I try to keep up with the times so I decided to get on TikTok. Just to understand what the fuss is all about. Also, because the government here floated the idea of banning TikTok claiming it was used to promote a political candidate they don’t like. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t take kindly to people telling me what to do or not do. If you tell me I shouldn’t watch TikTok, damn sure I’m going to do that. (Not really, as I positively hate videos of any kind, no matter how cute. I don’t have the patience for that.)
I like to decide for myself and I cannot have an opinion on a social media app if I’ve never used it, can I? As I was writing in a previous post, my country is in turmoil, nobody understands what’s going on and I want to know what other people have to say. I believe that any time you hear officials saying that this or that platform is dangerous because it manipulates people, what they’re really saying is that they don’t want people to be manipulated by someone else.
That’s the only problem authorities have with social media. They cannot control it. Yet.
In many Western countries they said the Chinese use the app to spy on you, which is another way of saying we cannot spy on you, like we do for instance with Facebook who’s been known to sell user information to anyone willing to buy it.
Just as in the US, CNN or MSNBC are desperate they lost their power to control what people are thinking, the same is happening in my country. We have another round of elections tomorrow and our local CNN-partner TV station is desperately trying to convince people a vote for conservative forces would be a disaster. On TikTok the mood is quite different with conservative voters hoping for victory in the parliamentary vote tomorrow.
Controlling the narrative
As the saying goes, I’ve been blessed to live in interesting times. Got a crash course in manipulation techniques and took part in it in my years as a journalist. Those in power will always try to manipulate voters, the only thing that changes are the means. Back in the early 90s, when we were just emerging from communism, we only had one television, state television. Those in power convinced the majority of our people that protesters who supported other parties were traitors, drug-addicts and sold to the enemy. The result was bloody. People died in the violence the righteous mob inflicted on the (mostly) students that were defying the government. Later on I worked for the most successful newspaper in the country, which sold more than one million copies a day. Huge, for a small country. During those years, I’ve seen all types of manipulation - from obsessively supporting one party and attacking their adversaries, to suppressing the truth or taking words out of context to make it look like the exact opposite. There was no accountability as there was no Internet and readers couldn’t fact check anything. TV networks or newspapers are easy to control as you only have to talk with the owner and they’ll see to it that they’ll publish only your version of the truth. All employees will toe the line without being told what to do. You just know what you have to do.
On social media, everyone is free to say whatever they feel like or hit the share button if they find something they agree with. And we're talking about the same people who, before social media, got their views from their favorite network. Before television, they followed what the priest told them.
Things just got interesting
I wasn’t planning on following local elections, but somehow we’ve been plunged in a Trump vs. Kamala battle. I don’t have a good opinion of American woke people, but our local progressive are even dumber. The other day I saw a protester with a sign saying “My body, my choice” although abortion is legal in Romania and nobody is campaigning against that. I just checked my phone now and saw an article about people considering leaving the country if their candidate loses… I haven’t seen anything on black lives matter so far…
Life in the colonies
My country is a colony on the outskirts of the Western empire and, local rivalries aside, we might be witnessing a battle between the Soros globalist agenda and whatever Trump stands for. It may sound pathetic but one of the things we’re excited about is the possible Trump support for the conservative candidate running for president. Rumor has it Robert F Kennedy and Tucker Carlson might be coming to Bucharest to support him. (If he is allowed to take part in the next round, that is.) Under normal circumstances, the local establishment would bow to Washington’s decision, but there’s also Brussels to take into account and they go with Soros and his allies.
One thing mainstream media refuse to understand is that people tend to vote with their wallet. It is no conspiracy theory that support for Ukraine and climate change bullshit are driving European economies to the ground. You don’t need no education to vote for the guys who promise to put an end to all this nonsense. You cannot manipulate people into believing their finances are great when everyone’s worried about inflation. Just as you cannot manipulate them into believing they’re safe when every other week there’s drone fragments from the war in Ukraine falling into our territory.
