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TikTok and the Sorting Hat

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Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#211

Post by WillPostForFood »

sangnoir wrote: post #186
mgraczyk wrote: post #121

> How did an app designed by two guys in Shanghai managed to run circles around U.S. video apps Part of the explanation is that they weren't in Shanghai. The founders both worked full time at US tech companies in California when musical.ly was founded. musical.ly may have been founded while they were temporarily in Shanghai, but the founders were not some random people who didn't understand US culture. This is import…

> [...] the founders were not some random people who didn't understand US culture...This is important to the article's thesis. This is the opposite of the article's thesis. Musical.ly hit a wall. Only after it was purchased by Bytedance, rebranded as TikTok, and Bytedance poured their magical, cultural-agnostic AI sauce (and ad dollars) did TikTok truly take off. By all indications, this AI magic was wholly created i…

Musical.ly hit a wall. Only after it was purchased by Bytedance, rebranded as TikTok, and Bytedance poured their magical, cultural-agnostic AI sauce (and ad dollars) did TikTok truly take off. By all indications, this AI magic was wholly created in China and retrofitted onto TikTok.

Music.ly blew up in 2015 and was in the top app charts for a year before Bytedance bought them. They were at 133 million registered users and 40 million MAU in 2016. What was the wall they hit?

https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-digit/wp-content/uploads/si...

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#212

Post by qiqing »

TheDong wrote: post #154
7786655 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't thing the things GP is talking about are indicators of a lesser society. I don't want to look at unattractive people, and there is nothing wrong with a social media service optimizing for that preference.

> there is nothing wrong with a social media service optimizing for that preference I think there is. The world has already reached a point where we live in information bubble, surrounded by things we want to see and that agree with us. People are depressed and feel inadequate. Formerly reputable news sources have realized that people don't want to be informed, they want to be outraged, or feel smug and correct, or s…

That's the thing right there: I go to the news for news, and when I need a break to look at cats, I go to TikTok.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#213

Post by wtracy »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #211
sangnoir wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] the founders were not some random people who didn't understand US culture...This is important to the article's thesis. This is the opposite of the article's thesis. Musical.ly hit a wall. Only after it was purchased by Bytedance, rebranded as TikTok, and Bytedance poured their magical, cultural-agnostic AI sauce (and ad dollars) did TikTok truly take off. By all indications, this AI magic was wholly created i…

Musical.ly hit a wall. Only after it was purchased by Bytedance, rebranded as TikTok, and Bytedance poured their magical, cultural-agnostic AI sauce (and ad dollars) did TikTok truly take off. By all indications, this AI magic was wholly created in China and retrofitted onto TikTok. Music.ly blew up in 2015 and was in the top app charts for a year before Bytedance bought them. They were at 133 million registered user…

They "hit a wall" in the sense that they couldn't keep up the hockey stick style growth that venture capitalists have come to expect.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#214

Post by wtracy »

glaive123 wrote: post #207
mgraczyk wrote: post #121

> How did an app designed by two guys in Shanghai managed to run circles around U.S. video apps Part of the explanation is that they weren't in Shanghai. The founders both worked full time at US tech companies in California when musical.ly was founded. musical.ly may have been founded while they were temporarily in Shanghai, but the founders were not some random people who didn't understand US culture. This is import…

This is misleading. The founders grew up and went to University in China. Working in California for 5 years likely isn't enough for someone to deeply understand US culture. Same goes for anyone living and working in a foreign country for 5 years. There's some things you can never understand.

Understanding a culture is not a binary thing.

Five years is enough time to understand a lot more than someone who has never set for in the country. Naturally, there's other things that they still wouldn't understand after twenty years.

Other companies are failing because they're making mistakes that someone who's been in the US less than a year could recognize. ("Don't use imagery of white and black people facing off to advertise that your product comes in white and black colors.")

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#215

Post by tengu20 »

Avtomatk wrote: post #188
tengu20 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this level of analysis is really essential. It's not enough to say that something is addictive, we need to ask why. Going one step further, I think that when social media came on the scene society in general was already fairly isolated and looking for some type of connection. Social media offered a quick fix, but frankly exacerbated the issue. It is a really vicious cycle. It feels even harder to connect…

I appreciate it, it really is something worth investigating because it is a problem that affects the entire planet basically (looking at the amount of active users that social media have). The most fundamental questions I could find are: Loneliness occurs only in logical intelligent beings or also in animals? Loneliness is something created by our mind or is it something physical like the lack of a resource such as w…

Humans are uniquely social creatures. There are other animals that tend to congregate in packs or hives or whatever due to evolutionary pressures, but I don't think they experience loneliness in the ways humans do.

Just look at what happens in solitary confinement. It literally drives inmates mad (and yes there is a bit of a confounding variable of this taking place in a prison, but the general principle still applies).

We have the phrase "No man is an island" for a reason. Although I'm sure you can always find exceptions, humans generally do not well without other humans. We have evolved to be in groups. The need for others is not quite as fundamental as the need for food and general physical safety, but it is not more than a step away. This is who we are as humans.

The modern world doesn't seem well equipped to address this need. We've lost most of our 3rd places, the youth in most developed countries face crushing economic circumstances, and our world feels more disconnected than ever.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#216

Post by mgraczyk »

glaive123 wrote: post #207
mgraczyk wrote: post #121

> How did an app designed by two guys in Shanghai managed to run circles around U.S. video apps Part of the explanation is that they weren't in Shanghai. The founders both worked full time at US tech companies in California when musical.ly was founded. musical.ly may have been founded while they were temporarily in Shanghai, but the founders were not some random people who didn't understand US culture. This is import…

This is misleading. The founders grew up and went to University in China. Working in California for 5 years likely isn't enough for someone to deeply understand US culture. Same goes for anyone living and working in a foreign country for 5 years. There's some things you can never understand.

Yeah I disagree. Many young successful entrepreneurs are in their early 20s and have spent less time than 5 years actually experiencing and understanding the culture they live in. I think having some immersion is necessary, but 5 years is probably plenty.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#217

Post by ThatPlayer »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #71

Is anyone else here trying to reduce their use of technology outside of the workplace? My hobbies are music, painting, and woodworking, and it's all I can muster to focus on a screen from 9-5. I do comment here on HN and I peruse other websites, but I don't actively engage with any social media except HN. I just find myself questioning the merits of attention spent on these social media platforms, given the informati…

I still do technology, but it's offline technology. 3D printers and circuits. Less starring at a computer, more working with my hands.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#218

Post by rfoo »

dirtyid wrote: post #198
ontifica wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make any sense, I use tiktok and there's plenty of content I wouldn't expect china or america to endorse. There are lots of videos dedicated to communism, capitalism, uyghur muslims, BLM, etc. It's actually fairly open and this type of content gets noticeably boosted by the algorithm if you express interest in it, and gets a ton of likes too. There is also plenty of happy cat videos as well if that's you…

Allowable overton window differs between region to region - TikTok international is a business and will respond to local pressures, i.e. west shifted to laxer content restrictions due to MSM reporting of possible censorship last year. But behind the scenes the algorithm is biased towards mainstream content and limits dissemination of fringe / radical views, a must if you want to reach mass eyeballs in China. This is…

> Social credit has not been expanded to extent west think it does.

OT but this is the first time I see China's "social credit system" not being described as a myth on HN. People usually just repeat the myth pushed by mainstream media. Can you suggest something to read on this?

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#219

Post by thekyle »

isoprophlex wrote: post #141
chvid wrote: post #7

TikTok really is next-generation social media. Interesting that this should come out of China and not the west. Maybe we are seeing the effect of monopolies stifling innovation.

Maybe this is too much navel staring but clearly, if the central thesis of the article is true, tiktok owes its success to prioritizing the content over the individuals. An interest graph, not a friend graph. Besides stagnation... Could it be also an effect of "the West" becoming more open to collectivist ideals, where the individual is less important, and it's more about what you follow and not who you follow?

There are plenty of U.S. social networks where people follow ideas and not people. Reddit is one of the big ones.

Re: TikTok and the Sorting Hat

#220

Post by dirtyid »

rfoo wrote: post #218
dirtyid wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowable overton window differs between region to region - TikTok international is a business and will respond to local pressures, i.e. west shifted to laxer content restrictions due to MSM reporting of possible censorship last year. But behind the scenes the algorithm is biased towards mainstream content and limits dissemination of fringe / radical views, a must if you want to reach mass eyeballs in China. This is…

> Social credit has not been expanded to extent west think it does. OT but this is the first time I see China's "social credit system" not being described as a myth on HN. People usually just repeat the myth pushed by mainstream media. Can you suggest something to read on this?

There's a 2018 Sinicia episode for with Rogier Creemers who did first summary of systems: https://supchina.com/podcast/mythbusting-chinas-social-credi...

A 2019 compilation of experts: http://socialcredit.triviumchina.com/what-is-social-credit/k...

Otherwise the system is still very new and in progressive. If it's anything like BRI, it could be a massive uncoordinated internal shitshow of competing jurisdictions and incentives that doesn't pull together into anything cohesive for a long time.

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