Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. Their stance is it's easier to get rid of the person being made fun of or limit who can see their videos rather than the 10k people harassing them.
> According to Netzpolitik, the social media company instructed moderators to find users who are “susceptible to harassment or cyberbullying based on their physical or mental condition.” These creators would then be marked with a “Risk 4” designation, meaning their videos would only be available to view in the country where it was uploaded. Company documents obtained by Netzpolitik explain TikTok’s reasoning for the ban, pointing to the fact that “bullying has been proven to cause severe emotional and physical distress, especially in minors.”
> TikTok also kept a separate list of “special users” who were considered to be “particularly vulnerable.” Many of the creators on this list, Netzpolitik discovered, made videos with the hashtags #fatwoman or #disabled, or had rainbow flags and other LGBTQ+ markers in their profile. TikTok moderators marked these creators with an “Auto R,” which meant that their videos, after hitting a certain amount of views, would be banned from TikTok’s algorithm of suggested videos that appear in every user’s “For You” feed. As a result, these creators’s videos would reach a much smaller audience than the average user. For many, dreams of going “TikTok viral” and gaining notability on the platform would be squashed by the policies.
https://www.them.us/story/tiktok-suppressed-fat-queer-disabl...
> Social video network TikTok apparently limited the reach of people with disabilities, including facial disfigurement and Down syndrome. According to Netzpolitik.org, which spoke with a source inside the company, the policy was supposed to protect users with a high risk of bullying. In practice, however, it apparently amounted to discrimination — and the problem was compounded by moderators who needed to make snap decisions about users’ physical and mental traits.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/2/20991843/tiktok-bytedance...
If you had an issue with Zuck calling early Facebook users "dumb f**ks," wait until you find out what's going on behind the closed Tik Tok doors. You have to remember - we're still in the honeymoon phase with Tik Tok and haven't learned to hate them yet. Once the media and all your friends start sharing hatred about Tik Tok, leaks are going to start coming out, and there will be all the other fun ways through which we discover the true nature of the beast. My money is on Tik Tok setting new standards for how evil a corporation can be.
> The China thing is touchy but I want the west to beat them by being better, not by being dismissive and protectionist.
You got used to the idea that the US has the ability to be better at anything we set our mind to. For our sake, I really hope that truism to continue to be true for a long time. But unless you believe in American Exceptionalism, there are no reasons why that should be guaranteed - or even likely. China is more supportive of growth-at-all-costs, their population is willing to work harder, and the idea that Americans are more innovative hasn't been true for quite a while - look at Nio, Xiaomi, Huawei, ByteDance, and countless other examples. A lot of cutting edge stuff is coming out of China these days, with the trend only accelerating.
We might even start longing for days when we used to have a strong domestic competitor in the social media space. The same thing happened in Germany - back in 2008 when Facebook was tiny on a global scale, there was a German €100m company called StudiVZ that dominated the social networking in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland with about 10m active users. I don't have to tell you how that story ended - the company is no more and all those users are on FB/IG now. Germany and Austria also happen to now be the ground zero of the global Facebook hatred [1], and I bet you they wish they had shown their domestic company a bit more love back when this would have made a difference.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/86d1ce50-3799-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c...
The thesis for America exceeding China in the near term future that I have heard is "Our Chinese will beat their Chinese." [1]
1 - https://alphastar.academy/us-team-wins-1st-place-at-internat...
I wouldn't take that for granted at all, the last 4 years will definitely have a lasting impact on any brain gain the US might've had.
Curious what you're implying happened in the US in the last 4 years. Maybe I'm missing some important event other than Covid but that affects all countries.
https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/567493-dysfunctional...
https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2021/08/03/fading-beacon-...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02172-8
My observation is that it actually accelerated said brain-gain.
There was a crackdown on fraudulent H1B applications, with more RFEs being issued. That freed a lot of spots for legitimate applicants that were hogged by questionable bodyshops. It also incentivized attorneys to start looking at O-1 (and they are easier than people think for real engineers to get).
Academically, a lot was written (by foreign universities) about how the US was going to lose it's edge have a drop in applicants but the rankings didn't change during the last 4 years. I wouldn't be surprised if more people applied simply because they (erroneously) believed that admission would be a little less competitive with less applicants.
Can you cite links that support your assertion that there were fewer fraudulent H1B applications?
http://www.immigrationlawgroup.net/h1b-rfes-and-denials-incr...
Not hard to find.
This is misleading though, because a majority of H1b applications are renewals (so folks already on an H1b), not new applications. On top of that, most renewals happen to be Indian Nationals because they have no pathway to obtain permanent residency in many cases.
Also how does a higher rejection rate lead to brain gain? I'd imagine it discourages a would be immigrant.
Making it easy to get there is not what makes a place interesting to move to.
Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.
Well, it could work. After all, your Germans beat their Germans twice.
Interesting quote, but if I'm not missing anything this link is just a bit shortsighted as proof right? If it's just the pic+names.
Does a US competitor need to be FB? I would like to see a new more privacy focused social experience prop up. It doesn’t need to be a network per se, but it can be. How do we create a fertile bed for development of new connected experiences? Do we already have it? I am wary of venture capital culture that requires outsized gains. Isn’t there a slow stock market concept now?
Is there honestly a market for it? I bet it's too expensive to run it without ads, and I don't think people would pay for social media.
I would love a system as good as FB actually is (except their site is quite heavy on a decent Laptop) which doesn't eat my data.
Yeah, no.
TikTok's algorithm has introduced me to my (now) favorite neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ content makers. Some of them have hundreds of thousands of followers, some a few hundred.
I've learned more about these subjects (and myself!) than from most other sources.
The value of TikTok for me was that it linked up a bunch of neurodivergent/lgbtq+ people into a vibrant, supportive community.
Honestly, if they decide to keep it a clique... I don't mind at all. All the people I interact with there get me. I've never felt this anywhere else.
If my content is seen only by a small subset of people who are on the same page with me — awesome! That's who I'm making content in the first place.
I don't care about the ominous fear mongering. TikTok has made my life better already. It brings a lot of people together now in ways that other places don't.
More importantly, it inspires people not just to make content, but simply being themselves. And it takes away so many barriers for creating, it's insane.
Anyway, we are talking about specific things we like about TikTok as a platform that make it unique (so far), and you are talking in abstract. Anything can be potentially bad in the future. But currently, TikTok is the best thing to have happened to the Internet.
I can give my long list of reasons why if anyone is interested.
The social media functionality is the secondary purpose of the app, the first being surveillance and data collection.
Of course Google, Facebook, and a million other companies do the same thing, all completely disregarding user privacy in favor of selling your information for a quick buck, thereby making the internet a more hostile environment for taking advantage of the technologically uninitiated than ever before. TikTok is just the latest in a line of the worst thing to happen to the internet.
>The social media functionality is the secondary purpose of the app
That's like saying that providing people with groceries is the secondary purpose of grocery stores, the first being collecting money in exchange for them.
Duh! How horrible! Everyone would be better off if they just grew their own food on their own farm, like in the good old days
Saying TikTok is the "worst" thing is absurd given the article we're discussing. The people clearly see value for them in TikTok that hasn't been provided by other services, and adding that to the Internet is unambiguously great.
So the value to the users TikTok brings is unique and novel, whereas any potential harm to the users doesn't really change (as everyone and their grandma are collecting all the data already).
Yesterday, an average user had, say, 11 data-collecting apps — and today, it's 12. It's not great, but very little changes for the user. Hardly the worst thing IMO.
> That's like saying that providing people with groceries is the secondary purpose of grocery stores, the first being collecting money in exchange for them.
No, not really. Like Facebook or Google, TikTok's revenue comes from selling ads. The advertisement business quite literally is based on how much personal info they can gather on yourself, and how they can leverage it to allow themselves and third parties to exploit that info to make you more vulnerable to their goals.
In case I didn't make it clear, providing data about yourself and making yourself more "vulnerable" to advertisers is the currency you pay with for using the platform.
As far as I care, letting random people know random facts about me so that they're more likely to peddle me stuff that I actually like is not "exploitation", but that's merely an opinion.
> In case I didn't make it clear, providing data about yourself and making yourself more "vulnerable" to advertisers is the currency you pay with for using the platform.
No, not really. No one uses a platform like TikTok because they are eager to share their personal data to marketers, and most are entirely oblivious even to which personal data is the service gathering on them.
Just because a platform or service or system is free to access that does not mean that we are allowing mysterious third parties to spy on us.
The problem with data collection is not what they companies doing it use it for at the moment. The problem is making so many details of your personal life discoverable by someone simply buying some data and cross referencing databases.
When you lose privacy willingly saying "but I have nothing to hide" you also lose the ability to hide from bad actors.
You have almost no control over what information you're giving them though. It's more like having to pay the mob for "protection" and then turning to me and saying, "What? That's the price for safety in this neighborhood. I'm choosing to pay."
The way you phrase that it sounds like these social media companies black mail you with dirty secrets they learn about you. I understand why people don't want to be packaged and sold, but a realistic view is that you're getting a service subsidized by all of this.
> The way you phrase that it sounds like these social media companies black mail you with dirty secrets they learn about you.
You may come up with the hyperboles you wish, but the truth of the matter is that a) these companies spy on their user base, b) they don't divulge or inform you about how they spy on you, c) they obviously do not defend you or have your best interests in mind, d) they don't even clarify what they do or intend to do with the data they gather on you nor ask for your informed consent about anything.
I don't care if Google convinces some company to pay them while Google provides a service to me without paying. Of course they're going to try and monetize it anyway they can. I don't think Walmart has my best interests either, so there is nothing special about social media companies. Nor do social media companies have a monopoly on "spying" on their users.
I recall reading a case study over a decade ago about how a dad learned his daughter was pregnant because Target was sending her ads to register for a baby because she was buying things people buy early in their pregnancy like pre-natal vitamins.
Estimates are that Facebook makes $30 per user per year. Personally, I would gladly pay $30 per year for the same service if it kept my data secure.
Precisely. The first purpose is pure invasive data collection of everything on the platform; otherwise how else is that so-called 'legendary recommendation algorithm' supposed to work? That and your data is the key asset that is being sold over and used by other companies as well, which is a violation of user privacy.
The news here is reassuring to investors and the users like the parent comment are once again the prime product addicted under a para-social relationship with other addicted influencers working for the 'legendary recommendation algorithm'.
They will continue to deny how social networks like TikTok keep screwing over their users repeatedly, even when they pretend that they are 'supporting the users' when in fact the investors are waiting for their giant exit for ByteDance's IPO. After that, we will see who ByteDance (TikTok) really listens to.
To the GP comment:
> Anyway, we are talking about specific things we like about TikTok as a platform that make it unique (so far), and you are talking in abstract.
It is not 'abstract' and the comment [0] (and this related comment [1]) you replied to, has evidence of their claims and is factual. It is your 'anecdotes' which are in denial of these facts.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28134880
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28133855
>the users like the parent comment are once again the prime product addicted under a para-social relationship with other addicted influencers
That's quite a leap from what I said, not to mention a personal attack.
Comment [0] doesn't make any factual claims about TikTok (please, go and read it).
Comment [1] is outdated, as the policy they has changed since then. "That wall was black two years ago" is a factual claim, but the wall has been repainted since, and anyone with a pair of eyes can go take a look.
Also, as a member of the several demographics mentioned in that comment - and, ostensibly, oppressed by TikTok -, me saying that my experience was the opposite and extremely valuable should make you reconsider your words.
Have you been affected by TikTok's policy towards vulnerable people? If not, please do not speak on our behalf.
> That's quite a leap from what I said, not to mention a personal attack.
Isn't this what you just said? This is you:
> TikTok's algorithm has introduced me to my (now) favorite neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ content makers. Some of them have hundreds of thousands of followers, some a few hundred.
> All the people I interact with there get me. I've never felt this anywhere else.
From [0] 'Viewers or listeners come to consider media personalities as friends, despite having no or limited interactions with them.' [0]
Do they know you personally as if they are your close friends? If not, they will just see you essentially as a fan in a para-social relationship on a platform like TikTok. That is not a personal attack, that is the definition of what you are describing.
> Comment [0] doesn't make any factual claims about TikTok (please, go and read it).
So you are saying that there weren't any leaks happening about TikTok then, which suggests that they can suppress any content they want to or shadow-ban tags? So you trust them that they won't do it again then, since you think in your opinion that 'TikTok is the best thing to have happened to the Internet.'
10 years ago, another social network had the same accolade.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
My friend, I am not here to dispel your misconceptions, but I'll just note that you find HN a worthwhile community to participate in due to level of discourse here, then the same "para-social addict" label is applicable to you by your logic.
You can't 'follow' anyone on this site and anyone can simply have a random discussion here with anybody. The logic you tried to apply here doesn't work and isn't the same thing unlike what is going on in 'TikTok'.
As for my question(s) you are yet to answer, I'll make the first one more clearer for you:
>> Do they (the people you are following on TikTok) know you personally as if they are your close friends?
>> So you are saying that there weren't any leaks happening about TikTok then, which suggests that they can suppress any content they want to or shadow-ban tags? So you trust them that they won't do it again then, since you think in your opinion that 'TikTok is the best thing to have happened to the Internet.'?
Notice how I am discussing things that you said, and you are discussing me, while also making claims about me.
What I value on TikTok is lack of unprovoked hostility of this kind in the communities that I have discovered there.
Enjoy your day, my friend, and try to find another person to argue about.
Nope. I already pointed out your flawed logic earlier and as for the 'claims', you already admitted it right here though? Your comment [0] completely fits the definition of a para-social relationship! [1][2]
You won't answer my first question because you know that you are engaging in a para-social relationship with the people you are following on TikTok. Not even remotely a 'personal attack' a simple 'fact' that you already admitted earlier.
Given that you continue to avoid the first question, I can assume that the creators you follow don't know you and to them, you are simply a 'fan' or 'follower' of them in a para-social relationship as described in. [1]
Now for my other questions that you still haven't answered:
>> So you are saying that there weren't any leaks happening about TikTok then, which suggests that they can suppress any content they want to or shadow-ban tags? So you trust them that they won't do it again then, since you think in your opinion that 'TikTok is the best thing to have happened to the Internet.'?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
[2] https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...
I don't have any skin in this game, but I think it's very sad to see that the conclusion being drawn from this discussion is that it's unprovoked hostility. I see disagreements and different values.
I hope both parties in this discussion can disconnect the message from the person.
Having discussions with people we disagree with about topics we see differently is in my honest opinion the way we get out of the "us vs them" tendency to think.
Right but how was that 'unprovoked hostility'? How was disagreeing with someone with a reason being 'hostile'? For the claims, I just used what they already admitted?
All I wanted was evidence for their claims and that was it. Instead I got anecdotes, false equivalences in their arguments which is not substantiative.
I also just asked a simple question, they couldn't even answer it. For the second question they did not provide any counter evidence to my question. All my questions were left ignored.
I really don't have to do that, but here goes nothing.
>Right but how was that 'unprovoked hostility'?
Hostility was saying that people "like me" are addicts to parasocial relationships.
Don't see how that's hostility? Exercise:
"People like rvz are <insert something unpleasant>"
>How was disagreeing with someone with a reason being 'hostile'?
You don't get to disagree about what I am (e.g. an addict), nor the kind of relationships I'm in. It's not up for discussion by you.
So I humbly ask you to cease.
> I really don't have to do that, but maybe if you see this enough times, you will get to learn something.
You tried to argue with a false equivalence earlier and then continue to ignore a basic question about the definition of having a 'para-social relationship' with the people you follow on TikTok which you have just described all by yourself in that long post [0] which everyone can see for themselves.
Before you try to ignore the question again, isn't what you have just described here [0] a 'para-social relationship' and fits the definition described here? [1][2]
> Hostility was saying that people "like me" are addicts to parasocial relationships.
So these creators know you personally then and don't treat you like a follower, or a fan then?, and somehow you are not 'addicted' to TikTok then?
On top of that you haven't given an answer to these questions:
>> So you are saying that there weren't any leaks happening about TikTok then, which suggests that they can suppress any content they want to or shadow-ban tags? So you trust them that they won't do it again then, since you think in your opinion that 'TikTok is the best thing to have happened to the Internet.'?
> So I humbly ask you to cease.
So far you have given zero evidence in all of your own comments and you are actively ignoring my questions right here. Substantiate your comments by answering these questions with evidence and sources, as I'll just continue to assume.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
[2] https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20...
>I think it's very sad to see that the conclusion being drawn from this discussion is that it's unprovoked hostility.
I think it's sad that unprovoked hostility isn't recognized.
>I hope both parties in this discussion can disconnect the message from the person
The message rvz makes is about a person, namely, me. They said: "users like the parent comment are once again the prime product addicted under a para-social relationship with other addicted influencers".
That message makes a claim about me, and this is not acceptable.
>Having discussions with people we disagree with about topics we see differently is in my honest opinion the way we get out of the "us vs them" tendency to think.
You don't get to have opinions or disagreements on what goes on inside other people.
Someone calling me an addict to parasocial relationships is not an opinion we should be agreeing or disagreeing about. Unless specifically asked, by me, you don't get to opine on that.
> The message rvz makes is about a person, namely, me. They said: "users like the parent comment are once again the prime product addicted under a para-social relationship with other addicted influencers".
> That message makes a claim about me, and this is not acceptable.
Some of the commenters here already have also suggested that TikTok is even more addictive than the other social networks; perhaps designed to be this way. How is it 'unacceptable' to suggest that users like yourself and influencers are also addicted as well since TikTok's recommendation algorithm is getting something right on its users over the rest of the other social networks?
So you are not addicted to TikTok then? (Despite you actively creating content on the platform and admitting it has '...made me life better already' and saying '...TikTok is the best thing to have happened to the Internet.' and describing to have a parasocial interaction with creators with hundreds of thousands of other followers)
> Someone calling me an addict to parasocial relationships is not an opinion we should be agreeing or disagreeing about. Unless specifically asked, by me, you don't get to opine on that.
Well you put what you do on TikTok for other people right here to comment and you yourself admitted what is described by definition as a parasocial interaction. If that doesn't fit the definition, I don't know what does.
One thing of note is that them collecting everything on the platform doesn't really hit me in the same way as facebook doing. Somehow tho tiktok gets more hate.
Facebook being a more traditional social media has people dropping info and stuff about their plain personal life whilst tiktok is more of a content platform like youtube.
Also unlike facebook and google tiktok has a thougher time following people all around the internet which is probably by far the biggest invasion of privacy.
Might be just me but I'm way more scared of the CCP then of the FB board of directors. The latter hasn't really used online data for genocide purposes yet...
I think you missed the parent's point. Their point wasn't that these experiences aren't possible today, it's that these wonderful and joyful experiences are all nice now but will quickly fade as the company scales its commercial operations, just like what has happened at Facebook, Twitter and now Instagram and Snapchat.
If that was the point, what's the point of stating that point?
"The thing y'all enjoy now will be crap in a few years, get off my lawn?"
I didn't come here for fortune-telling.
You might not care about the future. But others on this forum do.
I care about the future, I don't care much for reading other people's Magic 8 Balls.
If you like doom prophecies so much, I have one for you!
Looks like the effects of climate change will take us all out before TikTok goes down the drain, so enjoy it while it (and the humanity) lasts.
> I care about the future, I don't care much for reading other people's Magic 8 Balls.
Sorry but that assertion makes no sense at all. Caring about the future does not mean naive wishful thinking.
Caring about the future means analysing the likely outcomes and act so that the best ones are the most likely outcomes and the worst ones are least likely.
TikTok has a very clear and obvious attack surface. This attack surface has been known to be exploited in a certain way. Intentionally turning a blind eye to the clear and real threat it poses is the exact opposite of caring about the future because you are thus actively engaged in enabling the worst possible outcome to become a reality.
You do not make problems go away by pretending they don't exist.
However, you can make problems appear by pretending they do exist.
Can we perhaps agree that there is a possibility for things to go bad in the future (in regards to data collection and privacy), but that today we have no concrete evidence of it?
We can, but what value is there in making that statement?
Things always can go bad, and, often, do go bad. That's almost vacuously true.
What would one expect to come out of saying that, other than the feeling of smug satisfaction at some point in the future?
Under that same logic nothing that could potentially ever go badly should ever be discussed as it can always happen and thus there is no value in discussing it?
Not all of us think along the same lines.
Some might like to believe that things are perfectly fine and there is no harm in participating.
Some might realize the potential for harm, but simply not care about the outcome.
Others have a different opinion, one of caution and not participating in case things do go bad.
It has nothing to do with feelings of 'smug satisfaction'.
I do truly hope that you aren't surrounded by people for whom it would for these kinds of discussions.
A discussion about how TikTok can go bad, and what we can do about it would be valuable. And for that discussion, we'd need to understand what makes TikTok so good that it's taken the #1 spot.
Saying "TikTok bad, don't use it" is the opposite of having a discussion.
> Things always can go bad, and, often, do go bad. That's almost vacuously true.
> What would one expect to come out of saying that, other than the feeling of smug satisfaction at some point in the future?
Why, take action to ensure things won't go bad?
Is that concept hard to understand? That preparation is the key?
I mean, why do people waste their time going out of their way to go to a crosswalk and wait for the light to go green to cross a street? They can simply jaywalk their way through life without bothering with hypothetical traffic accidents. But what value is there in doing that? People can get run over and often do get run over. That's almost vacuously true. What would one expect to come out of saying that people should cross the street in crosswalks other than the feeling of smug satisfaction at some point in the future when a jaywalking fool gets ran over but they don't as a result of thinking things through and avoiding obvious problems?
Before making this comment, did you acknowledge the possibility that it could go bad in the future?
Ofc. To me the potential for issues is obvious.
>You might not care about the future. But others on this forum do.
See, at no point did I ever make claim about what other people here are, or claim to know how they feel or think.
But the implication just made regarding me and caring about the future is the kind of unprovoked hostility that I feel safe from on TikTok, but not here.
Whether I care about future, or cats, or fancy tea is not up for discussion.
Maybe perhaps, it might have occurred to you that your response to mbesto is perhaps the best example of "unprovoked hostility" in this thread. Your shrieking, outright nasty responses and sense of entitlement don't automatically make you a victim. Stop trying to police other people's thoughts, responses, beliefs and predictions about Tiktok.
And yes, pretty please, can you please get off my lawn? I didn't come here to witness mental derangement.
> If that was the point, what's the point of stating that point? "The thing y'all enjoy now will be crap in a few years, get off my lawn?"
> I didn't come here for fortune-telling.
>Maybe perhaps, it might have occurred to you that your response to mbesto is perhaps the best example of "unprovoked hostility" in this thread
>And yes, pretty please, can you please get off my lawn? I didn't come here to witness mental derangement
I can't love this enough. Thank you.
>Stop trying to police other people's thoughts, responses, beliefs and predictions about Tiktok.
I didn't know it could get better, but it did!
Your response did not have enough italics, I couldn't interpret it.
Yes! Thank you for this input :)
The thing is, I think it's more than fortune telling. The social media business model is very dirty, it's an addiction machine coupled with selling your data to the highest bidder. The end result will invariably be the same.
It's like free image hosting or free file hosting. A "better", "cleaner" hoster appears and then they either go bankrupt or they sell out.
Some stuff is just predictable at this point.
Social media should be an utility, we just haven't leveled up our civilization enough to know how to manage social media utilities. It took decades for us to do it for electricity & co.
One thing to watch out for will be the treatment of divisive topics. It's eaten up so much of classic social media players because divisive content does well in terms of raw engagement, but it's not been my experience on TikTok. I wonder if there is explicit anti-divisiveness bias in the consumption experience.
I really like the comment you made, as it's constructive:
"I wonder what makes TikTok different from other social networks regarding divisiveness" is an interesting question that adds value to the discussion. It's an invitation to ponder, research, and share perspectives.
It differs from the ones before it:
"You like it now, but give it time, it will be bad just like the rest" is not a statement of the same kind. It's little more than dull cynicism.
I'm in agreement with your perspective, but:
> See, you just made a constructive comment!
Came off as very patronizing, and even infantilizing. GP is not even part of the disagreement above. They just made a good comment. It seems like you are lumping them together with the others that you are bothered by. If you just removed the quoted section then you're reply is otherwise great.
Point taken, comment fixed, thanks for the feedback!
You're welcome! Thanks for sharing your perspective :-)
Let me pose a different question.
What value does the following claim bring into the discussion: "The <new thing that you like> is going to be just as bad as <other things>, just give it time"?
It's just needless negativity.
There are so many interesting things about TikTok that one can discuss, and choosing to just be a Debbie Downer about it ("You like it, but it's bad for you!") feel like an extremely boring way to think about anything.
A pattern that has occurred repeatedly with many SoMe companies over the last decade is highly relevant to a discussion about the new SoMe company that allegedly solves all the problems of previous social media. It's not just needless negativity.
Well, to me it sounds like: "Yeah, it showed that all the old chemical party drugs are bad in the long run, but this new party drug makes you feel really good, so why worry about the future?"
I mean do it, if you want. But I also have the opinion that I do not want to base my happiness and wellbeing in something that has shown to have a short timed luck - followed by darkness. And I do not see society benefitting. When I watch my young nephews as mindless TikTok zombies - I do not see them happy really. They are occupied. But happy?
I see them happy, when they do real kids stuff - running around, jumping, fighting, doing stupid things. Also gaming together. And if they watch some videos - why not. But they seem just addicted to me already. It is all about a healthy balance - and those "social media apps" have the goal to maximize engagement - that means addiction and not a healthy balance.
Well perhaps your nephews aren't in the group of people who should be on TikTok.
That doesn't mean that it's like that for everyone.
Drug analogy: people use Adderall as a party drug too, but some really benefit from having it in their day-to-day life.
Nobody said anything about "basing happiness and wellbeing" on TikTok, btw. It's a strawman claim.
What TikTok does is it connects people who wouldn't otherwise know of each other, lets many people interact with videos, and just be themselves. It's a good place to be at today.
What it already has done is it normalized people just sharing their slices of life and thoughts instead of creating highly polished content (which also exists). And the interactions are peer-to-peer.
It has the most Wen 1.0 vibe of yore out of all platforms. Except instead of ugly HTML with <blink> tags, it's your messy bedroom and untamed hair. But it's yours.
"But it's yours."
It is not. You do not own or controll the data on it. You do not know, own or control the algorithm that makes TikTok such an amazing experience for you - at the moment.
An proprietary algorithm that can change any minute, out of whatever reasons - may them be just "profit" motives, or political reasons (China is a bit famous for that).
"Nobody said anything about "basing happiness and wellbeing" on TikTok, btw. It's a strawman claim."
And sure nobody say he is doing it consciously. But this is what I observe is happening to quite some, especially young people. They get very angry, if the do not get their mobiles to get their dose of TikTok.
So yeah, drugs can be beneficial, too. Dosis facit venenum. This is my point: to me from the outside - TikTok seems to be just the same. A new addictive drug. That can be beneficial if used moderately, but mostly is not.
The positive experience I have on a platform, the people I connect with, the things I learn — all of that is mine, and no change in algorithm can take that away.
I am also giving you a perspective as one of those "vulnerable" populations ostensibly harmed by TikTok, which is what the comment I responded to claimed.
I am saying, as one of them, that TikTok gave these "vulnerable" something that other platforms don't.
I won't go into ”addiction” issues (if you were to take my books away when I was a kid, I'd get no less angry), I'll just accept that it's an issue for large groups of people.
My point was that TikTok is more than that (addictive entertainment). It saves lives too.
Again, I am giving you a perspective as a "vulnerable" user of the platform. This is a perspective that you do not have (as a non-user at the very least). I don't doubt that other people will have a different experience. After all, that's the entire point of having that algorithm.
What I am saying is that TikTok is #1 not only because it's an addictive fun machine for some. There's a lot more. A sense of community for "vulnerable" groups and the ability to have reach is one of those positives that the parent comment was clearly not aware of.
> I am saying, as one of them, that TikTok gave these "vulnerable" something that other platforms don't.
I have been incredibly disappointed by the queer presence on TikTok. Most of the people who I watched seemed misinformed, or were trying to sell me something. The shorter length of the medium encourages sensationalized media rather than longer, more reasoned takes. Furthermore, there's not a single worse place for vulnerable communities to exist than a Chinese app. China has demonstrated, at length, that they intend to oppress their queer population, Uighur population, Taiwanese population, student population and anyone who opposes them politically. As a queer person myself, I couldn't imagine a less comfortable platform if I tried. TikTok feels like a clinical exposure to queer identity, stripped of passion and packaged as a shiny toy. It's demeaning and degrading.
> My point was that TikTok is more than that (addictive entertainment). It saves lives too.
I think every social media platform of a certain size has "saved a life" before. I remember hanging out in an IRC chat with people who I used to drink with, and we had to call 911 for someone who had alcohol poisoning. There was only like 30-40 members, so "life saving" can really happen on any platform.
Communities can happen anywhere, too: you just need passionate people to drive them. I hope in the future there will be less corrupt/centralized alternatives, if you feel that this medium is particularly helpful for you.
I fully agree, and I hope more platforms will come.
That's why I am talking about the good sides of TikTok here: so that people understand them (which, currently, a lot of the people don't - including me two months ago) - and build something better.
Currently, both Instagram and Youtube have TikTok-like feeds... and miss the mark by a mile. So clearly they don't get it. There really is space for an upstart in that field.
I like the IRC comparison, because TikTok, somehow, is the closest thing in terms of giving the feel of IRC to me today.
An open-source TikTok alternative that communities can sprout it would be awesome. And for that to happen, we need to talk about what makes TikTok good.
Because creating a clone with all of the downsides is easy. Figuring out what made it the #1 app, I believe, is the most important part if you want TikTok to go away.
Just to add to what you said:
>The shorter length of the medium encourages sensationalized media rather than longer, more reasoned takes.
This is changing. Most videos I see are 1 minute long, many of them sped up 2x (perfect format for me). And you can upload videos up to 3 minutes long now - which is good enough for a lightning talk.
And the time limitation is what has forced people to state their points very coherently, be laconic, speak fast (or speed up videos), add subtitles and text overlays - all the things that I want (and that some successful YouTubers, like Vi Hart, already do, but most don't).
I believe there is a place for a platform with the creative limitation of short time length.
>I have been incredibly disappointed by the queer presence on TikTok. Most of the people who I watched seemed misinformed, or were trying to sell me something.
That wasn't my experience, but it's hard to say which one is representative. FWIW, the neurodivergent community there is great and well-connected.
Is TikTok good for everyone else? I don't know, but that's one subset of people for whom it seems to work really well now.
As you said, I hope the future brings us a less-centralized TikTok not controlled by an oppressive regime. But who would want to build something that (if you read the comments here!) is only seen with scorn?
Yes, using TikTok is selling your soul to the devil kind of deal. Let's figure out what people get from the devil that made TikTok the #1 app globally.
> But who would want to build something that (if you read the comments here!) is only seen with scorn?
> An open-source TikTok alternative that communities can sprout it would be awesome. And for that to happen, we need to talk about what makes TikTok good. Because creating a clone with all of the downsides is easy. Figuring out what made it the #1 app, I believe, is the most important part if you want TikTok to go away.
I mean, it's already been built. Platforms like Mastodon and Matrix already exist, allowing you to build your own infinite-scroller app, along with a community to fill it. Those platforms don't lack some "magic substance" that we're missing, they just have ~20 billion dollars less ad revenue, and aren't backed by an entire nation with high-profile interest in processing terabytes of global footage. TikTok is #1 because they paid to get there (and, of course, watermarked viciously)
Is that the answer you wanted? I suspect not, so I'll save the trouble of asking. The issue starts with using the app, which is your endorsement of it's functionality. Remember, the creators you watch don't see a dime of the money made from the platform: your usage is explicitly supporting Bytedance's exploitation. Do whatever you want to do, but I'd have a hard time advocating for neurodivergence and queer visibility while simultaneously supporting their oppression.
My oppression. I'm a neurodivergent/queer creator on TikTok.
You're trying to speak on my behalf here, so maybe listen to what I'm trying to yell you?
And it's that yes, TikTok does have plenty of "magic dust" that no other platform has.
I know of Matrix/Mastodon, and sorry, but that tech stack is waaaaay too far off the mark. They barely cut it as Slack/Facebook replacements.
Google and Facebook also have money. What they don't have is a #1 app, in spite of benefiting from the existing network effect.
Did it not occur to you that TikTok must have brought something new to the table to get to that spot?
What you're missing is that it's not the creator/follower dynamic you see on Instagram. TikTok enables and encouraged everyone to be a creator in a way that no other platform currently does.
If you want to argue about this, for God's/sanity's sake please at least use that app for a week to get some firsthand knowledge if you haven't already done so, and post a video or two.
> You're trying to speak on my behalf here, so maybe listen to what I'm trying to yell you?
I'm a queer creator, I'm speaking for nobody but myself here. In fact, you're the only one that's trying to get me to change your opinion so far. I frankly don't care how much you love TikTok (since I could find a school bus full of people who share the same opinion any day of the working week), but I do want you to understand why myself (as well as many other queer privacy/security advocates) are recommending that people avoid it like the plague.
> TikTok enables and encouraged everyone to be a creator in a way that no other platform currently does.
Sure. Their growth is dependent on your devotion to their app, so I don't doubt that they do their best to reduce 'inner circle' friction.
> Did it not occur to you that TikTok must have brought something new to the table to get to that spot?
To my knowledge, TikTok actually became popular because it did nothing new. Once Musical.ly went away, there needed to be a competitor that could also pay the insane license fees for the popular songs you see all over those apps. Since nobody else had that kind of money, the only viable competitor standing was the CCP, who could afford to piss money away ad-infinitum if it was going towards the oppression of marginalized groups
> please at least use that app for a week to get some firsthand knowledge
Hell no! I'm not going to use Facebook for a week to confirm that I dislike it, or reinstall MacOS for a week just to re-discover that everything I love broke after Mojave.
I'm done arguing about this (just got back from a 3 day power outage), but TikTok doesn't make me any less depressed to see proliferate. I hope you enjoy yourself, regardless.
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. We're trying for the opposite on this site.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. We're trying for the opposite on this site.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> There are so many interesting things about TikTok that one can discuss, and choosing to just be a Debbie Downer about it ("You like it, but it's bad for you!") feel like an extremely boring way to think about anything.
Oddly enough, I find comments like "I don't care to talk about any negativity because this product/service is the best thing since slice bread" boring as well. What's your point?
You seem to be getting unnecessarily upset that people are raining on your parade. No one is raining on your parade, they're simply providing a counterpoint - no need to take that any farther than what it is.
I'm trying to make a simple statement: the claim that TikTok is the same as other platforms is idiotic (if it were so, it wouldn't reach the #1 spot in spite of not being around a few years ago).
Logic dictates that TikTok must be doing something differently, and doing it right.
I am trying to explain what that something is.
I am upset because as long as people here don't get what makes TikTok unique and successful, there will be no US-made alternative to TikTok. Which sucks, because it is a Chinese spying/influence machine too.
Exhibit 1: Instagram, which is now imitating TikTok, poorly, with it's video feed. Literally all content I see there is TikTok reposts.
Exhibit 2: YouTube's... whatever. Dead in the water.
Facebook and Google don't get it. HackerNews doesn't get it. And as long as that goes on, y'all are just handing our youth off to the PRC's influence.
Did I make my point clear?
I hope I made my comment negative enough for your preference, but I'll be glad to elaborate.
> Exhibit 1: Instagram, which is now imitating TikTok, poorly, with it's video feed. Literally all content I see there is TikTok reposts.
Anecdata?
> YouTube's... whatever. Dead in the water.
Lol what? YT is still growing and has 2.3B users...
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/
> Did I make my point clear?
You did.
> Facebook and Google don't get it. HackerNews doesn't get it.
We do. You're just not understanding OUR point. People are not disagreeing that there is somehow a better/unique experience on TikTok - in fact the opposite, most people here believe that to be true. We're saying that there is a very CLEAR trend when it comes to social media apps. In fact you said it yourself "YouTube and Instagram are crap now". The parent's original premise was that we are in a honeymoon phase with TikTok and all of the ills associated with the other social media platforms will very likely plague TikTok eventually. Worse, TikTok is heavily influenced by a regime well known for abuse that pales in comparison to civil liberties to that of the US/Facebook. In essence, this is a recipe for disaster.
> I hope I made my comment negative enough for your preference, but I'll be glad to elaborate.
Your insistent deflection and "poor me" attitude doesn't help your argument...worse, it makes me think you're a shill.
I hear you loud and clear, which is why I say that admitting that TikTok is better/unique is not enough.
You need to understand what makes it better/unique to build better alternatives that at least won't be heavily influenced by an abusive regime.
Like, sure, let's take it as a given that TikTok will become undeniably evil in 4 years. What are we doing now to prevent a grim future?
I say, look at what makes this honeymoon phase so attractive, because as long as TikTok is the only place offering these benefits, people will go there.
> Like, sure, let's take it as a given that TikTok will become undeniably evil in 4 years. What are we doing now to prevent a grim future?
Simple - not use it. It's entertainment. There are more suitable alternatives (reading books, watching movies, etc.) that have far less evil externalities.
> You need to understand what makes it better/unique to build better alternatives that at least won't be heavily influenced by an abusive regime.
I think the point there is that until a new biz model comes up for social media there is always an incentive to abuse privacy (Facebook/IG) or be abused for surveillance by a gov't.
Glad you calmed down there a bit, makes for better discourse ;)
Look, you still aren't addressing the issues I'm raising.
>> What are we doing now to prevent a grim future? > Simple - not use it.
You are not using it already. Didn't stop TikTok from getting to the #1 spot. Saying "it's bad, don't use it" works about as well as abstinence-only sex-ed.
>I think the point there is that until a new biz model comes up for social media there is always an incentive to abuse privacy (Facebook/IG) or be abused for surveillance by a gov't.
OK? We aren't talking about that.
What I am saying is that people don't use a social network because of its business model and privacy stance. You might, and you are not representative (again, #1 app!).
If a non-evil, different-business-model social network springs up, it would need to have the good sides of TikTok for users to switch. Otherwise it will fail.
Do you understand that if you want TikTok to fail, you need to understand why people are flocking to it in droves? Queer/disabled/neurodivergent people in particular?
>It's entertainment.
If you only see TikTok as entertainment at this point, after I went to more than extensive detail about the value it brings beyond that, I perceive it as staying willfully ignorant by choice.
>There are more suitable alternatives (reading books, watching movies, etc.)
Suitable for whom? Again, you can only speak for yourself here. My point is that there are no suitable alternatives for large groups of people, particularly neurodivergent/disabled people and folks with mental health issues.
I have written a lot specifically to convey the point that both the value they get on TikTok (beyond entertainment) and the barriers they face elsewhere are not well understood here, and spent quite some time writing about both.
If you could do me a favor and re-read the entire thread before arguing further, I'd feel like my efforts to explain both the value and the barriers were not in vain.
>that have far less evil externalities.
FYI, shifting the burden of responsibility for the externalites onto the shoulders of consumers has not worked once. We have seen this with environmental damage, transportation, smoking, and so on. (If you want to argue about that, let's do it in a different thread, and please look up some examples before trying to reason about what "should" and "should not" work).
Once again, appreciate your use of italics. Ain't nobody gonna read the whole thing.
Summarizing, "you, switch, already, whom, should, should not". Did I miss anything?
Yes, you missed the guidelines for commenting on this forum.
I don't think people are saying it'll get worse, but rather that it's already bad, and over time we'll learn to what extent that is.
If you know that and continue to use it, thats fine. I still used Facebook long after all the malarky about that came out (and as is this case, a lot of people, myself included, were already seeing the signs of it way before it came out). You need to pick your battles, in a world where everyone has their no #1 important issue you MUST act on, you need to decide where you can spare the mental energy.
But denying it because you want to have your cake and eat it too probably isn't healthy
"Bad" is a very vague term.
The claim I specifically disagree with is that TikTok currently actively deplatforms LGBTQ+ and disabled people.
It simply was the opposite of my experience, as my suggested videos are at least 90% LGBTQ or disabled people.
I can't even compare it to other social networks, as it gives these "vulnerable" demographics an incredibly large reach today — even with the alleged censorship — and nothing else comes even close!
—Your car is bad, it has no seatbelts and airbags
—But the other cars I can get don't even run! —Why don't you agree that it's a bad car? –Because it can get me places the other cars don't —So you think that no airbags is good? —No, I thinking that a driveable car without airbags is better for me than the stationary car that has them. It's good for me to have this car, my life improved after I got it. I use it to get to my friends that live far away. —But what about those kids that took a car for a joy ride and crashed it? —Perhaps they should not have been driving —But it's a Chinese car, it spies on you! —I have to use it to reach my friends because there's no other way —So you're denying that your car will be junk in a few years? It's not healthy! —Neither is worrying about potentially grim future —But it'll be worth nothing soon! —And by that time, I'll get its worth by other means
Bad is a vague term, I thought we were talking about data privacy and such whereas it seems you're talking about deplatforming. My mistake there, although I would say that, especially in the context of data privacy, you probably want to avoid bad things happening.
The car analogy doesn't really work, because you don't seem to be saying "TikTok is terrible but its the best we've got". In fact, you seem to be being quite combative with others when they say something along the lines of "TikTok is terrible", which oddly enough, is kind of negative itself. But maybe I'm just misreading things, emotion can be harder to decipher through text, so I suppose only you can know.
Indeed, I was talking about deplatforming because that's what the comment I responded to brought up.
Privacy-wise... OK, I'm an ex-FAANG, and that ship has sailed long ago. My cynical view is that TikTok is far down the line of entities that collect all the same data.
As for the car analogy, yes, this was exactly what I was trying to say; apologies for lack of clarity.
I was arguing with others who were saying "TikTok is juts as bad as all the others, and if it's not, it will be", which is an empty statement.
I'd switch to a privacy-conscious alternative in a heartbeat, and my point is that there is none, by a long shot.
And that's the thing. If you care about the downsides of TikTok, you better understand why the users go there instead of other platforms that are ostensibly "just the same".
Facebook didn't grow because it was "same" as MySpace; and everyone missing the difference is why Facebook is the giant it is today.
I'm trying to explain the value users derive from TikTok that other platforms don't provide.
Specifically as a member of the "vulnerable" groups on TikTok. I am bringing here a perspective that the person speaking on my behalf clearly doesn't have, being neither a TikTok user, nor, it seems, a member of any of these groups.
The discourse here reached a point of gaslighting where people are convincing me that I'm being "exploited" when I point out that out.
Deplatforming isn't really my wheelhouse so I'll stay out of that one, there are plenty of intelligent people on both sides of the coin who do understand the issue to the point where there isn't much value in my chipping in.
As for data privacy, you make a fair point. As I said in an earlier comment, despite my misgivings about their "take everything that isnt bolted down" approach, I continued to use Facebook even after the big hoo-ha because, like TikTok does for you, it brought me value. The only thing I would take issue with is if someone who did get value from one of those platforms and wanted to keep their privacy high ground by denying any issues, but as you've made clear, your not that person, so we can safely dismiss that now.
> And that's the thing. If you care about the downsides of TikTok, you better understand why the users go there
To be fair, this is an excellent point, and not just in the context of social media. Too often in politics for example you see peoples explanation for why the people they disagree with do and say the things they do and say is "that group are idiots/ignorant/evil, my group is intelligent/enlightened/kind". So you'll get no argument from me there.
Overall, I think this was just a bit of a miscommunication and we're actually coming from roughly the same place. I can't say I'm a big fan of TikTok, but you would probably think the same thing about Facebook or Google (I don't use facebook anymore but google still have their claws around me), so it'd be hypocritical for either of us to try to take the highground.
I agree that we agree :)
And I am a very active Facebook user, too (the use case of keeping in touch with many friends scattered across the nation/world is covered pretty darn well there).
The value I derive from these platforms is orthogonal; there's a place for both.
I am not a fan of Google because they keep changing things and killing off the projects that I like. Believe it or not, I was completely sold on the Circles premise of Google+, and nothing has come close to that ever since. The most important downside of G+, of course, isn't privacy — it's that it no longer exists.
So I'm just waiting for someone to finally figure search out. That's the only thing keeping me there (I use an IMAP mail client, so can switch easily; Maps aren't a unique proposition; Docs aren't something I use).
I tend to write a lot in enthusiastic agreement, so I'll just say yes, if people were more willing to think about why people like Trump in 2016, we probably would not have had Trump (..nor Clinton running against him, for that matter).
The feeling of belonging, acceptance, and power drove disenfranchised poor male white rural Americans to Trump like a magnet, and the Dem party decided that they don't need to care about that because Trump is so obviously bad. It's very frustrating to think about like 100 different ways that scenario could have played out differently.
I feel like that's what I see now with this TikTok discussion. I literally had to defend against accusations of being a parasocial relationship addict for stating my point. Because, apparently, one must be a lifeless addict to be enthusiastic about that platform sigh.
My doomsday prediction is that TikTok will continue to dominate social media, with PRC being intelligent enough to wield influence softly enough for it not to be noticeable (unlike FB literally enabling genocide). Where that will land us in 10 years is an interesting question to consider.
Who knows, maybe we'll get our government to spend less on rockets, and give us healthcare and education instead. Isn't that a win for Chinese geopolitics? I would hope it is! :) Somehow.
(Off-topic, but in the same way, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 happened with quite a lot of help from the Germans, who figured it's going to kick Russians out of the war - which it did. Whether it was good for the Russians is to debate to this day.)
I think the reason Google has such a stranglehold over me is more the fact that they have so many small things that, whilst individually are easily replacable, would be a big job to do at once. The only things I can't see I could easily replace is the account switching with chrome (although I haven't really looked into it, there probably is something) and Keep (the fact that theres nothing out there quite like it is honestly shocking, to the point that I've considered just doing it myself). Everything else is, as you say, not particularly unique, theres just so much of it.
To be honest when I wrote the argument that people should listen to the other sideI didn't even have Trump in mind, but it is a great point and kind of shows it is a universal issue (both politically and otherwise), though Im optimistic that things are slowly starting to change, if for no other reason than for seeing these kinds of comments :)
And you're absolutely right, it applies to TikTok too, so I apologise for being so quick to jump the gun and forget to practice what I preach, and thank you for the great discussion. It is always nice to have something which starts as an argument end so nicely, whether we agree with everything or not. Have a lovely day :)
Also, please accept my sincere thank-you for providing your input to this discussion, as well as putting in effort to understand what I was trying to say, and have me say more about what I didn't convey clearly.
It's this kind of discussion that keeps bringing me back to HN!
Some people want tiktoks algo to exposure folks to the right wing militia folks and jam up the interaction heavily (offsense / counter offense).
Tiktok (arguably) doesn't do this, but keeps people exposed to happy bubbles. If you click away quickly from LGBTQ+ you'll see less of it? Maybe?
I'm not LGBTQ myself but I get plenty of that content. I can imagine tiktok also paying attention to this country by country (ie, Saudi Arabia probably not getting as much?).
I read these types of things as the outrage / offense response, and at least from what I can see plenty of interesting (and diverse) folks are on tiktok. My feed feels MORE diverse their then facebook for example (including more unusual things relative to my FB feed including viewpoints) Comments seem more positive as a result.
> TikTok's algorithm has introduced me to my (now) favorite neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ content makers.
But when did that start? Possibly earlier before the “people who attract trouble” filters were added in to the algorithms or tweaked. Now you've shown engagement with those families of content other parts of the recommendation system will be taking precedence over the negative filters. A newer user than yourself may have quite a different experience, only finding those groups through external recommendation.
> Honestly, if they decide to keep it a clique... I don't mind at all.
So now you are in the clique, you are fine with it being a clique (not just that: a clique born of external pressure to keep it quiet, not through the cliques choice) and other like you but not there yet can fend for themselves?
[I'm deliberately pulling your words towards an extreme a little here to make a point: being happy with your position in the status quo does not mean it is a good status quo, just that you exist near a local maxima]
As the userbase continues to grow, these artificial cliques will become increasingly more minority and the whole system will become a more unpleasant place for people who don't fit the supported pattern (and as they are filtering the bullied not the bullies, the supported pattern, the future majority if it isn't already, implicitly includes the bullies).
> All the people I interact with there get me. I've never felt this anywhere else.
While the filtering described above (stop bullying by hiding the people who might be bullied because it is easier than actually dealing with the bullies) can be seen to have a positive effect of keeping the knuckle-dragging numbskulls away from your communities, it also hides your communities from others like you who might need their support or could otherwise benefit from being part of them.
> but simply being themselves
As long as you don't mind being yourselves to a limited audience, where the limits are set by external pressures not your needs/desires. If you'll forgive another appeal to the extreme: tiktok filtering differences that might attract bullying seems to me not dissimilar to allowing you to be yourselves but only if you wouldn't mind terribly, being who you are in just those specific seats at the back of the bus, thanks.
---
Not that I have an axe to grind for myself here (straight, white, middle class, middle-aged, native English speaker, approaching financially comfortable, ..., about as divergent as an entirely undivergent thing) other than a bit of bullied-for-being-different as a kid (being a geek/nerd type wasn't fashionable back then) but I have friends & other contacts all over the various spectra and from what I know of their experiences and how tiktok is run and how similar things have played out over the decades, what you describe sounds to be a very short term good thing that is (and will continue to be if unchecked) an increasingly closed off part of the system, a walled garden built not to keep you safe but to keep you out of sight. Allowing yourself to be kept out of sight is not how to encourage society to move forward and be more accepting.
A lot of your argument seems to be based on the assumption that I've been on the platform for a long time.
I joined last month.
Specifically, over a year after the article cited by the parent comment was written.
That's my point here: I don't know if their algorithms were bad in the past, they are not bad now in the way the parent comment claimed then to be.
As for the rest of your comment, you seem to miss that we're already out of sight away from TikTok, so your doomsday scenario is my yesterday. And we are so isolated that a walled garden is a huge improvement over solitude.
There's tremendous value in creating safe spaces for people to connect with people who understand each other better. HackerNews is such space for tech.
The incredible thing about TikTok is the the algorithm can connect you to the right people even if you're not consciously aware of belonging to the group.
As in "Wait, I didn't know that I'd be into programming so much until I found out what it actually is after watching all these videos, and now that I know, I enjoy interacting with software developers tremendously".
And, as I pointed out, we already have other platforms to speak out to the world (which, consistently, chooses not to listen).
What TikTok does is an unparalleled reach to speak to each other.
It's peer-to-peer way more than you'd think looking from the outside in.
Let’s say that this purported effect of hiding the ”divergent” to ostensibly avoid bullying does not exist at any substantial rate, at least not for you. I’m still curious what you think about the claims in the articles further up the thread, regarding steps they took to try to make that happen (even if maybe they were unsuccessful). Personally, it doesn’t leave me with a great taste in my mouth.
Let's be clear: it sucks, and at least it used to happen.
But it sucks precisely because there's no other platform that gives the neurodivergent crowd a voice the way TikTok does.
This is why I'm talking about it! If the engineers in the West don't understand the value of TikTok, we'll never get a homegrown alternative.
Think about TikTok as an apartment complex with an awful landlord that sometimes kicks disabled people out...
...while still remaining the only accessible housing for disabled people in town.
Everyone here is saying that obviously it's going to turn into a slum, look how it mistreats disabled people!
And I say, please come and see for yourself how this place is different from others if you want us to move, because this goddamn slum at least has wheelchair ramps, and wherever y'all are living does not.
What are those wheelchair ramps?
Short legth limits, audio captioning, using audio from another video so you don't have to talk, easy text placement (again, so you don't have to talk), all videos are vertical, ability to respond to a comment with a video (and encouraging it by imposing 150 char limit), responding to another video with video (including part of it for context), ability to download videos (so you can play or edit them however you want),
— and that's just off the top of my head on the content creation side. Off the top of my head.
Most importantly, it's that algorithm does a good job at bringing you the right audience, having one-click promotion tools, having detailed analytics, etc.
If you don't see this as accessibility features, well, that's my entire point.
The net result is that a TikTok post can start a conversation, with videos. And someone just talking - or just acting to audio - is first-class content. As is just showing a slice of your life and slapping some text on it.
Even if you make such content on other platforms, it'll have zero reach there. You have to do much more work to have people watch a video on IG or FB (people would just scroll past your video without playing it), or YouTube (whose UX strongly favors long videos, otherwise it's too many clicks).
The effort required to make a video for other platforms that people would see is a barrier that TikTok creators don't face.
This applies to everyone, but neurodivergent people benefit from it especially.
> That's my point here: I don't know if their algorithms were bad in the past, they are not bad now in the way the parent comment claimed then to be.
It isn't that the algorithms have been changed for the better. It is that they don't affect your use case. People expressing the things you want to see expressed are they and can be found if searched for, the recommendation algorithms don't have a significant effect there.
> The incredible thing about TikTok is the the algorithm can connect you to the right people even if you're not consciously aware of belonging to the group.
While the algorithm is serving you more content from those groups now you have been identified it isn't the algorithm that got you there in the first place, and once it has put you in your clique it is perfectly happy to give you more content from within that clique and serve any content you share within that clique.
If that is good for you then that is fine, but you have been digitally segregated. The algorithm doesn't mark individual items of content as being targets for bullying and so hides them from the larger population, it marks the user who posted that content (and possibly those that interacted with it too). What about people within the clique that the algorithm's filters are is assigning them to who have other interests too, and they want to express those widely? To make up a realistic example: my friend who happens to be trans puts out a great little clip based on one of Fiore's dagger plays, as does someone else who isn't (or hasn't been identified as by the TikTok) in any minority group, me for example. My clip has a greater chance of being presented by the recommendation algorithms to the whole global HEMA community, hers will likely only ever be presented to other users within the assigned clique. Nothing stops either bit of content being published, found by direct link, found by people that know us so might check our stuff specifically, and so forth, but because of the “hide users who bullies might pile on, instead of actually dealing with the bullies” filter the spread of her content will probably be more curtailed than mine because she is trans despite the content not being related to that part of her identity in any way shape or form.
> What TikTok does is an unparalleled reach to speak to each other.
Which is fine if you don't want to use the platform for anything else. You might be happy[†] being segregated into a clique by these filters, or at least otherwise unaffected by the fact because you don't want to use TikTok for anything else, but other people are inconvenienced by it, potentially significantly so.
There may be workarounds of course. Perhaps having multiple accounts. But that is asking people to make an effort to not be inconvenienced which is itself inconvenient, and the multiple accounts thing might not even work reliably as accounts could end up linked to each other in the back-end by various means either deliberate or as an emergent behaviour of tracking and classification functions.
For the avoidance of doubt: I think it is a very good thing that you have been able to “find your people”, to find an environment in which you feel safe to be you, in which you feel both understood and supported. Just be careful that this safe environment doesn't slide into becoming more of a prison, keeping you in rather than keeping negatives out.
TikTok has a lot going for it as a platform, but you should always understand a company's motivations when using their product. TikTok wants you to spend more time with your digital friends, because they make money from peppering ads in your experience with them. So sure, much like Facebook, Twitter or any other platform with the same business model, they will tacitly encourage users to spend as much time as possible on the platform.
I've seen this comment echoed with Tumblr, Instagram, Musical.ly and about every other social media platform. The issue with them? Corporate interests superseded user control, and the whole thing went sideways. Nobody's telling you that you can't like TikTok, and I don't doubt you have an extensive list of all the things you like about it. Undeniably though, TikTok is stepping on the exact same banana peel that every other network did, even if they do a damn good job of controlling their western narrative.
Keep using TikTok if it makes you happy, but remember that happiness doesn't come from apps, it's a state of mind. There are healthier, less destructive ways to surround yourself with the content you love, trust me.
Too many to unpack here, but I'll start with this.
Repeat after me: digital friends are friends.
Personally, TikTok takes a very small fraction of my life (I go there when I don't feel I can do anything else), and I have many "real world" friends to interact with offline.
And I met some of them through social networks.
Question to consider for you: during the pandemic, when one probably couldn't see most of their friends and had to interact with them remotely, did they cease being friends?
Also, just an FYI, your comment comes off as patronizing, missing my point, and making a lot of assumptions about me.
And remember, there are healthier, less destructive ways to surround yourself with the content you love than writing such comments on HackerNew, trust me.
Just wanted to add: aside from assumptions you seem to be making about me and my usage of TikTok, I agree with your points.
>TikTok is stepping on the exact same banana peel
I wouldn't count on TikTok being great in a few years too.
But what I've seen with many products, platforms, and ideas is that something good comes along, perishes, and then the uniquely good parts are gone for good because people didn't get what was good specifically, and so nobody took the torch to carry it forward.
When Facebook started, the novel idea was creating a social network that connected people who already had something in common: namely, going to the same school. That's why it blew up. Because it facilitated bonding within those communities.
It was exclusive by design (no .edu email = no Facebook, not same school = no seeing info), and that's what made it great for the initial wave of users that made it big.
TikTok blew up for a similar reason. It connects people who are already related in some way really well: either by a common interest, or - as in the case I am highlighting - by sharing the experiences of being adults with ADHD / ASD / OCD / BPD / depression / anxiety / burnout / trauma / abuse etc -- a demographic for which it's hard to connect (and be open!) with people in general, people who can't relate doubly so (and unless you know someone really well, it's not something that you can openly discuss in this society).
This is the idea I want to highlight. I want that on other platforms. I want someone to make it when TikTok goes down the drain. And so far, few seem to understand what it is that TikTok gave us -- so we might be left without a platform again in a few years.
Which would suck.
>Nobody's telling you that you can't like TikTok
Many people in the thread shamed me for liking TikTok. If you scroll up, I've been accused of (quote):
* being an addict to parasocial relationships with content creators (with many implying that I only consume that content)
* enabling oppression and exploitation of underprivileged content creators
* etc
So yes, people here are literally telling me that it's bad to like using TikTok, equating it to a moral transgression.
>There are healthier, less destructive ways to surround yourself with the content you love, trust me.
It's not about content. It's about people.
And what basis do you have for telling me to trust you here? Do you have credentials in mental health to back that up, or are you just being patronizing? Relatable experience? Genuinely curious.
Note that I am not telling anyone here what they should do, I only give my perspective as a user of the platform.
But if you do know of "less destructive" ways, pray, do tell, how would one go about connecting to a couple of dozen people who would be willing to openly talk (with voice! while showing their faces!) about how they experienced the symptoms of surviving narcissistic abuse, how they spotted it within themselves, and what helps them personally?
Without paying a dime, I must add?
I'll be checking this comment for responses, because either I'll learn something new (great!), or I see no response, and conclude that you learned something new (even better!).
I'd love to hear your long list of reasons why. This is coming from someone who has heard of Tik Tok but has never used it. I'm a late adopter to social platforms, joining Twitter in 2014 and not really using it until last year.
OK, I have responded to many people in this thread.
The TL;DR is that TikTok connects people who are facing the same struggles, which really helps with dealing with them.
China was supposed to start overtaking the US, but the one child policy knee-capped that route. Now their workforce is getting much smaller and the burden of care for the elderly is growing fast.
Unless you count farmers as part of the workforce, otherwise China will not see a reduction of their workforce for 10-15 years.
Why not count farmers as part of the workforce?
Farming as percentage of workforce is still huge in China. Higher than countries with similar GDP per capita. Urbanization is also not high enough.
Because the amount of farmers is mostly decoupled from total agricultural output for industrial societies until you hit ~2%. So they're not really productive in the way normal workers are.
Based China’s leadership’s track record, they do not seem like they will hesitate to reduce that burden if necessary.
Didn't they just lift that?
They did but the results won't have any immediate impact. Some have argued that it was done too late.
> workforce is getting much smaller
"Much smaller" will still be about 3x the US one. If that's your best bet, it's not a good one :-D
Facebook won because people from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland could not only connect with friends in their domestic and neighboring countries but because they could connect with friends all around the globe.
That's what pretty much happened all around the world with FB/IG or in one word standardization.
You can with Discord? But what is really connecting?
>But what is really connecting?
Status updates, text, photos, videos etc.
Huh, TIL Myspace was geoblocked?
Not only that. Even thought VZ always showed impressive numbers it always was kinda niche. Definitely not as widespread as some comments make it out to be.
We already know enough about TikTok to hate it. Unfortunately, the masses don't seem to care.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok#Controversies
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news...
The masses generally don't care. I mean, if you look at the Apple debacle recently, most people will forget about it or won't even be aware about it after a few months.
are you being serious with that second link?
kinda funny how people must not realize literally every app is querying all that information all the time...
The sense of blind superiority on HN is getting very frustrating and Reddit-like.
Let me kindly remind you that your comment is breaking this guideline: [0]
> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Fatalism is how bad things survive. Don't accept bad behavior, and sure as hell don't criticize those that are standing up to it.
No one has described how those things are bad.
I do not want apps to access info they don’t need. That’s how it is bad.
> Unfortunately, the masses don't seem to care.
It looks like you know enough to hate it without using it.
What's up with the sense of superiority here?
The "masses" do care, but if you were an active user of the platform, you'd know that nothing comes even close to what TikTok brings to the table.
E.g.: do I care that TikTok censors LGBTQ+ crowd? Absolutely.
But guess which platform allows me to connect with that demographic the most. Yup, that's still TikTok. And what I learned on that platform changed my life for the better like a magic wand.
What you say is a prime example of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Focusing only on the obvious and known downsides means being blind as to why it is the most downloaded app, which is what I try to illuminate by my comments.
And it's the #1 app not because "the masses" are stupid.
>But guess which platform allows me to connect with that demographic the most. Yup, that's still TikTok. And what I learned on that platform changed my life for the better like a magic wand.
Can you elaborate further? This seems quite intense praise. What do you mean by "changed my life like a magic wand"? It's just hyperactive short videos, isn't it?
>It's just hyperactive short videos, isn't it?
It's not.
There is a fledgling neurodivergent community (people with ADHD, ASD, etc) who openly talk about what the symptoms look like from the perspective of people who experience them, how to cope with them, and how all of this fits into the larger picture of our existence in this world.
A lot of people have never been diagnosed because their symptoms don't manifest themselves in a "typical" way. DSM is written from the perspective of "describe how your teenage son makes life inconvenient for you" when it comes to ADHD/ASD, not "which everyday experience are awfully hard for you".
Due to the abysmal state of healthcare access in the US, including mental healthcare, and persistent stigmatization of mental healthcare, self-diagnosis is now effectively the first (and the most important) step towards getting an official diagnosis and care (or simply taking advantage of all the available resources).
On top of that, normalizing the discourse surrounding mental health disorders and neurotypes, and showing how ADHD, ASD, OCD, BPD, anxiety, depression, etc. feel to the person who experiences it has an enormous impact on adults who have been struggling all their lives without ever realizing why.
Realizing both that most people don't face the same challenges (i.e. that it's easy for them to do things that are challenging to you!), and finding that you are not alone, and finding out how to deal with it, and finding a supportive community - all of that is life-changing.
In fewer words, imagine having a shrimp allergy, but living in a society that does not recognize allergies and shames people who don't eat shrimp as "weak".
So you eat shrimp every day, feel awful because your body can't handle it, and then feel guilty for not being "strong" enough. "You are just not trying hard enough!", the society tells you.
Imagine discovering a community of people who have shrimp allergies. Learning that it's a thing. Learning that you don't have to eat the same things most people do, that there's a better way to experience food. Learning that if you can't avoid it, antihistamines exist that you can take to make the experience far more bearable. Learning that really, a shrimp allergy doesn't make you worthless as a person.
That's what the neurodivergent TikTok is currently doing.
My guess is that it just shows hyperactive short meaningless videos to you because either it doesn't have enough input from you to train the algorithm - or maybe that's what you like watching on of the platform. Perhaps your community isn't on TikTok yet.
But as one of the people ostensibly "harmed" by TikTok, I find it offensive that someone would so boldly speak on my behalf when my experience has been the exact opposite.
Hope this helps.
> and I bet you they wish they had shown their domestic company a bit more love back when this would have made a difference.
German here, the problem was different. Facebook was the more attractive portal - they offered stuff like third party apps. Farmville was the death penalty for Lokalisten and xVZ, who were very vocal about not having open APIs for a long time. People naturally flocked to Facebook just to play Farmville.
Please support your argument with facts.
> You got used to the idea that the US has the ability to be better at anything
I don't think this has ever been true, but perhaps it's just my social circles.
the idea that Americans are more innovative hasn't been true for quite a while - look at Nio, Xiaomi, Huawei, ByteDance, and countless other examples.
I wonder how many employees at these corporations previously worked at Tesla, Apple, Cisco and Vines...
In Huawei's case, the binaries shipped with the products still had the Cisco copyright strings in them!
> back in 2008 when Facebook was tiny on a global scale, there was a German €100m company called StudiVZ that dominated the social networking in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland with about 10m active users.
What happened?
The same that's happening with Facebook and Tik Tok - the new guys built a better product and that was it. In a sense, it's how life works - the winner takes it all. But that's only true in a 100% free-for-all society, whereas most countries have found that some level of regulation is better than none. To take this a level further, consider the fact that many European countries impose tariffs on US-made cars, making them substantially more expensive to buy in Europe than in the US. A way around that, obviously, is to manufacture them in Europe. Is there something to be said about asking a company that's about to kick Facebook's ass, to use a US-based hosting infrastructure for their US traffic?
> To take this a level further, consider the fact that many European countries impose tariffs on US-made cars, making them substantially more expensive to buy in Europe than in the US. A way around that, obviously, is to manufacture them in Europe. Is there something to be said about asking a company that's about to kick Facebook's ass, to use a US-based hosting infrastructure for their US traffic?
With GDPR Europe is actually moving toward a tax on tech by requiring local data-centers be used. If you can't innovate, time to regulate!
This is an out of touch take from the TikTok=China=bad days of 2019/2020.
I see queer creators on TikTok all the time. Quite frequently actually.
This was the second video that showed up for me today, with 500k views (it is propaganda out of the White House, in collaboration with a popular queer creator): https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosCgTr/
Only 50k views from an amateur creator, because TikTok hates queers: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoss9jL/
90k likes because TikTok hates fat people: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/
100k: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoGfVKH/
> 90k likes because TikTok hates fat people: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/
I dunno: this bad posture video is some BS. It seems to be teaching just a different bad posture. People might be liking it, and TikTok might not be discriminating against it (which at least is positive), but that is no indication that the content is of any quality.
Its a joke/meme.
On TikTok, you can see the original sound a video uses, and find all the videos that use that sound, including the original: https://www.tiktok.com/music/You-dont-have-a-double-chin-681...
This video illustrates the original intent of the joke: https://www.tiktok.com/@officialreggiecouz/video/68368175634...
With the fat people posting, the joke is that they actually do have 'double chin'.
>It seems to be teaching just a different bad posture.
It's making fun of a different video using it's audio. The original audio source is linked above the video. A feature i kind of love.
No one said that there are no queer people on TikTok, or that they get no exposure. They said that TikTok artificially limits their exposure in several ways, especially outside their home country. That's probably not a big deal if they're in the US, but potentially a very big deal elsewhere.
Maybe most people aren't interested in queer content, so it doesn't get viral. It may be there, but most people immediately scroll it up.
Exactly. I'm a gay man, but most of the content I watch on social media platforms isn't "gay" content.
That has nothing to do with TikTok explicitly limiting the suggestion rates of certain video categories.
50k is really amateur numbers. 50k people have probably already read you comment. Charli Damelio's last post was her eating a bag of Takis for 20 seconds and it got 15 MILLION views. We're just not seeing those numbers in marginalized communities on tiktok but we do see queer creators with top-tier numbers on youtube, facebook, insta, etc. Where's the trans Charli or the obese Charli or the anti-capitalist Charli?
Secondly, you're cherry picking examples. First you can't see how much more exposure these people would have had. Secondly, you're probably not in a country where these people would be invisible to you.
Cherry-picking model minorities isn't helping your case at all. I'm not seeing anything too upsetting to the status quo here or to anything that might threaten tiktok economically. Those voices certainly aren't going to be heard as much. This is like cherry picking popular books, movies, and posters in China and saying, "So where's all the censorship then?" Survivorship bias is at work here, you're only really seeing the survivors.
Its incredible that tiktok literally has admitted to this:
https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/50444/1/ti...
Yet somehow the popular HN response is alt-right denial and dismissal of anything that remotely sounds "SJW" to them. Literally after The Intercept and Netzpolitik broke these stories to the public. Its not even in the realm of "wow are they doing this?" As much as it is in the realm of "How much of this are they doing and how much do we not know?"
“TikTok users posting videos with these hashtags are given the impression their posts are just as searchable as posts by other users, but in fact they aren’t,” the report said. “In practice, most of these hashtags are categorised in TikTok’s code in the same way that terrorist groups, illicit substances, and swear words are treated on the platform.”
Its incredible to me that the oppression could not be more obvious, yet bigoted attitudes guarantee that some people will refuse to believe even what tiktok says. The fact that this company is grouping terrorists with queer and disabled people is completely and utterly inexcusable.
Also encouraging vaccinations isn't "propaganda" but sane and safe health policy.
You are cherry picking influencers to try and argue your point.. How do you know Charli Damelio isn’t queer? Maybe the reason you don’t see a certain demographic doing big numbers on a platform is because the users on said platform are not interested? I find it odd that you immediately jump to the conclusion that it must be oppression because everybody doesn’t find what you think they should find interesting.
I’d rather watch somebody eat a bag of chips than listen to them talk about their sexual preferences.. I could care less what somebody finds attractive or who/what they are dating.
> Maybe the reason you don’t see a certain demographic doing big numbers on a platform is because the users on said platform are not interested?
With a platform as popular as TikTok… no way does that fly.
> Also encouraging vaccinations isn't "propaganda" but sane and safe health policy.
Sane and safe health policy can still be propaganda. The moment you distill things into messages you just repeat and push, it’s propaganda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
As a queer person who uses TikTok, I think you should take some time to challenge your assumptions and get some more information. This video might be informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MYEtQ5Zdn8
I should correct a mistake I made earlier: all of my numbers cited are likes not views. The TikTok promoting vaccines was seen 3.5 Million times. There are many queer creators with videos in the millions of views, and many more with videos in the hundreds of thousands.
Still, I don't think its reasonable to expect niche content from obese people to perform as well as generic content from normative people. I also don't think its reasonable to expect trans content to perform as well, given that a substantial portion of the US population still doesn't want to recognize or legalize their existence.
Yet, there is an abundance of queer content (content that sought me out, I never told TikTok that I'm gay), much of it quite niche. TikTok sends me enough gay male twink armpit fetish content that I don't realistically think you can say they're making a serious effort to suppress it.
If you're focusing on hashtags and not algorithm suggestions, I think you don't have a strong grasp of how TikTok works. All of the cited sources are quite old, so perhaps it was too early for folks to actually have time to use and understand the service.
Your claim that there is nothing threatening to China or TikTok economically is suspect, given the algorithm has also suggested Uighur muslim genocide content: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMR1RhcUj/ - there are many more. This one has 65k likes. I also had no trouble searching for Taiwan and finding content that is quite hostile to China. I've had the fyp send me content directly critical of TikTok itself.
> “In practice, most of these hashtags are categorised in TikTok’s code in the same way that terrorist groups, illicit substances, and swear words are treated on the platform.”
The implementation details of an app aren't necessarily meaningful in the way you suggest. Twitter does something similar; I can type #isis #gay #weed #sex, and now Twitter has code that handles lgbtq, terrorist, and illicit substance content the same way.
> also don't think its reasonable to expect trans content to perform as well, given that a substantial portion of the US population still doesn't want to recognize or legalize their existence
1.) A substantial portion of the US population doesn't want to recognize or legalize the existence of trans people? What are you talking about? You're aware of some faction that's actively trying to make being transgender illegal?
2.) Your expectation is that content produced by transgender individuals (less than 1% of the population) is on aggregate as popular as content made by the remaining 99% of people? Do you mind defining the distribution you would consider to be acceptable here, as well as why you think it currently isn't your desired distribution?
Have you responded to the wrong comment here? You seem to be agreeing that obese, trans and other niche content is likely to be less popular than generic, less niche content.
1.) A substantial portion of the US population doesn't want to recognize or legalize the existence of trans people? What are you talking about? You're aware of some faction that's actively trying to make being transgender illegal?
Hard to read what you disagree with here, but yes there are factions that are trying to make behaviours that trans people exhibit illegal. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathroom_bill
1) recognize: https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-transgenderism-not-sup... (one example of thousands, I’m sure)
1) legalize: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_rights_in_the_Un...
2) I am specifically contesting that assertion. We appear to have a case of violent agreement here. One of the earlier posts suggested that lack of a trans person with 10+ million views is evidence that TT is suppressing content. I contend that the relative unpopularity of trans-related content (only hundreds of thousands or a few million views) is well explained by structural factors and no intervention on TT’s part would be needed to create that outcome. If anything, my experience is that queer and trans content is overrepresented on the platform relative to what you’d expect based on the IRL population/demographics.
Okay well let's limit the conversation to #1, then. Let's start with legal, since it's easier.
---
So, I don't understand what any of what you linked has to do with "legalizing the existence of trans people." Nothing referenced in the wikipedia article is remotely to do with making it illegal to be transgender, and I have never heard an argument advocating for that.
So what is being debated is whether or not transgender individuals should be granted protections on the basis of their gender identity. That is not debating whether or not they should exist, it is debating whether or not an additional legislative layer should be put in place to prevent workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
Then there is a debate about birth certificates, about whether or not transgender individuals should be able to have their birth certificate reflect their chosen gender identity, but this is just as much to do with language as anything else. The concept of sex vs gender identity, and the meaning of "gender" as ambiguous between those depending on political faction. Again, this isn't a debate about whether transgender people can legally exist, it's a debate about whether the world should be altered so as to conform to their own perception of themselves.
---
This leads to "recognition." Your definition of "recognition" seems to be "recognized within the exact framing of themselves as they wish to be seen." Let's consider two examples of identity related dysphoria. One is a born biological male who considers his gender identity to be female, and one is a man on a street corner that believes himself to be Jesus Christ. If the rest of society refused to see the man on the corner as Jesus Christ, would you say that this was society not recognizing the existence of the man? Surely not. The acceptance of his existence, and the application of all human rights applied to the individual have nothing to do with whether or not people accept this man on all of the terms of his asserted identity. In regards to transgender individuals, accepting this person's identity often boils down to strict hardline questions, a la "is this person a woman?" Any degree of nuance in the answer to that question is to be understood as society "not recognizing the existence" of transgender people? No. I'm sorry. But a failure to recognize somebody exactly within the framing of their own identity that they put forward is not the same as not accepting their existence. That language is absurd.
I don’t know why you would limit the discussion to #1 when #2 is the only part that is really relevant to the topic at hand.
Assertion 1 is offered as evidence that TT wouldn’t need to actively suppress trans content for it to be unpopular. Perhaps that was unconvincing. I’d say you’re arguing a lot about specifics of terms to weasel out of accepting that some people don’t like trans people. The language argument is particularly weak in the way that arguments about word usage usually are. It is in fact quite common to use the language of “existence” when discussing gender/sex/orientation identity. Whether the physically don’t exist in a country, don’t exist as lgbt people, or don’t count as people at all: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/prominent-leader-chechnya-sa...
Stronger evidence for the claim that some people don’t like or want to accept trans people’s identity: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERF
Some people would actually murder other people because they say they are trans: https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-tra...
Okay, so if we're talking about murdering people because they are trans, that is what I'm talking about as not allowing them to exist. So let's look at the data. 33 gender-non-conforming people killed in 2021, by August, which we can extrapolate out to 50 for the year.
CDC says 19,000 homicides per year: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm
So, 50/19,000 means that 0.26% of murders are to gender-non-conforming people, which is less than the 0.6% of the US population which identifies as transgender. So the murders are literally under represented. And given that the murders are a broader category of gender-non-conforming, vs the 0.6% figure which is a subset that is specifically trans, the degree to which gender-non-conforming people are murdered as compared to the general population is even more under-represented.
So, no, trans people are not being prevented from existing in that capacity in the United States.
Now, in regards to not accepting people's identity, as I've already said...this is a completely different thing. If you take someone like JK Rowling, who is frequently labeled a TERF, then the criteria for "not allowing trans people to exist" is literally predicated on the existence of somebody who says that biological women exist as a valid category that is distinct from trans women. That is what JK Rowling says. She doesn't say trans people don't exist. She doesn't say that trans identities aren't valid, or that she wouldn't treat a trans person by the gender they identify with. She just says that a biological woman is a valid categorization. Now, of course there are people that don't accept that trans people's identities are what they say they are, but again, this also includes a good deal of semantic disagreement.
When a trans woman asserts "I am a woman," and somebody else says "no you're not," there is quite a bit of semantic warfare going on in that disagreement. The trans woman is saying, "I am a woman, which I mean to say that my gender is woman, which I mean to say is that my gender identity is woman, and therefore I am a woman." The critic says "no, you are not a woman, which I mean to say that your sex is not a woman." Again, this is not denying their right to exist, this is functionally a semantic argument. Freedom to exist does not mean that everyone in the society accepts the identity you put forth, and this isn't just limited to gender issues.
> encouraging vaccinations isn't "propaganda"
Tell that to Jacinda Ardern: https://www.magic.co.nz/home/news/2021/03/peter-williams--ja...
>alt-right denial and dismissal of anything that remotely sounds "SJW" to them.
Purely Pragmatic Advice : if people deny or dismiss something you think is true because of "SJW fatigue", accusing them of being alt-right is the last thing you want to do if you want to effectively sway them.
You really cannot make a claim about TikTok's content distribution based on your own feed. TikTok's feed is extremely hyper-targeted for each individual.
Isn't that the point? You can't say that tiktok "gets rid of people" in those demographics when Tiktok's algo creates all these micro communities where they flourish.
I've never seen more diversity and representation on social media than on Tiktok.
Sure, it "gets rid of people" by isolating them into bubbles and makes sure people who don't want to see it, well, won't see it. Is it "representation" if it's only seen by people who want to see it?
I think it's a big question, and one that applies to most social media, even if TikTok is one of the most extreme examples. Is it ethically/morally/socially good to de facto isolate niche groups of like-minded people into closed spaces? It feels bad to me, but I've also considered that people are "hard wired" for much smaller groups. Maybe the best way to deal with the scale of social media is to condense it down to small, isolated communities, although I personally prefer to actively choose them myself, rather than being herded by an algorithm into some unlabeled cluster with similar viewing habits.
>Is it "representation" if it's only seen by people who want to see it?
Why is that objectionable? It's not like people don't know about queer or trans people and tiktok is shielding them from knowing, people know and just aren't interested. Forcing people to watch things they aren't interested in only makes them resentful and fed up with them, instead of simply uninterested. Interest can't be demanded.
I don't think it's objectionable, I just think it's relevant to the discussion. I think most people use the word "representation" to mean a topic or idea being seen/floated within a larger audience, e.g. "representation" is having <x> actor in a Hollywood blockbuster (for the purpose of, say, exposing more people to a positive image of <x>). This doesn't seem like representation to me.
That said, if the goal of representation is just to provide more media/content for people who like <x>, then yes, this is representation. That's not how I think of the word, but words don't have concrete meanings in the real world.
Do you support minority quotas or any other measures intended for diversity?
No, quite honestly I think they are stupid (and was called a homophobe for that once).
Having minority characters in itself is perfectly okay, overcompensating in the other direction and flooding people's media with people that barely make up 10% of the population in a misguided attempt to "promote tolerance" is bizarre. Coupled with the fact that supporters of this idea all seem to share a very moralistic attitude and jump at the opportunity to call any critic the most extreme names they can come up with, that makes the idea pretty weak in my eyes.
> Is it "representation" if it's only seen by people who want to see it?
Yes. Definitely. The representation matters most to the people in that bubble. I just think about how great it would have been to see more queer media when was growing up.
Okay, that's fair. It's a different kind of representation than what I was thinking of, though, meaning general exposure of an idea to some kind of broader audience.
From an individual's perspective, being in a bubble is great. I get it. I just get a little anxiety at the idea of society being partitioned into a bunch of self-reaffirming bubbles of different extremes, something that's starting to feel very real in the US lately.
I don't like such things being chosen for me, but I definitely like not having things I'm not interested in shoved in my face.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/style/tiktok-gay-homiesex... Tik Tok is the queerest video platform out there. At least 20% of the videos I get are queer.
Anecdotally, I browse r/TikTokCringe (which, despite the name, is not exclusively cringe TikToks) and it sometimes feels like that number is much closer 50% or higher.
It's nice to see the data supports my observation.
Someone will always post this on top of any thread about TikTok and that someone must not have tried Tik Tok for very long. My feed is chok full of those that are supposed to be discriminated against, they have solid audiences, and there's great healthy communities around disabilities, LGBTQI+, race issues, politics...I rarely get a hot white babe doing a trendy dance and if i do she will probably have a prosthetic leg
Speaking of prosthetic legs. I feel I am a part of 'overcome a disability/incredible injury and persevere'-tok.
I swear tiktok have created an otherwise neglected and uplifting genre. I wonder what the algo classifies it as..?
I would have to disagree with you about the anti-queer slant. Maye it's what I've tuned the algorithm to, but I see far, far, far more queer and people of color on TikTok than any media form I have previously encountered.
They can (and do?) definitely firewall US content from China content.
Is this a statement about geography, or language?
Something tells me we don't have too many Chinese nationals living in China on hackernews either.
Or on Reddit. Or Facebook.
In fact, I saw the most content from China.. on TikTok. And since those were dance videos, I quickly skipped them. But I don't know if Chinese-speaking people in the US have the same experience.
Neither. Maybe I was unclear. I was responding to commenters saying "I often see uncensored LBGTQ+ content". I am assuming those posts are hidden from users in China. But it's just speculation!
I'm not sure how this is terribly relevant. Content would be segregated based on country, geography and language alone.
It's legally mandated. China's version of TikTok is a separate app called Douyin. The rest of the world gets a less restricted version.
Thanks.
You're not going to include the excerpt where a TikTok representative stated this was a bad practice and that they don't do those these things anymore?
I mean, that's about as credible as Facebook claiming to be turning over a new leaf on privacy, isn't it?
True or not it's still dishonest to exclude information that moots the point
It doesn't really moot the point. If they did stuff as egregious as that, we can make inferences about the company, their goals, and other stuff that they could be doing.
We can make those inferences with the additional information too, more informed inferences even
But I mean, we can all still find evidence of FB malfeasance, and I can find evidence of cool fat queer people showing up in my For You feed at the very least
The article says "limited the reach", not "banned them". There's not a great way for you or I to evaluate if that's still happening.
I joined Facebook (WhatsApp specifically) in January after working at Amazon for many years. It's evident to me that the company has been and continues to invest massively in privacy and privacy protection – to the extent of inventing new internal technologies that enforce it automatically while handling data, so that software developers don't have to add manual "Should this person/software system be able to access this content" checks all over the various sprawling systems that comprise such a massive platform: software that is privacy-protecting while handling data by default. This tech spans both employees and users. Additionally, all projects undergo a privacy review process, so as not to rely purely on technology. (And, who knows, maybe someday the tech will be open sourced such as FB released Apache Thrift, PyTorch, React, and tons of other tech).
(I will acknowledge that privacy means different things to different people, and that some people may consider a company building a profile of their behavior – even if used in an anonymized and aggregated way – to be violating their privacy. I personally don't consider it to be, but I accept that others have different views on this and don't want to be tracked, even if it's with the intention of making the product experience and advertising better. Personally, if I have to see ads, I'd rather they be personalized and relevant to my interests, than generic ads for Tide detergent or Coca-Cola. I actually bookmarked websites for two out of the last three ads YouTube showed me because they were products I didn't know about that I am actually interested in.
However, I have this comfort level in part because I am a software engineer who has worked on these systems, and I realize that the systems that build profiles and show content based on them are just machines that don't care one way or the other about people as individuals; and the engineers building those systems and managing those data sets are, by and large, with few exceptions, professionals doing a job, and have no interest in snooping on you. The larger tech companies also have internal monitoring systems that detect employee misuse of data, which is why you hear in the news about people occasionally being fired for it.
I'm sure there are people at your ISP who could single out and monitor your Internet traffic if they wanted to (though TLS would mean they could only learn what sites you visit – that could still be compromising information, e.g., do you visit porn sites?); and people at your cell phone company can probably listen in to your phone calls and SMS in real time if they wanted to [1]. We know the police have that ability, so the carrier certainly does. Some administrator who runs a system always has access to its data. But the people operating these systems are, like you and me, sane people doing a job and don't want to get fired for abusing our access. We strive to minimize what we collect, anonymize it, encrypt it, aggregate it so that data for individuals is not present in the anonymized collective used to serve content, etc.)
[1] Last time I checked, SMS was actually broadcast over the radio in the clear, so in fact anyone with the right radio receiver and software could intercept and decode all SMS in an area. Maybe cell standards have evolved since then; I don't know anything about it – perhaps someone else can comment. If they've improved cell standards such that SMS over radio to the tower is encrypted, then there's still an administrator at your telecom provider who can read them. <shameless plug> So if you're paranoid, that's another potential reason to use an end-to-end encrypted communicator like WhatsApp :-), where nobody but you and the participant on the other side can access the communication. iMessage, Signal, and Wickr also to my knowledge provide legitimate E2EE.
Facebook is in the process of implementing E2EE for Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct Messages. In other words, the company is investing in a relatively massive internal engineering effort to take away its own ability to read your messages, at no benefit to the company beyond being able to provide the stronger privacy that users want. That's another reason I believe in the company's sincerity about privacy. And what you post on your wall, you're generally posting intentionally for all your friends or the public to read, depending on your permission settings. You can also post a message on your wall that's only visible to a limited audience you define too, but I doubt the wall will ever be E2EE because of the audience sizes involved. E2EE provides substantially less value when a media star that anyone can follow posts messages that are read by millions. What's more interesting is whether other people can see that you follow a particular person – that's also probably something you can control via the right privacy settings. Facebook has a lot of privacy settings for your account, way more than most users know about. In fact I'm pretty sure there's a switch to you can toggle and ask the company not to profile you – but I haven't checked recently so don't hold me to that.
Personally, I'd rather be profiled and see content and advertisements relevant to my interests, than shitty content and ads, so I tolerate the profiling, as long as companies keep the data they collect to themselves.
If you buy a house or get a cable subscription, by comparison, the companies involved will immediately sell your personal information to all sorts of data brokers, which is why you'll start getting junk mail immediately. (Even if they didn't, real estate ownership is public record, so data brokers would eventually get at it anyway, just less conveniently.)
FAANG companies to my knowledge no longer share or sell any data that they collect outside their walls. (I'm not an authority on this. Amazon never did to my knowledge. Pretty sure Google never did. Doubt Netflix does – maybe at a very aggregate level. Pretty sure Facebook no longer does, but I don't know their policies about working with scientists. After getting burned so badly over the university researcher who passed on data he collected to Cambridge Analytica, I'd guess that's stopped or tightened significantly. I have not looked into FB's policies about research. Researchers that work with Amazon have to be at least part-time employees and are locked tightly with contracts that gives Amazon authority over their ability to publish or share any data from their employment; giving Amazon the ability to go after them hardcore if they abuse their access. FAANG and related parties will however engaged in sophisticated matching schemes that allows them to track ad conversion between each other (such as if Amazon is advertising on Facebook) without actually sharing any personally identifiable data, using complex cryptography and anonymity processes.
None of that really changes the fundamental nature of the product. It’s sort of like oil companies talking about how careful they are handling the oil in response to concerns over global warming.
> FAANG companies to my knowledge no longer share or sell any data that they collect outside their walls.
Yeah but does that matter when they have expanded the walls to encompass pretty much everything that most users do online.
I wanted to comment on the same statement. At a minimum all those companies share with law enforcement and national security to some extent. Beyond that I've heard of data sharing agreements and some kinds of data sales at more than one of the FAANGs, and can't see why they would stop, though I can definitely see why they might be two-faced about it and try to give that impression.
It harms your own credibility when you deliberately leave out relevant information to force your political/social stance.
I'm not sure about the allegations, but this certainly does not match my experience -- I have seen an incredibly diverse set of people in my FYP feed.
(I wish YouTube had content discovery like TikTok -- YouTube seems to always want to steer me to either something that's an exact clone of the last thing I watched, or something that's just dumb and super-popular. TikTok is amazing at ferreting out all kinds of veins of interest. It's great.)
I don't know if TikTok has a better discovery algorithm - I think its just able to feed you with more videos in a set of time. A 1 minute average video time lets you recommend 10 times more videos than a platform with a 10 minute average video.
It would appear that they've changed their strategy with these types of users to one of aggressive reply moderation as I'm regularly seeing content from all of the mentioned "high-risk" categories getting millions of likes and the comment sections are generally positive.
I guess it's hard to know since TikTok has around 1 billion active users. They could be dramatically reducing the set of people who gets suggested such content, and yet that content could still be suggested to millions of people.
Personally, I wouldn't find it strange that the recommender systems are tweaked to different countries and sensibilities as default at first, until it learns more from your own viewing patterns and refines itself.
This isn't really the case anymore. And I am someone that has been super critical of tiktok.
In fact, the most recent viral tiktok reposted on twitter yesterday was that dude in the white house, and it was getting reposted to both praise and criticize how queer-positive it was.
It is an anecdote but over the last 2 weeks, a few times (3-4) when I clicked on the top live videos, it is the live of a man too obese to even walk
I'm getting a lot of lesbian couples in my feed. And there are extremely obese folks dancing on tiktok. So I'm not sure what you mean by tiktok getting rid of folks who are the target of harassment.
That said, I do think care should be taken to avoid exploiting folks on things like social media - and that's a bit too complex to discuss here.
My for you page is full of dancing fat girls because I like those videos ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. Their stance is it's easier to get rid of the person being made fun of or limit who can see their videos rather than the 10k people harassing them.
The company I'm contracted to has a similar policy - instead of dealing with inappropriately behaving employees/contractors who have the company's logo/name somewhere in their social media profile they just disallow using the said logo and name - that includes CVs.
To quote a certain really upbeat clam: awesome idea in theory
I’m not sure if those are current policies. I fit every tag you mention and find TikTok to be the most welcoming space on the social media scene. It could be a fluke, and I could be dumb but I feel and heard as an obese neurodivergent queer on TikTok.
> TikTok apparently limited the reach of people with disabilities, including facial disfigurement and Down syndrome.
Hollywood and Youtube Originals presumably do this too, based on proportion of actors with these issues compared to what you see out and about.
> Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment.
I cannot think of any better metaphor than a virtual American highschool with regard to Facebook or TikTok. The platforms have little to do with what they claim to deliver. That would be connecting with friends and more engaging YouTube. Instead most of the time a user just scrolls through an endless feed. Even worse there is even some kind of actual addicting factor since they are there to replace other actually better working platforms.
This does not reflect my experience with using Tiktok. Tiktok very quickly determined i wanted queer content, and that's basically all I see now.
> Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. Their stance is it's easier to get rid of the person being made fun of or limit who can see their videos rather than the 10k people harassing them.
This is not unlike how the power that be in China do their business. Harmony at all costs, even if it means suppressing those who got screwed over.
Pretty sick of people who haven't used TikTok spreading bullshit like this. TikTok might just be the queerest and most inclusive platform on the internet today. Maybe y'all should actually try it before spreading misinformation.
> TikTok might just be the queerest and most inclusive platform on the internet today.
No, TikTok merely suggests what you are actively looking for. If you're creating a new account and don't look up other kind of content then you will see a lot less of it, especially in the "default" videos.
I've seen more people with Down Syndrome and facial disfigurements on TikTok than any other platform.
Ah yes the Fundamental Right to Reach.
If you go by what Trump or Obama say its the most important thing. Not because they used it to generate Outcomes for everyone but because They are Good at using it to generate outcomes for themselves.
Nature discovering "Reach" is how we end up stuck with an "Endocrine system". Flood the whole body/system with a signal and hope for the best. Thats great in producing a pheremone driven anthill. Its not how we end up with a Nervous system and the Human Brain.
Understanding the difference between the 2 models is key to understanding where social media has actual value and where it does not.
On an abstract level, that sounds terrible, doesn't it?
At the same time though, I feel like this seems like the "least bad" possible solution. If a subset of accounts are only going viral because people want to bully them, it seems reasonable to limit that content's reach.
Surely not. The best solution is to ban the people harassing others based on their sexuality.
Yes, it does sound terrible, on any level. Just get rid of minority viewpoints rather than enforce some sort of basic civility when discussing them? Just get rid of the harassed rather than the harassers? How will that iterate over time?
That would be like firing the current women coming forward against Governor Cuomo and leaving the governor alone to continue his ways, to put it in a current headline context.
Do minorities have the right to force the majority to listen? That is the abstract question this policy is dancing around. Or, do you let the minority talk to the minority…
I think that’s an odd way of framing the issue. No-one is being forced to listen to anyone on TikTok. The question is whether certain minority groups should have their videos artificially lowered in the recommendation rankings. To do this on the grounds that people bully and harass members of these groups is surely just to let the bullies win.
There is an assumption that everyone wants fame and people posting videos always want them to reach as many people as possible. Maybe that’s not so? Becoming a meme isn’t always fun, and many people aren’t aware of the consequences.
If it looks like something is going viral in a negative way and the system automatically limits the spread, that seems pretty thoughtful, if it’s done right. It makes social media safer and hopefully more predictable than what we have now.
I think the poster should be made aware of this and override it if they choose, though.
Actually, maybe all viral posts should be limited in this way until you opt in to viral spread.
I'm not sure I'd frame it like that, I think it makes sense to consider people's sensibilities when recommending them content, so a good recommender system wouldn't recommend you things that anger you or repulse you and might make you become aggressive or hateful at the content or content creator.
That would make things non-confrontational, but that's kind of what people like about TikTok, most other social media have become super confrontational, you can't avoid seeing things you disagree with and it seems everyone is just fighting all the time, reacting to all the things they disagree with.