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TikTok’s Poison Pill

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Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#51

Post by djaychela »

doctor_eval wrote: post #2

Something I've never understood about these pivots from successful, revenue generating products. Sure, some users will leave Instagram for Tiktok. But isn't it a different product? Wouldn't Meta have been better off creating a new product and integrating it with Instagram, rather than killing the golden goose? This kind of thing seems to happen really often.

From what I've read, Meta's strategy (and valuation) ultimately relies on 'ubiquity' (as they put it) - where everyone on earth has a Meta account and uses it. The stall in user growth is accompanied by a massive decrease in the company's valuation as a result of this, so they do the classic "what's working for the competition" action.

I've not had a FB account for years, and didn't use it other than for messenger for years before that, but when I was on there, I felt that most of their growth came from 'copy what other sites are doing, extinguish the competition by doing this' strategy, as everyone is on facebook anyway. It's worked for them so far, just now it's a bigger shift to try to emulate TikTok rather than try to destroy local ads sites or small business site hosting.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#52

Post by Milank »

It's the flow of nature. Nothing lasts forever.

Looking from addiction perspective, TikTok is even worse. But, as the author said, it's more shallow, so it should be easier to move away from.

I hope that people (or at least majority) will find a way to move from this mindless fun and finally start using all the technology we have at our disposal in some more meaningful way.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#53

Post by nonrandomstring »

fxtentacle wrote: post #48
nonrandomstring wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just make one rule for all. This is the correct solution of winning the moral high ground. What Russia has been doing for several decades (see Yuri Bezmenov [1]) is leveraging the "west's" inner discontent. Every time a Watergate or Snowden happens it's a gift to them. It exposes our 'hypocrisy', and failure to live up to our own democratic standards. That fuels the narrative of the western nations as corrupt. We'r…

Quoted post unavailable.

Everything you say is true. But it's not an argument. Failing to live up to all your stated values in past is not a reason to give up on then for all time.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#54

Post by soco »

matsemann wrote: post #34
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #19

An a non-American the level of anti-TikTok sentiment seems really weird, it really does just seem like sinophobia - especially given there's no proof that TikTok is actually being used by the Chinese, whereas Snowden etc. has shown us that the USA already does stuff like this. I'm not really sure what the People's Liberation Army will do with all my cat videos anyway...

Yeah, as an European it almost feels nice to diversify, so US agencies&companies don't know everything about me..

In this situation the diversification means also the CCP will know everything about you.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#55

Post by MichaelCollins »

fxtentacle wrote: post #49
MichaelCollins wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how about the US government put a firm privacy policy that forbids TikTok, [...] from collecting excessive data on users? This wouldn't address the way the CCP can use TikTok for subversion of America, vis-a-vis foreign election interference by Russia on social media in 2016. > Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and co The American government has more options with American corporations, these companies aren't intr…

All of them to to great lengths to ensure Taiwan isn't accidentally mentioned as being a country.

As does the American government, unfortunately. I hope this period of appeasement is soon coming to an end.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#56

Post by angio »

It's interesting to read this article from March [0] and then check the tiktok's coverage on the news after that.

> Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok

> The firm, Targeted Victory, pushed local operatives across the country to boost messages calling TikTok a threat to American children.

> “Dream would be to get stories with headlines like ‘From dances to danger,’ ” one campaign director said.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/faceboo...

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#57

Post by angio »

jollybean wrote: post #41
nixcraft wrote: post #5

There is lots of talk going around TikTok, especially now geopolitics has been added to this kind of discussion due to ongoing tensions between two giants. Instead of banning or removing the TikTok app, how about the US government put a firm privacy policy that forbids TikTok, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and co from collecting excessive data on users? That would be a better solution, IMHO. Let users download…

It'd be practically impossible to enforce the 'privacy' concerns, because the data is so vast and accessible to CCP entities employed by ByteDance. I mean, they literally pay CCP members to promote government policy agenda within the company. As for trade - FB, Google etc. - none of it is even allowed in China. So purely from a 'trade parity' basis, Chinese social apps simply should not be allowed in the US. If we ca…

Technically US companies are allowed in China as long as they follow the local regulations (which probably involves following Chinese National Security Letters etc). What OP proposes and the EU is doing is to allow anyone in the market as long as they follow strong privacy laws. Existing apps can defend themselves in court and only get banned after a sentence from a judge.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#58

Post by galoisgirl »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #19

An a non-American the level of anti-TikTok sentiment seems really weird, it really does just seem like sinophobia - especially given there's no proof that TikTok is actually being used by the Chinese, whereas Snowden etc. has shown us that the USA already does stuff like this. I'm not really sure what the People's Liberation Army will do with all my cat videos anyway...

(Non-American too.)

China may not have been proven to use TikTok data specifically, but their track record about human rights and privacy is what it is.

> I'm not really sure what the People's Liberation Army will do with all my cat videos anyway...

Ah, the old "nothing to hide" argument.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#59

Post by stavros »

cudgy wrote: post #30
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #19

An a non-American the level of anti-TikTok sentiment seems really weird, it really does just seem like sinophobia - especially given there's no proof that TikTok is actually being used by the Chinese, whereas Snowden etc. has shown us that the USA already does stuff like this. I'm not really sure what the People's Liberation Army will do with all my cat videos anyway...

They could present videos of dogs that look like cats to influence your opinion to be more favorable about dogs. They could simply show addictive videos to school-aged children to reduce their time available to study or interact with other children to make them less intelligent or less socially prepared. Or, they could flood your child’s feed with videos from children their age discussing perceived mental illness sel…

> They could simply show addictive videos to school-aged children to reduce their time available to study or interact with other children to make them less intelligent or less socially prepared.

This is what every US social media company has been trying to do forever, except they didn't focus on schoolkids, they focused on everyone. It's called "maximizing engagement".

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#60

Post by ttyprintk »

jsemrau wrote: post #13
thih9 wrote: post #9

> If platforms like Facebook and Instagram abandon their social graphs to pursue this cybernetic TikTok model, they’ll lose their competitive advantage. Is it really a competitive advantage if a competitor is doing better without it?

The social graph is a terrible approximation of personal interests.

Yup. It’s not that an echo chamber is inevitable; for me, finding something interesting that’s not represented among my social graph is more likely to be viral/marketable/attractive than something circulating among the most-active 5%. TikTok doesn’t need that graph on an individual’s scale.
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