TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020 • Hacker News Board

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#71

Post by rapsey » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

dilap wrote: post #16

rapsey wrote: post #3

TikTok is a social network that could not be made by an American company, due to its complete disregard for free speech and embrace of censorship. This is a major part of its success, due to not allowing its network to deteriorate into culture wars and general unpleasant behaviour. I suspect any future social network much like TikTok will have exclusion as a major feature.

Huh? Major american social networks are highly censored. From the diversity of political opinions I see on TikTok, it certainly doesn't seem to be any more censored than say Twitter. (Exception: TikTok does not allow explicitly sexual content, whereas twitter does. But facebook and instagram don't.)

They are not as censored as TikTok and they had to be strong armed into doing it.

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#72

Post by goatsi » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #39

rapsey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok employs a lot of moderators and they go much farther than facebook or twitter by hiding or removing videos that are not upbeat or fun.

I couldn't find a recent source for this. My understanding is that the audience of TikTok does not watch it for content that "is not upbeat or fun," effectively self-censoring the platform. People download TikTok specifically for the fun and upbeat content, so negative content naturally does not rise to the top (unless it is particularly comedic.)

Here's a source: https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...

Of course since the news has come out:

>TikTok spokesperson Josh Gartner told The Intercept that “most of” the livestream guidelines reviewed by The Intercept “are either no longer in use, or in some cases appear to never have been in place,” but would not provide specifics.

How far you believe them is up to you.

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#73

Post by ericls » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

zffr wrote: post #33

ericls wrote: post #12

It’s easy to make money if you can sell addictive drugs before they are categorized as such.

Easy? I would push back on that. TikTok has built a great app, a community of creators, an audience to consume content, and relationships with advertisers to generate revenue. They have made careful design decisions to engineer how addictive it is. This is hard work, and few companies can pull it off.

Do you know how they got started?

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#74

Post by karaterobot » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #43

endisneigh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your comment is contradictory - if there is no political content, what propaganda is there to distribute? per your own comment wouldn't they just be distributing the "catchy" content?

There isn't propaganda. I guess people say there is, because conspiracy theories are more fun than fact. But strong statements like "TikTok is propaganda" need to be supported with evidence. I would say that the highly tailored experience of the TikTok algorithm would make a propaganda op quite easy to detect. The algorithm is so ridiculously good, that you would instantly spot a propaganda video, or notice when your…

Wasn't there something about how you couldn't find TikTok videos about the Hong Kong protests?

Ahh, so the Guardian had some leaked moderation documents[1] implying there was an active moderation keeping them from being viewed. Buzzfeed said they did their own experiments and found no evidence that videos about Hong Kong were being removed[2].

I see no reason why both of those can't be true: if you control the algorithm, you don't need to delete anything, you can control with fine granularity how viral it's allowed to go. I guess that's a conspiracy theory, but for myself, I'm very skeptical that any media company operates in China with what most of us would call political neutrality and free speech.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...

[2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/tiktok-us...

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#75

Post by rvz » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:17 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #65

rvz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that there are those calling these social networks highly addictive, catchy and delightful I guess it's safe to say that the drugs are still in effect. Especially when the content and algorithms itself is or can be easily manipulated or gamed. So how long until the users get screwed (once again)?

Who cares? If the platform goes to shit, people will stop using it. In the meantime, it's a breath of fresh air in a stagnant space.

> In the meantime, it's a breath of fresh air in a stagnant space.

Exactly. We've been here before haven't we?

How many more social networks do you need to join just to say the exact same thing? Of course. You're the one shilling it everywhere on this whole thread, when the news is for early 'investors' preparing for a gigantic IPO for massive returns. That's the news they want to hear.

As for the users; well who cares about them, they (Bytedance) don't care about you. As long as you keep generating great shareholder value for them it is another social network with a different internal flavour. Nothing has changed.

So I will ask again: How long until the users get screwed (once again)?

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#76

Post by Nullabillity » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #34

belval wrote: post #29

I hate TikTok because it's so good. It's a frictionless content pump that we can open and doom-scroll for hours. I have never seen such a beautifully crafted user experience, from the recommendation algorithm that is top-notch the content that is catchy and highlights trends without overdoing it and the absence of political content if you don't engage with it (or maybe there is none at all). I don't have it on my pho…

your comment is contradictory - if there is no political content, what propaganda is there to distribute? per your own comment wouldn't they just be distributing the "catchy" content?

Silencing political content is inherently propagating the status quo.

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#77

Post by gruez » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

xvector wrote: post #43

endisneigh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your comment is contradictory - if there is no political content, what propaganda is there to distribute? per your own comment wouldn't they just be distributing the "catchy" content?

There isn't propaganda. I guess people say there is, because conspiracy theories are more fun than fact. But strong statements like "TikTok is propaganda" need to be supported with evidence. I would say that the highly tailored experience of the TikTok algorithm would make a propaganda op quite easy to detect. The algorithm is so ridiculously good, that you would instantly spot a propaganda video, or notice when your…

>The algorithm is so ridiculously good, that you would instantly spot a propaganda video, or notice when your feed begins to skew from what you like to see.

Would you notice it if they slowly ramped it up? How would you know whether it's grassroots or planted by the CCP?

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#78

Post by rapsey » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

MasterScrat wrote: post #70

belval wrote: post #29

I hate TikTok because it's so good. It's a frictionless content pump that we can open and doom-scroll for hours. I have never seen such a beautifully crafted user experience, from the recommendation algorithm that is top-notch the content that is catchy and highlights trends without overdoing it and the absence of political content if you don't engage with it (or maybe there is none at all). I don't have it on my pho…

It's super interesting to compare it with Facebook's attempt at the same mechanisms with Instagram Reels: - terribly redundant content (as in, I see multiple times the exact same content from different accounts) - content ripped off and reposted from original creators by spam accounts - complete destruction of the original Instagram app to try to force-feed Reels down your throat TikTok looks so simple when you use i…

They are missing the core TikTok feature, content moderation.

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#79

Post by rchaud » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

rapsey wrote: post #3

TikTok is a social network that could not be made by an American company, due to its complete disregard for free speech and embrace of censorship. This is a major part of its success, due to not allowing its network to deteriorate into culture wars and general unpleasant behaviour. I suspect any future social network much like TikTok will have exclusion as a major feature.

American companies booted their own head of state off their platforms. Careful you don't drown in all that freedom.

Re: TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020

#80

Post by xvector » Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #74

xvector wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't propaganda. I guess people say there is, because conspiracy theories are more fun than fact. But strong statements like "TikTok is propaganda" need to be supported with evidence. I would say that the highly tailored experience of the TikTok algorithm would make a propaganda op quite easy to detect. The algorithm is so ridiculously good, that you would instantly spot a propaganda video, or notice when your…

Wasn't there something about how you couldn't find TikTok videos about the Hong Kong protests? Ahh, so the Guardian had some leaked moderation documents[1] implying there was an active moderation keeping them from being viewed. Buzzfeed said they did their own experiments and found no evidence that videos about Hong Kong were being removed[2]. I see no reason why both of those can't be true: if you control the algori…

I think it's much more likely that such videos don't rise to the top because it's not what TikTok's audience cares to engage with.

I honestly don't know anyone that actually wants to see political content on TikTok (though, if you seek it out, you will find it.) It's simply not what the platform is for.