sinn ergibt, wenn es entlang der gesamten Lieferkette erfolgt und diese Lieferkette transparent ist. Soweit ich den Medien entnehme, ist es gerade China, das sich einer solchen Transparenz vehement entgegenstellt.

[Edit zur Tippfehlerkorrektur.]

Ja, genau. Momentan zielt die EU darauf ab, das Gesetz, von dem mir jetzt auch der Name gerade nicht einfällt, zu verwässern …

Korrigiert, danke.

Reporter besuchen „Shein-Dorf“: Wie Ultra-Fast-Fashion wirklich produziert wird

Arbeitnehmer:innen in Guangzhou [einer Provinz in China] arbeiten demnach bis zu 75 Stunden pro Woche, oft unter Verletzung chinesischer Arbeitsgesetze … Die extremen Arbeitsbedingungen ermöglichen das Ultra-Fast-Fashion-Geschäftsmodell, dem Shein seinen kometenhaften Aufstieg verdankt. Online gibt es eine gewaltige Auswahl an Kleidern, Tops und anderen Kleidungsstücken schon ab circa zwei Euro zu kaufen. Statt ein paar mal pro Jahr neue Kollektionen zu launchen, veröffentlicht Shein täglich tausende neue Designs. Das Unternehmen wurde 2023 laut BBC auf einen Marktwert von 66 Milliarden US-Dollar geschätzt, also 63,3 Milliarden Euro.

…

Die Mehrheit der Befragten erzählte, sie hätten nur einen freien Tag im Monat. Eine Arbeiterin betonte dagegen: „Wenn ein Monat 31 Tage hat, arbeite ich 31 Tage.“ Eine weitere erklärte, dass sie sonntags etwa drei Stunden weniger arbeiten würde.

…

… doing things properly and everything is local then Deepseek reportedly has some efficiency advantages that make it worth considering over alternatives

DeepSeek isn’t uncensored if you run it locally (https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/28978937), and this is just one issue among many others.

I never believed that myth either, but it’s been around here on Lemmy these days :-)

Yeah, the European Union is also good. For the first time in 2024, solar energy in the EU surpassed coal in generating electricity across all 27 EU member states, while natural gas production of electricity fell for the fifth year running.

In the European Union (EU), 47% of electricity now comes from renewable sources like wind and solar, a new record according to a report from the think tank Ember. This is a far higher percentage than in other countries, including the United States and China, where about two-thirds of energy comes from fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and gas.

As I said, tthe narrative that China as leading the path to a better climate is simply wrong. China’s track record regarding the fight against climate change is -very much as those of most other larger countries- an absolute disaster: https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china

Etwas wird nicht dadurch besser, weil es vorher schon mal wer gemacht hat.

That’s an oversimplification of the article. It’s not that “we should burn fossil fuels.” China should rather stop burning them.

China’s measures to fight climate change are highly insufficient as per practically all independent metrics, and the Chinese government doesn’t appear to be even willing to reduce its emissions. It keeps on to produce a massive amount of overcapacity to to flood the world (and especially the global south) with cheap products for geopolitical and economic gains.