Users on TikTok searching for “WGA” are met with a screen claiming that the phrase “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.” No videos return. Users are also unable to search for the “WGA” hashtag.
TikTok has also blocked the search term “WGA strike.”
Additionally, it appears that TikTok is blocking results from any simple search that includes “WGA” in the search term. Including “WGA” in addition to another word — like “WGA support” or “WGA strong” — blocks results.
Yet another demonstration of the dangers of allowing a communication channel to be controlled by an entity whose motives aren’t aligned with what the users of that channel actually want / need.
Fediverse is the best collective action I can think of against this kind of censorship.
It’s been wild over the last few years to see authoritarians cheering on corporate social media censorship, as though it will never be turned on them.
Fuck censorship.
Why would it turn against them? It aligns perfectly with their ideology.
Oh but didn’t you hear? China is a paradise for workers and definitely not capitalist in any way
Fediverse is the best collective action I can think of against this kind of censorship.
The ideal if the Fediverse, yes. The reality of it, with Lemmy in particular, is that we have admins with the power to censor or curate as they wish, and while they may not be able to censor the entire fediverse, if they control a large chunk of it, it still has an effect on what users can see.
Update (9/11/23): A TikTok spokesperson told Media Matters that “WGA has been inadvertently blocked as part of the platforms’ protections against QAnon conspiracy theories.” Searches for “WGA” and related terms now appear to function normally.
For those fortunate enough to be out of the loop, one of the qanon catch phrases is “Where we go one we go all” which is some bastardized version of the three musketeers “all for one, one for all.” It’s often abbreviated as WWGOWGA, which you’ll see on bumper stickers to helpfully let you know the driver has completely lost touch of reality so you should give them plenty of space. I’ve never seen it shortened to WGA, but that is plausible.
You left out the best part, which is like 90% of QAnon shit, they stole it from a movie. This is from the movie “White Squall.”
QAnon people are fucking crazy man. How does anyone fall for this shit?
Because we have a cultic milieu and it’s an extremely syncretic conspiracy theory. Never quite got past the satanic panic? Q is fighting the Satanists who made rent too damn high. Think aliens control the government? They’re working with the Satanists but they’re on the beat of ensuring your kids disagree with you after going to college. Aware that the rich are the enemy? Trump is secretly at war with the elites. Just a massive fucking bigot? Who do you think the elites are? No seriously you can copy and paste the group you hate in there, it could be anyone that isn’t a majority, they could be redheads for all Q cares.
Qanon has absorbed everything from the new world order (alien edition, but also the other ones too) to flat earth to satanic panic to NESARA to the fucking protocols of the elders of Zion and cultural Bolshevism (though they call it cultural Marxism but still blame Jews). These are all things that used to get you laughed out of a room if not beaten up but now there’s an audience who will “yes and” the most deluded bullshit you can imagine.
Yeah this is a great point. I’d seen all the data points there but didn’t really put together that’s it’s become this sort of meta-conspiracy that is almost infinitely malleable.
That’s a big wall of text to say QAnon is now run by a 13 year old girl.
I’m not here to talk B/S…
I dunno they need to be thrown in wards or something. It’s like many of our parents and entire families infected by the Qanon.
What’s weird is even smart people buy into it. My last boss is an amazing, caring, brilliant woman. She’s a senior leader at a Fortune 100 company!
She got into Q via New Age hippie shit, which she got into after a bad divorce and “rediscovering” herself. Now she believes in vampires. It’s mind boggling.
Well that’s good
riiiight
This is good to know and I’m glad to hear.
As an aside, do we have a system for OP to pin this comment to the top? This context is pretty important.
Ok yeah accidentally mistaking it for an abbreviation of wwg1wga makes sense actually
BULLSHIT. China doesn’t want their citizens witnessing workforce strikes; especially ones where the celebrities striking are on Chinese TVs and movie screens.
Do you legitimately think people in China see the same Tiktok that we do?
Chinese people aren’t on TikTok.
They’re on Douyin and sand boxed away from any of that Western democracy and freedom concepts.
freedom concepts
Thats funny, There are no concepts of freedom in the US unless you are wealthy
My guess is that the studios and/or right-wing trolls reported WGA posts as abuse, and “the algorithm” did the rest.
Yep. Another problem with allowing content to be spoon-fed to us by The Algorithm.
Yeah my algo plays a fair amount of WGA content.
Hmm. How will I hack my Windows XP to activate it if I can’t search for Windows Genuine Advantage?
I miss the good ’ ol FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 days.
https://tinyurl.com/winxphactivator
You’re welcome.
Reminder: China isn’t communist - it somehow cares about worker enfranchisement even less than the US.
TikTok is a product from a private company called ByteDance.
Companies in China have to fully comply with anything the government wants. It may be a private company but that doesn’t mean they can refuse the government like US companies can.
WTF? What do they gain or lose from all of this!?
My guy do you really not understand the shared desire of corporations to prevent solidarity and organization among workers?
I get that. I just didn’t see how TikTok benefited from all of this directly. Then someone reminded me that they’re from China, and it all made sense now.
Realistically the only way China is particularly relevant here is just how blatant it is. It’s in the interest of all corporations to suppress pro-union sentiment.
How often do you think organized protest goes uninterrupted by force in
mainlandChina?Oh! Right. I keep forgetting they’re in China.
Yep. All for their Glorious Marxist/Maoist Revolution! Yep. That’s sure creating a worker’s paradise…
Communism for proles, lux lyf for xipooh
Probably money. Given enough money, I’m sure tiktok will ban any search term
These guys can’t even commie right…
Jfc…
Does anyone even care about the plight of labour anymore? Politically wise?
China? The source of most products keeping our capitalist world going? What about it was supposed to be communist again?
I was thinking the same thing!
Strikebreaking for the Glorious Worker’s Revolution! That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?
???
That’s TikTok, from a private corporation. They do not represent the CPC or the Chinese Government.
even private Chinese companies have to adhere to the CCP’s guidelines and requests.
American companies do the same tho… but point stands all around.
NO such thing is “private sector” only thing that’s private is the “HOLY PROFIT” any losses covered by labour that generated the profit, or not
China doesn’t want people to know about the strength of unity
Removed by mod
But assholes are common equipment…
