That might happen, who knows, but that is not what this article is about af all.

I didn’t mean it as a boycott us comment, I am surprised you can pre-order it anywhere but in their own country is all. Also understand why, don’t need an explanation.

Thanks for sharing, this could actually be very helpful research for the development of Lemmy and other fediverse platforms. Here is some text from the article that explains what appearantly happens by using bots:

[…] not all bots are the same in the bustling world of Reddit.

Some bots are simple, […]. Take WikiTextBot, for example. […] Using Reddit’s API, it scans every post and follows its hard-coded rule: “If there’s a Wikipedia link, post a summary.” These bots, [are] known as “reflexive bots,” […].

Then there are […] the “supervisory bots” tasked with moderating discussions. […]

[… ] it’s important to understand how the presence of these bots affects human-to-human interactions in these online communities. […]

They observed that reflexive bots, which generate and share content, increased user connections by providing novel content and encouraging engagement. However, this came at a cost: human interactions became shallower, with fewer meaningful back-and-forth discussions. Instead, bots often replied to posts, limiting deeper conversations between human users.

On the other hand, supervisory bots, designed to enforce community rules, reduced the need for human moderators. Previously, key community members would collaborate to set and uphold norms, strengthening their roles within the community. With automated moderation, this coordination became less necessary, leading to a diminished role for human moderators in fostering community engagement and culture.

The story of bots on social media is still unfolding, with platforms and their creators tasked with finding the right balance between innovation and authenticity. As firms weigh the impact of bots, they face an essential truth: how these digital entities are managed will shape the future of online human connection.

So the last part is why this matters, but I wanted to include lines from the first part because they explain what the basis of the research. I took the liberty to put the last line in bold because that is why I felt the need to write this response. Also worth mentioning is the size of this research:

Between 2005 and 2019, Lalor and his team studied Reddit communities- almost 70 million posts- experiencing a rise in bot activity.

O yes I don’t mean anything by it, just that it makes it extra weird you can pre-order anywhere but their home country

But isn’t this an American company?

In the source’s url

Luckily Europe is one step ahead:

Access to clean energy and rare earths is critical for the EU as it seeks to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 and boost its autonomy in strategic sectors.

But sizeable shares of the global mining, processing and recycling of some of the critical raw materials, like lithium, that are indispensable to the development of renewable energy, everyday items as well as defence systems, are controlled by China, from which the EU wants to ‘decouple’ due to its aggressive and protectionist trade and foreign policy practices.

Central Asia holds large deposits, including 38.6% of the world’s manganese ore, 30.07% of chromium, 20% of lead, 12.6% of zinc, and 8.7% of titanium.

“These raw materials are the lifeblood of the future global economy. Yet they are also a honeypot for global players. Some are only interested in exploiting and extracting,” von der Leyen told Central Asian leaders.

“Europe’s offer is different. We also want to be your partners in developing your local industries. The added value has to be local. Our track record speaks for itself,” she added.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/04/eu-seals-new-central-asia-partnership-deal-as-debut-samarkand-summit-ends

I don’t think you understand the quote you use. What is in the article and in your quote of the article is thataccording to the opposition (and others) the current government is banning TikTok to silence critics and manipulate the upcoming elections.

Then you mention how TikTok is being used to manipulatie elections … on a global scale. I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but in this case the banning of a social media platform is similar to how governments suppress newspapers and tv-channels because they are a threat to the ruling party.

This is not about foreign agents influencing elections, this is about a local power suppressing their people.

Banning all Russian social networks and internet services in Ukraine seems like a smart decision, definitely. When it comes to TikTok it is less clear to me what a good decision would be, but the fact a foreign and potentially hostile state can influence the people is a serious threat.

In that case you could argue that it is the perfect time, but that is not happening in this case. The current government sees this particular medium as a threat because of the users on it, not because of the owners.

But preferably not 2 months before the election

100%

Too bad nobody saw this coming, they could have made a great movie about this 10 years ago.

For the people on the streets it doesn’t change anything, but it’s weird how little blame Erdogan is getting here.

No matter how much I dislike Musk, I don’t think he’s giving that much choice. Erdogan is a dictator who has the power to block X altogether. A real free speech advocate would not succcumb to the pressure of a repressive government, but the article does imply Musk is not the initiator of these bans: “Musk himself said that “the choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets.” He said X would publicly post the Turkish government’s requests.”

Not saying we shouldn’t put Tesla’s on fire tho.