alt Hacker News[flagged]
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You have easy access in that you can find things if you look for it.
What that commenter means by easy access is that the information is in mainstream sources pushed to people such that you are likely to know about it without having looked.
For example I made a comment here on HN recently that immigrants commit crimes at fewer rates than US born people. That sends a segment of Americans into a flying rage even though they have access to that information, they were never going to hear it in their ordinary channels, even if they stick to "mainstream" media.
I've never in my life used TikTok. Can you please point to a specific article, news source, journal, any piece of information that is legal in the United States that I don't have easy access to so I can see what I'm missing?
Whataboutism. You presumably know full well what the parent was describing, but if not:
TikTok presents users with feeds of videos. For many users, this is their primary news source.
An American oligarch and party loyalist now has de facto control of the app. Therefore, the regime has the capability to shape the narrative by boosting or hiding videos from the feed (whether or not they are doing so is an open question).
Could users still hypothetically find the same information elsewhere? Sure. But if this app is their primary source of information, would they even know they should bother doing so?
Larry and David Ellison have been buying media outlets and those media outlets have started spiking (or delaying, editing, etc) stories that look bad for Trump. It's not that you don't have access at all, it's that these specific platforms are starting to suppress it.
This is the notable example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_CECOT
It's not about legality, its about scrolling and recommendations. Young people see stuff by other young people by default.
Its been a conservative/zionist talking point for years now that "the youth are getting brainwashed by tiktok", and Ellison in particular seems to be in the "I've gone hard right due to the latest Israel conflict" camp. So of course they're not being subtle about it.