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TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

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Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#101

Post by saagarjha »

booleandilemma wrote: post #89
pgeorgi wrote: post #4

Their approach to moderation is unusual in that they don't even pretend to be a neutral platform and as such it's a powerful differentiator to businesses that are rooted in a "free speech" culture. Shadow-banning individual posts ("Visible to self") is relatively unusual and acts as a demotivator to publish controversial content because such content doesn't drive engagement, as is actively demoting entire classes of…

...as is actively demoting entire classes of content (like critical commentary on politics) from the start The closest app TikTok is comparable to is Vine. What kind of critical commentary on politics are you expecting on these apps? People watch these apps for the memes and hot girls.

There’s no reason that memes and hot girls can’t be used for political commentary.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#102

Post by lonelappde »

nabla9 wrote: post #40
pgeorgi wrote: post #4

Their approach to moderation is unusual in that they don't even pretend to be a neutral platform and as such it's a powerful differentiator to businesses that are rooted in a "free speech" culture. Shadow-banning individual posts ("Visible to self") is relatively unusual and acts as a demotivator to publish controversial content because such content doesn't drive engagement, as is actively demoting entire classes of…

TikTok's genius is that they bring the TV-mentality to social media. For you feature is like 60 second TV channel of moderated content. Free people from choice and enable passivity, but provide them short social interaction. Less stress, more fun.

Such a Brave New World it brings us.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#103

Post by saagarjha »

facethrowaway wrote: post #3

This is pretty tame and actually sounds pretty pragmatic and well-organized in a non-threatening manner, especially given the target audience (kids). Moderating for different countries’ rules is a requirement unless you want to get kicked out of lots of markets. The real concern I have is in the fact that things below 50 views don’t get much moderation attention, which is the same across all platforms, and where we s…

Are you joking? TikTok is absolutely awful at moderating content for (and generated by) children.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#104

Post by wehrkeoruw »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #30
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as a politics-free network, only one that only allows politics you agree with.

The "there's no such thing as apolitical, apolitical = supporting status quo" meme needs to die. It's just a slightly smarter-sounding variant of "if you're not with us, you're against us". It purposefully conflates two groups of people - people who don't engage with an issue because they like the status quo, and people who don't engage with an issue because (within reasonable bounds) they don't care which side wins.…

It's not a meme, it's true. Anything that subsists on advertising and user expression is going to end up taking a stand of some kind.

If you don't want to take a stand, make something yourself.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#105

Post by [deleted] »

piedar wrote: post #94
yourbandsucks wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. I commented that "Chinese people are people too" the other day and got pretty heavily downvoted. Are those downvoters expressing a reasoned belief that Chinese people aren't people? Or are they just reduced to a set of tribal motor reflexes with up and down arrows? I'm actually kinda hoping it's the 2nd one rather than the first.

Oh come on now - don't pretend that comment was some neutral statement of fact. It was a clear implication of moral failure in your opponent's argument. And it's not really persuasive to then double down on a false dilemma (is my out-group evil, or just stupid?).

[deleted]

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#106

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

flomble wrote: post #37
TeMPOraL wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "there's no such thing as apolitical, apolitical = supporting status quo" meme needs to die. It's just a slightly smarter-sounding variant of "if you're not with us, you're against us". It purposefully conflates two groups of people - people who don't engage with an issue because they like the status quo, and people who don't engage with an issue because (within reasonable bounds) they don't care which side wins.…

I think the problem here is that you're not seeing that 'politics' encompasses an incredibly broad spectrum of things, and the only time that something is labeled 'political' is when it reaches a certain level of controversial for the relevant society. For example, selling a hamburger would have been an obviously political act in the Soviet Union. We don't see it as such because vanishingly few people believe that co…

I don't buy it. There are certainly times when things get politicized; when circumstances or culture invest things with political connotations they wouldn't ordinarily have. But the normal concept of "political" is, like, rants about how suchandsuch politician is evil or suchandsuch party is stupid. I'm confident most people in any culture could identify the difference between that and selling a hamburger.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#107

Post by [deleted] »

piedar wrote: post #94
yourbandsucks wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. I commented that "Chinese people are people too" the other day and got pretty heavily downvoted. Are those downvoters expressing a reasoned belief that Chinese people aren't people? Or are they just reduced to a set of tribal motor reflexes with up and down arrows? I'm actually kinda hoping it's the 2nd one rather than the first.

Oh come on now - don't pretend that comment was some neutral statement of fact. It was a clear implication of moral failure in your opponent's argument. And it's not really persuasive to then double down on a false dilemma (is my out-group evil, or just stupid?).

[deleted]

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#108

Post by yourbandsucks »

piedar wrote: post #94
yourbandsucks wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. I commented that "Chinese people are people too" the other day and got pretty heavily downvoted. Are those downvoters expressing a reasoned belief that Chinese people aren't people? Or are they just reduced to a set of tribal motor reflexes with up and down arrows? I'm actually kinda hoping it's the 2nd one rather than the first.

Oh come on now - don't pretend that comment was some neutral statement of fact. It was a clear implication of moral failure in your opponent's argument. And it's not really persuasive to then double down on a false dilemma (is my out-group evil, or just stupid?).

Think of it as a scissor statement.

Either it's the most mild, milquetoast statement possible or it's a declaration of war against Human Rights, Mom and Apple Pie.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#109

Post by CPLX »

pgeorgi wrote: post #4

Their approach to moderation is unusual in that they don't even pretend to be a neutral platform and as such it's a powerful differentiator to businesses that are rooted in a "free speech" culture. Shadow-banning individual posts ("Visible to self") is relatively unusual and acts as a demotivator to publish controversial content because such content doesn't drive engagement, as is actively demoting entire classes of…

I mean I’m as much a fan of free speech as the next guy, but there are some pretty key differences between the concepts of “free speech in the culture” and “a giant collection of unmoderated user generated internet content”.

I mean actual free speech would just be an endless collection of penis videos. Nobody is actually advocating for free speech.

I don’t think every app has to be about political issues. Where did that premise come from, just because it has Chinese origins?

It’s ok for there to be an app for kids to make dance videos, and to keep it light and positive.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#110

Post by sangnoir »

andrepd wrote: post #75
_akei wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just call Hacker News apolitical? I feel even Reddit is better when coming to political debates because on Reddit you can find a subreddit that aligns to your political ideology. On HN, if you are from China, India, Russia, African country, the best thing you can do is to avoid articles about those geographical locations because comments will be mostly negative and any dissenting view will be downvoted until…

>On HN, if you are from China, India, Russia, African country, the best thing you can do is to avoid articles about those geographical locations because comments will be mostly negative and any dissenting view will be downvoted until it becomes unreadable. I agree that downvoting for disagreement is bad, but have you considered you might simply be wrong? I strain to believe that anybody attacked you simply for being…

> but have you considered you might simply be wrong?

You don't have to be wrong to be downvoted, most of HN just has to feel you're wrong, and boy oh boy - can the HN group-think be wrong (even on facts)

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