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TikTok’s Poison Pill

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Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#401

Post by piva00 »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #233
jrm4 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great if you're able to do that easily. Please understand that some of the most brilliant minds in the world get up in the morning usually somewhere in California, and work many hours in the day, and their literal job is to figure out how to subvert this.

Unfortunately regulations will always be one step behind. Asking for them is victim mentality. We’re responsible for our own choices. Everyone might get addicted to TikTok for some period. But everyone needn’t stay addicted to TikTok. (Of course I use “TikTok” as a placeholder for any infinitely consumable feed of targeted content.) Regulation has a place. For example, an obvious and easy win would be to pass a bill…

> Unfortunately regulations will always be one step behind. Asking for them is victim mentality. We’re responsible for our own choices.

We are responsible for our own choices until we aren't. Until we are deceived, directed, subverted to some choices. If that wasn't true then the whole PR + advertisement industries wouldn't be as massive and effective as they are.

I do recommend watching Adam Curtis' "The Century of the Self" to dispel a little the myth that we are solely responsible for our choices...

We are accountable to them, we suffer the consequences of them but definitely not solely responsible.

"Victim mentality" is too big of a sweeping statement for this case, actually I'd consider it extremely dismissive of pretty complicated human behaviours.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#402

Post by eunos »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #42
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…

> 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…

It's easy to avoid the Bezmenov's "trap" (for a lack of better words). Avoid moralizing issues especially if it doesnt directly affect your core interests. Also acknowledge that indeed all nations do have skeleton in their cupboards, let's keep them hidden.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#403

Post by ethanbond »

krageon wrote: post #399
ethanbond wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes of course it matters. Is it sufficient? Probably not. But it’s a substantial improvement over not being able to e.g. protest the government. Anyway, our government isn’t designed to be steered by protest but by voting, which despite all its flaws does shift inertia.

> voting You cannot meaningfully vote in the US, you have two options that have similar fascist views of the rest of the world and are unlikely to change anything. That is a false choice, meant to lull the chooser into a false sense of agency.

Yep it’s an imperfect system. It’s dramatically better than a lot of others that have existed through history (including today) though.

It is simply wildly untrue to imply that the two major parties don’t hold opposing views on at least a few important topics or that voting doesn’t help determine which party holds the power to realize their worldview. There’s a lot of overlap and a lot of ineffectiveness but this does not make them the same.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#404

Post by washadjeffmad »

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…

You may have noticed this from the attempts or lack thereof over the past two decades to regulate tech to the benefit of everyday people. This is because Congress has been petrified of "breaking Google". It is currently why so much of SV now sits on the POTUS's cabinet.

No one knows the totality of how and where these modern day digital East India companies truly operate, and there will never be legislation that broadly protects citizen privacy like in the EU because of it.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#405

Post by washadjeffmad »

ethanbond wrote: post #378
randomdata wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There have been plenty of perfectly functional apps working in China for a long time. But, for the most part, they've seen little fanfare outside of China. Even the breakouts, like Alibaba and WeChat, have really only succeeded where they are able to bridge connections with China. They hadn't proven they can develop software for a wide audience. TikTok changed the landscape. TikTok is an app that could have come st…

Sure, but this set of observations is actually much more explainable by: people are uncomfortable with China either pushing or pulling data directly to/from Americans. This set of observations is not very explainable by "we didn't know China can 'do tech,' now we know, and now we don't like it."

Or, the state's agenda of fearmongering during our parents' generation over foreign enemies did not pass on to their children and grandchildren, and perhaps our domestic strategy of refusing to acknowledge the value of individuals' data and privacy to grow US companies has backfired since they now do not have any sense of ownership or an expectation of privacy to any company.

This was a blunder writ in hubris and xenophobia from the start.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#406

Post by krageon »

ethanbond wrote: post #403
krageon wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> voting You cannot meaningfully vote in the US, you have two options that have similar fascist views of the rest of the world and are unlikely to change anything. That is a false choice, meant to lull the chooser into a false sense of agency.

Yep it’s an imperfect system. It’s dramatically better than a lot of others that have existed through history (including today) though. It is simply wildly untrue to imply that the two major parties don’t hold opposing views on at least a few important topics or that voting doesn’t help determine which party holds the power to realize their worldview. There’s a lot of overlap and a lot of ineffectiveness but this doe…

I thought this was incredibly obvious, but when you are not inside the US it becomes a lot more clear that it's foreign policy or stance on human rights doesn't change. It doesn't matter who you have in charge. What US news reaches outside of the borders frankly also doesn't convince me it's the same clusterfuck year after year. It wasn't always like this - it's gotten a lot worse in the past twenty years that I've paid any attention to it.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#407

Post by happymellon »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #278
account42 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a "narrative" to describe western nations as corrupt. All you need to do is look at wealth inequality over time: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Wealth_i...

Show me please how wealth inequality implies corruption.

It's been studied quite a few times and links have been identified. Here is one from 2004.

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://web.hks....

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#408

Post by Damogran6 »

lghh wrote: post #153

TikTok makes me incredibly angry and I need to vent about it somewhere so I am going to vent about it here. I have ADHD. TikTok is almost certainly designed in a way to directly exploit that fact. It really makes me angry. It feels like they are making a real attempt to take my agency away and to create a product that triggers me so viscerally that I can't keep away from it. I feel like I am intentionally being taken…

It's not only TikTok. To an extent, nearly EVERYTHING entertainment is designed to be sticky. Candy Crush, Sports Betting, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube...all are designed to maximize engagement.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#409

Post by BitwiseFool »

withinboredom wrote: post #339
BitwiseFool wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"A better solution would be to teach how to get out of addiction" It's hard to say no to the idea of more education, but I believe this is a non impactful solution. We've been teaching about the dangers of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, unhealthy food, and much more for decades - if not generations. It only goes so far. I don't believe most addicts are addicted because of ignorance or a lack of rationality. I beli…

How sure are you about that? There are countries that are successfully fighting addiction (such as Portugal) to drugs[1]. The US has massively failed addicts for some time, wanting to just put them in jail instead of treating them. 1: https://deserthopetreatment.com/addiction-guide/drug-industr...

I think we're talking about two different aspects to the problem. The methods and approaches taken in regards to treating addiction is not the same thing as teaching people about the harm of drugs. I'm not saying we shouldn't have drug / substance abuse education, but rather, its not the cure-all people think it will be.

Re: TikTok’s Poison Pill

#410

Post by cm42 »

In case anyone from Facebook thinks people are leaving their platform for TikTok, I'd just like to offer that everybody I know who's quit over the past 6 months or so has quit because of 30-day bans for posting obvious satire.

I slowly forgot about it once they required the Messenger app (which had its own data/privacy issues). I seem to recall that coinciding with a WhatsApp exodus among friends with family overseas, but I forget the deal. Anyway, it just ceased to be relevant one day, and we just text or use any of the 93024832048932 other apps now.

It's not a bad platform for viewing ads, though, I guess.

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