I'll never understand why (a) Vine was shut down, and (b) So many Americans are eager to rush out and use a Chinese social network.
I suspect (b) can be explained primarily through ignorance.
I suspect (b) can be explained primarily through ignorance.
They see a fun app, they play with it. If they're even aware of censorship issues or geopolitical power games, that seems very distant from some app that amuses them for a few minutes a day.
Everyone knows the stuff they buy is manufactured in China, and the old timers holding weird grudges from the 1970s are long gone.
There is no economic incentive for anyone to bring this up at any time during any transaction.
I've found sites that do "made in america" generally, but ideally I'd like a site that allows something like "sort by distance to manufacturer" - I'd like to preferentially support businesses proportionally to how geographically local they are.
Would also be interested in sites that have some sort of curated directory of companies that have good labor relations, quality controls, environmental impact, etc.
Unless other nations began to intrude on their daily life people don't care what those nations do so they may as well not exist. Part of why China has been in the minds of (some) Americans lately is its becoming obvious they are trying to apply their censorious nature to US citizens on US soil, sometimes using US companies.
And, yeah, I'm well aware that the US does similar things to other countries. And some people in other countries on this site complain about that too. It doesn't mean they're just grinding some political axe though.
Do you think people in Hong Kong and Taiwan feel like nations are "all but obsolete"? South/North Korea? Tibet? Crimea? This idea of nations being obsolete feels like a fairly privileged position.
It's long been my opinion that you simply cannot destroy the west without mutually assured destruction, so nukes are out. You can't invade and subsequently operate because Americans will never acquiesce to foreign rule, and we are individually armed.
The only way to undo the US/west is to have it undo itself. Seed dissent and promote divisions and hatred among its people. Maybe I was shielded from this as a kid, but it seems these divisions are hatred are sharply on the rise as of late, and it's not outside the realm of possibility this is due to foreign influence via social networks.
Foreign adversaries must be loving the divide America has at the moment with our 2 party system. They are also trying to divide us by race, economic class, and create a divide with the police.
Do you think that the US Department of State, or the foreign ministries of any other country of note don't do this sort of thing?
Better than implies they are doing the same thing as the West but are more effective.
All we have to go on is the word of insiders who work for the various ministries, and all of these insiders have their own agenda. They certainly aren't opening up their organizations to outside verification of their claims!
Also, consider the context in which these negotiations take place. When NK negotiates with the US, this is the most important diplomatic conversation they have going. They are obviously going to put a lot of effort into it - as the outcome may be existential to them.
When the US negotiates with NK, it's just one of five dozen plates it is spinning at any one time. Whatever the outcome is, it's not going to be an existential crisis for the US. It's unlikely to be the most important diplomatic conversation it's going to have, and the Department of State, and the CIA will prioritize its resources accordingly.
What Russia and China are doing is child’s play compared to what corporate mass media can do.
I myself had no idea they were Chinese, despite working in the space. I wouldn’t expect any average teen to know they are Chinese either
(B) How would the average consumer know it's Chinese? They totally rebranded it from their mainland product and in fact the social network itself is totally isolated, so you can't even find Chinese people on it.
TikTok is a better app than Vine was. It has far more features (visual effects, etc) and does a good job of making them easy to use. This all translates into better growth and retention.
TikTok was also very well marketed. Lots of slick online ads that went straight to their target demographic. I'm not sure if Vine ever knew quite what it wanted to be.