While more aggressive than most, TikTok’s extensive lobbying campaign is the latest attempt by the tech industry to head off any new legislation — and it's a fight the industry usually wins.

The young voices in the messages left for North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis were laughing, but the words were ominous.

“OK, listen, if you ban TikTok I will find you and shoot you,” one said, giggling and talking over other young voices in the background. “I’ll shoot you and find you and cut you into pieces.” Another threatened to kill Tillis, and then take their own life.

Tillis’s office says it has received around 1,000 calls about TikTok since the House passed legislation this month that would ban the popular app if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake. TikTok has been urging its users — many of whom are young — to call their representatives, even providing an easy link to the phone numbers. “The government will take away the community that you and millions of other Americans love,” read one pop-up message from the company when users opened the app.

Cool zoomers to US congress and senate members : were-gonna-kill-you

  • Snackuleata [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    123·
    8 months ago

    TikTok has been urging its users — many of whom are young — to call their representatives, even providing an easy link to the phone numbers.

    Lol the first time I contacted my representatives was because Failblog told me to in order to kill the Stop Online Piracy Act around 2009. Glad the tradition’s being kept alive.

    • someone [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      86·
      8 months ago

      TikTok has been urging its users — many of whom are young — to call their representatives, even providing an easy link to the phone numbers.

      Isn’t this exactly what brunch liberals want us to do? Contact our elected representatives and voice our opinions?

      • The_Jewish_Cuban [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        57·
        8 months ago

        Well contacting elected people isn’t necessarily Lib, especially if the contact comes along with a threat. I suppose the main issue is that communist orgs have no ability to grow a mass movement from any sort of extreme hatred towards our rulers.

        • Rom [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          30·
          8 months ago

          Well contacting elected people isn’t necessarily Lib, especially if the contact comes along with a threat.

          Do not ban TikTok. I am in your walls.

        • SerLava [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          4·
          8 months ago

          also, even the non-threatening calls freak politicians out. They are used to 1 of every 10 pissed off people sending an email, and 1 of every 100 pissed off people sending a letter or calling. Something like that. So if you blow up one of their intern’s phones for a few days and they are at all threatened in the primary or the general, they are gonna get alarmed.

    • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      58·
      8 months ago

      I mean it’s absurd how stupid and shortsighted it is as a political move. Democrats could not pick things to piss off more of their base if they tried.

        • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          30·
          8 months ago

          How does that matter literally at all? It’s still something that pisses off their base. The whole point is democrats don’t give a fuck about their base and just expect us to vote for them.

          • Xatolos@reddthat.comEnglish
            1·
            8 months ago

            The way you phrased it sounded like the usual “blame everything bad on the Dems” bs that’s on every place.

            • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
              38·
              8 months ago

              If they’re not willing to fight for my vote then yeah they’re as bad as republicans who also don’t fight for my vote. They expect to get my vote just because they are slightly less bad, but that’s not enough in my opinion.

              • Xatolos@reddthat.comEnglish
                1·
                8 months ago

                But then you’re willing to die on this one hill at the expense of everything else?

                While each party isn’t perfect, you should still look at the whole and judge based on that whole. No party can be 100% of everything you want as no one will want 100% of everything you want too. If they tried to be everything you want, then they would lose against so many others. And from what I’m seeing, this seems to be mostly complained about from the under 18 year old crowd that couldn’t vote anyways, meaning it’s most likely been considered of the for and against and the vote age (and their block) are for it.

                • OrionsMask [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  30·
                  8 months ago

                  At the expense of everything else? What, like doing nothing to preserve Roe v. Wade, continuing evil border practices, and supporting a genocide?

                  Them working to ban TikTok is at the literal bottom of the list.

                  How is it that libs wander in here and pretend every issue is in a vacuum and that everything the Dems do is fine otherwise? Not 100% perfect? They’re not even 10% perfect. The only thing they have going for them is that they’re not the Republicans, and that hasn’t been enough for a long, long time.

                • yoink [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  29·
                  8 months ago

                  it’s incredibly condescending to assume that you are seeing the whole picture and that anyone complaining is not

                  and then to double down by claiming that the people who are against this aren’t even worth it anyway cos they’re too young to vote right this second

                  and libs wonder why they keep shooting themselves in the foot

                • Tunnelvision [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  24·
                  8 months ago

                  I don’t need them to be 100% aligned with my views, but it’s okay for me and anyone else to recognize that they’re not even trying to get my vote. Most of what I want is very popular among the masses of the country but democrats couldn’t care less. Fuck em. If they don’t want to represent even 1% of my views, why should they get 100% of my vote?

                • DefinitelyNotAPhone [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  17·
                  8 months ago

                  While each party isn’t perfect, you should still look at the whole and judge based on that whole

                  The Democrats are actively aiding and abetting a genocide in Palestine. My judgement based on the whole is that the entire party should be tried and hanged for war crimes.

                • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  9·
                  8 months ago

                  this one hill

                  This one hill has a hill on it called “no one can afford a house anymore” and that has a hill called “you’re bankrupted for life if you go to the ER” and that has a hill called “we keep giving more money to cops” and that has a hill called “doing the republicans border policy” and that has a hill called “being obviously senile” and that has a hill called “getting worse day by day” and that has a hill called “threw abortion rights under the bus to use it as an incentive to get votes” and that has a hill called “Ukraine” and that has a hill called “being a rapist” and that has a bill called “hey didn’t he do the Crime Bill?” and that has a bill called “why did he do all that fracking if he said he was gonna solve the climate crisis?” and that has a hill called “student debt” and that has a hill called “being a corrupt piece of shit” and that has a hill called “holding a eulogy for Strom Thurmond” and that has a hill called “mishandling COVID worse than trump” and that has a hill called “owing me money” and that has a hill called “needlessly escalating tensions with China” and that has a hill called “funding a genocide” and that has a hill called “commiting a genocide”.

                  But yeah the GOP is also bad, so I guess I gotta vote for him. It is the most important election of our lifetime, just like the last one and the one before that and the one before that and that and that and that and that and that. We just gotta swallow our pride and accept that the nominee is less than perfect and then next election we can focus on getting some good done, but right now we need to avoid the dang Cheeto! And we can push Biden left anyway, of course we shouldn’t actually try to push him left because that might mean the Cheeto gets elected, but we could in theory try to push Biden left.

                  The way being a politician works is that you appeal to your base in order to win votes. You’re not owed those votes, they’re not a right. If you can’t appeal to your voters, you don’t get elected. Going “I’m not as bad as the other guy” isn’t really a good strategy, it only works if you’re the only other choice and the other guy is absolutely horrendous. If you’re just as or almost just as shitty as the other guy, then it most certainly don’t work.

        • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          6·
          8 months ago

          Why do you all always say that like it’s a good thing?

          You all call conservatives ‘Nazis’ (deservedly so), but then talk about things being ‘bipartisan’ as though it’s suddenly a good thing to be in agreement with Nazis.

          The only true bipartisan things I recall are things like the Iraq/Afghanistan war, the Patriot act, and so many other horrid things.

    • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      46·
      8 months ago

      If you’ve spent your entire life practicing hiding under desks for when some incel tries to murder you and all your friends while the government refuses to do anything and then that same government takes away something you and all your friends like and tells you it’s to protect your safety, when it’s really obvious it’s just so American companies can ruin it and fuck you over, jihad seems like a pretty modest proposal.

  • FemboyStalin [she/her,any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    87·
    8 months ago

    This is why a lot of pro trans stuff is getting shot down too. There was just a safe-haven bill that got killed in Maine due to death threats. The fact that they won’t listen to anything but death threats is bleak af.

  • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    74·
    8 months ago

    TikTok has been urging its users — many of whom are young — to call their representatives, even providing an easy link to the phone numbers.

    Egads! The horror of people being organised politically! How nefarious!

  • WhyEssEff [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    67·
    8 months ago

    “I mean, it’s almost embarrassing,” says Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., a former tech executive who is also supporting the TikTok bill and has long tried to push his colleagues to regulate the industry. “I would hate for us to maintain our perfect zero batting average on tech legislation.”

    this shit would put you in the fucking negatives my guy