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TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

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Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#61

Post by ssnistfajen »

UIUC_06 wrote: post #24

Point: Tobacco is especially bad for young children. Therefore we must restrict it for children. Counterpoint: Caffeine is bad, too. Therefore, should we also outlaw Coca-Cola for children? The argument that "TikTok is no worse than other social media" is the Counterpoint. TikTok is very bad for children and adolescents, and we should do the difficult-but-honorable thing and prevent them from using it. If that's diff…

TikTok already limits minimum user age to 13, along the same lines as every other major social media platform which are all shamelessly stealing the same idea for short format videos provided via tailored algorithms. Picking on TikTok while ignoring every other platform doing the same thing simply screams ulterior motivation.

Every generation needs its ultimately inconsequential moral panic after all. TikTok merely got picked out because its background allows easy fingerpointing thanks to a few shifting political trends in the late 2010's.

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#62

Post by miguelazo »

angio wrote: post #47
suggestion wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not paying with your data, you're paying with the foundations of functioning society and democracy that are being algorithmically subverted by a totalitarian slave state. The very things that trend on TikTok in the West are banned and filtered in China for a reason.

That's because China has strict censorship laws while the US protects free speech. TikTok (like Meta) follows local regulations when it comes to their content.

lol… free speech for those who don’t rock the boat. Go ask someone in the US who criticizes Israel in any serious way how their employment prospects are going.

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#63

Post by fatherzine »

It is way past time for parents and educators to take a stand. You have the power to shut off the sewage pipe bursting in the middle of your living room. NO internet access under 18. Whitelist every single page your kids has access to.

Playing whackamole is physically impossible. This social media vs that social media. This hyperaddictive videogame vs. that hyperaddictive videogame, and 1000 more waiting in the wings. Various shades of (soft) porn, including some very mainstream: hello ad industry. Sales funnels for harmful chemicals, including some very mainstream: hello Ritalin. Instant validation for any quackery under the sun, and then some. Etc, etc, etc.

Some will say: Wait, but there is clean, useful, value-dense content on the Internet. Aren't we throwing the baby with the bathwater? For an entire childhood, you can buy all of it for a few thousand $$$, in book or DVD format. Better, creators of value-dense content now have a way to sustain their lives. Not worth taking chances with "free" Internet.

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#64

Post by patmcc »

kareemsabri wrote: post #33
okasaki wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always have a laugh when people say TikTok has x-type content. The truth is it has that type of content _for you_. Because it's what you engaged with. TikTok has lots of great content, but some people really don't like what they see in the mirror.

Then you're either being willfully naive or don't understand how media works. Marshall McLuhan described this phenomenon 60 years ago, the medium is the message. Can I settle in on Tik Tok and spend an hour gaining a deep understanding of the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict? Note that I don't much care about Tik Tok fear mongering, but pretending the platform doesn't shape the type of content on it is absurd…

>>Can I settle in on Tik Tok and spend an hour gaining a deep understanding of the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict?

Unironically, yes, I'd bet dollars to donuts there's some niche creator doing exactly this. As an example, one of the people I follow (@maklelan) is a PhD in theology & religion, and has ~1000 videos on biblical scholarship, the history of various religious texts, different translations/interpretations of scripture, etc.

It's interesting and very niche content. There are probably 1000x more views being had by attractive young women dancing, but TikTok is big enough that it has everything.

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#65

Post by calvinmorrison »

charles_kaw wrote: post #56
angio wrote: post #44

Reminder that Facebook paid a firm to create negative buzz around TikTok [0]. > 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. > The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, pr…

Just because facebook (a soulless ghoul amalgamation trapped in the vortex of a billionaire p-zombie) took shots at tiktok (also a shit company), doesn't absolve tiktok of real, actual harm. This is whataboutism, although I always do appreciate light being shown on Fb/meta.

tuquoque screams Facebook's massive publicity arm while it gobbles up what's left of humanities neurons into the metaverse(tm)

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#66

Post by CharlesW »

abhayhegde wrote: post #3

Applies just as well to almost any social media. The worst thing is that these apps addict one to unrealistic expectations and instant gratifications. Digital tobacco.

> The worst thing is that these apps addict one to unrealistic expectations and instant gratifications.

I mean, there's also racism, sexism, white nationalism, etc. that TikTok occasionally dumps into your feed to test your engagement with it in order to improve the psychographic profile it uses to decide what to throw at you next. (To be clear, this is not hypothetical, this is my personal experience with it.)

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#67

Post by echelon »

angio wrote: post #44

Reminder that Facebook paid a firm to create negative buzz around TikTok [0]. > 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. > The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, pr…

Maybe we shouldn't place any limits on social media, but instead charge them a nominal tax for dealing with the negative externalities? Perhaps at a rate set by reported hours of human engagement, which will also serve as a balance against robots.

Use such taxes to pay for PSAs about the harms and let people decide for themselves if or how to change their use.

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#68

Post by angio »

charles_kaw wrote: post #56
angio wrote: post #44

Reminder that Facebook paid a firm to create negative buzz around TikTok [0]. > 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. > The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, pr…

Just because facebook (a soulless ghoul amalgamation trapped in the vortex of a billionaire p-zombie) took shots at tiktok (also a shit company), doesn't absolve tiktok of real, actual harm. This is whataboutism, although I always do appreciate light being shown on Fb/meta.

There's no need to single out TikTok, the same regulation that will make them spy on people less will also work with Meta, Twitter, Google. TikTok does nothing extra compared to them.

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#69

Post by dopeboy »

bilsbie wrote: post #21

I’ve been using TikTok for search lately and it kind of works. Web is at a point where it’s faster to watch a video than open a search result. Click a cookie warning, figure out how to disable my ad blocker, and hope I’m not on an SEO page.

I think this is the next move for TikTok - a search + map offering. I've started searching for restaurant reviews on TikTok and it mostly works. Couple things I liked about that experience:

* The medium of video. It's just a next level experience compared to reading text and looking at photos of dishes.

* I thought I wanted an aggregate vote on a restaurant. I actually like one detailed TikTok review over a ton of shallow, generally extreme Yelp reviews.

Re: TikTok is manipulative, addictive, and harmful to privacy

#70

Post by peppertree »

angio wrote: post #44

Reminder that Facebook paid a firm to create negative buzz around TikTok [0]. > 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. > The campaign includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets, pr…

If you can't through to the youngsters with op-eds, I don't know what will.
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