Bonum Certa Men Certa

Bytedance/TikTok is a Threat to Freedom, Including Free Speech

Fentanylware: Who's there?



Summary: Fentanylware (TikTok) is very harmful, but some sites insist that the threat should be ignored, citing an amendment that China (controlller of Bytedance) neither has nor recognises; this has nothing to do with free speech and Bytedance/TikTok actually pose a threat to it

"Montana passed a law earlier this year to ban TikTok (and ban mobile app stores from offering TikTok for download). The bill has lots of problems," Mike Masnick wrote yesterday. This is the latest among many articles of his (and his site) which conveniently overlook the harms of social control media (the site downplays those, too).



"We're going to keep an eye on the situation.""TechDirt turns a blind eye to the weapon nature of TikTok," one reader told us today, "perhaps out of wishful thinking or perhaps out of addiction to social control media."

Another theory is that reason.com and TechDirt shill TikTok's side because both are funded by Koch (deregulation extremists) and "the Koch connection can be explored there," to quote the reader. "It's not just about deregulation but by allowing TikTok Koch is promoting cultural genocide. Look up what TikTok has done to DJs and dancefloor "music" already, in the few months it has been operating."

Well, delegitimising regulation is important for Big Oil, but they currently receive more subsidies than ever so they like government interventions of a certain kind. As the reader explained this, "the petrochemical industry gets 100s of billions in subsidies each year. Pay but don't ask where the money goes..."

"Fentanylware (TikTok) was designed to manipulate society in favour of docility in the controlling country and chaos in "foreign" countries."Looking at the past week's news, TikTok's image is being "reformed" as there are many puff pieces about it [1-2], there will be more ads [3], and evasions [4]. There is also an effort to leverage TikTok's (Bytedance) spying [5] and the last time bans were mentioned was around 5 days ago [6-10]. We're going to keep an eye on the situation.

There's hope that the severity of Fentanylware (TikTok) will be recognised and proportional reaction/action be taken. Fentanylware (TikTok) was designed to manipulate society in favour of docility in the controlling country and chaos in "foreign" countries.

Related/contextual items from the news:



  1. 2023-08-24 Love or hate TikTok's viral bottle-smashing trend? A neuroscientist explains what that says about your brain


  2. 2023-08-23 [Older] How TikTok helped this Indigenous beader learn the craft and connect with her culture


  3. 2023-08-22 [Older] TikTok search results are about to get infested with ads


  4. 2023-08-23 [Older] Interview: „TikTok’s power to say no is shrinking by the day“
  5. 2023-08-21 [Older] The Feds Asked TikTok for Lots of Domestic Spying Features


  6. 2023-08-21 [Older] 336: TikTok’s Last Dance in Montana: What This Means For Social Media
  7. 2023-08-21 [Older] Montana Compares TikTok to 'Cancer-Causing Radio' in Defense of State's Ban
  8. 2023-08-21 [Older] 336: TikTok’s Last Dance in Montana: What This Means For Social Media
  9. 2023-08-21 [Older] Somalia orders ban on TikTok, Telegram
  10. 2023-08-21 [Older] Montana AG Asks Court to Reject TikTok Challenge to State Ban


Recent Techrights' Posts

The Ludicrous Mythology of Commonality as Signal of Value, Merit, Popularity
Devalue what's true, promote marketing?
[Video] Richard Stallman on the Four Essential Freedoms (Manuel Cuda News, 2025)
Added to a channel several days ago by Manuel Cuda News
[Video] Richard Stallman on Understanding the Misconception of So-called 'Artificial Intelligence'
to "know and understand"
Gemini Links 09/03/2025: Lagrange 1.18.5 and Writing Mannerisms
Links for the day
Links 08/03/2025: International Women's Day, Software Patents Being Squashed
Links for the day
 
Links 10/03/2025: Small Web Praised, LLM Chatbots Exposed as Worse Than Useless Again
Links for the day
A Call for GNU/Linux and BSD Developers to Unite Against GAFAM and the Regime They Empower
We have long encouraged and continue to encourage people who value Software Freedom to altogether boycott GAFAM
Gemini Links 10/03/2025: Realisation About Young People, Punks, and Discord IPO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 09, 2025
FSF's Defective by Design (DBD): Amazon Tightens the Digital Handcuffs
Reproduced verbatim
The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): Plenty of Issues, Plenty of Censorship
The OSI is abusive on many levels!
EPO Staff Appraisals Apparently Benefit Kakistocracy, Including Cheaters Who Grant Illegal Patents and Punish Good Patent Examiners (Who Find Valid Reasons for Denials)
In prior reports the staff representatives said that rewards typically went to people who granted many patents, i.e. didn't do proper examination and instead just allowed many fake patents get enshrined as EPs, causing fiasco (from which some patent attorneys could profit)
As The Web Gets Drowned Out, Sinking in a Pool of LLM Slop, Real News Sites With Real News Become Increasingly Rare If Not Extinct
This is a real problem
Links 09/03/2025: Moderna Patents Thrown Out, Climate United Sues E.P.A.
Links for the day
Links 09/03/2025: FiveThirtyEight Killed by Disney, Nature (Journal) Chooses Suicide by Slop
Links for the day
Hiding Problems Doesn't Work
transparent organisations will be more stable and sustainable
The Harder They Try to Censor, the Bigger the Scandal (and the Impact) Will Be
We don't plan to self-censor our coverage; sometimes we just delay publication a little
Gemini Links 09/03/2025: Leasehold Derangement Syndrome, Raspberry Pi, and More
Links for the day
All-Time Low for Microsoft in Africa
it helps show how irrelevant Microsoft is becoming
French woman (frontaliere) trafficked to promote unauthorised cross border Swiss insurance
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
New York Times & Guardian reporting on Modern Slavery Act prosecution of Glodi Wabelua
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Diana & Adrian von Bidder-Senn, EVP, Palm Sunday & Debian death on wedding day
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The RTO (Return-to-office) Layoffs or 'Soft' Layoffs at IBM and Red Hat
There are certainly many layoffs going on there, but many are described as "resignations" or "retirements" after RTO or some other form of relocation
Under the Pen Name "John O'Donnell" (LLM Slop, Not Real Article or Author) LinuxLinks Pushes Spammy Page
it happened some hours ago.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 08, 2025
Graveyard of Mastodons: A Vast Number of Inactive Accounts
More than 80% of users in mastodon.social (the "big one") are no longer active
Gemini Links 08/03/2025: Reading Cory Doctorow's 'Little Brother', Abandoning GAFAM Forever
Links for the day
No, We Don't Want to Go "Viral" (and You Probably Don't, Either)
"Viral" junk gets forgotten quickly
Windows is Being Eradicated
On the Web, in Africa in particular, user strings or UAs that say "Windows" are becoming more rare
For International Women's Rights Day (Today) Staff Representatives at the European Patent Office (EPO) Opened Up on Gender Discrimination at the Office
Office discrimination against women is widely known; unless you sleep with men in management
Links 08/03/2025: Tariff Self Harm and Mostly Solved Diseases Making a Comeback
Links for the day
Links 08/03/2025: Climate Change Causing Food Shortages, Selling Off Chrome Still in the Cards
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/03/2025: Driving in Japan, GrapheneOS, Tariffs Silver Lining
Links for the day
Working Like a Pack of Hyenas, the Microsofters Try Hard to Hide the Truth and Actively Censor Critics
They even target women
The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): Bylaws of the OSI a Shocking Oversight
That's what the OSI is right now: a salesperson
Thinking About Abandoning 'Google News' Altogether Due to Easy Poisoning by LLM Slop
As long as Google News keeps sending traffic to these leeches, it'll be very hard to justify relying on Google News for anything at all
Links 08/03/2025: Microsoft Failures, Further Attacks on Speech in Hong Kong
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/03/2025: Physical Albums, Analog Computing, Deleting All Social Control Media
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, March 07, 2025