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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

#71

Post by theelous3 »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #61
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 g…

Ah yes. Just as every website comsiders me to be born January first, about seven scrolls down the years.

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

#72

Post by thelock85 »

hnuser52395 wrote: post #41
Quikinterp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to sound pedantic or smug, but I think maybe coca-cola should be banned for children too. Perhaps not illegal but just not for sale for children. I think social media should be similar. 16+ at least

Nah, schools should teach children about appeals used in advertising and propaganda to resist marketing, and why and how to avoid junk food. In addition, the parents, rather than the state, should also have greater responsibility for what junk foods a child can have access to consume.

I agree that parents should have much more responsibility on these matters, but not in exchange for state influence, at least in the US. 40M+ adults lack basic literacy to inform themselves well enough to pass on to their kids. Another 65M only have enough literacy to make low-level inferences and compare/contrast [0].

I’d rather govt (which has many channels for advocacy even if flawed) influence choices than corporations completely control the panopticon of choices (where small time spenders have very little consumer power).

But we’re not far apart. As you mention schools (of the state) are a good place to start.

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

#74

Post by OJFord »

p1necone wrote: post #36
Quikinterp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to sound pedantic or smug, but I think maybe coca-cola should be banned for children too. Perhaps not illegal but just not for sale for children. I think social media should be similar. 16+ at least

It's not in law, but some supermarkets in New Zealand age restrict energy drinks to 16+. On the one hand it strikes me as being kind of silly, because those same kids could buy a coffee/iced coffee with just as much sugar and often even more caffeine in it just fine. On the other hand I do see how the differing marketing/pricing on each product means you can't treat them as equivalent. Probably a good case for volunt…

That is law in the UK, and I'm surprised if:

> those same kids could buy a coffee/iced coffee with just as much sugar and often even more caffeine in it just fine.

is accurate? Weak energy drinks, or supremely sugary caffeine-rich coffee down there?

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

#75

Post by sokoloff »

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…

> Caffeine is bad, too.

Is it? I was under the impression (after some reading of studies, not just dreaming about the topic) that it was not just GRAS (generally regarded as safe), but several studies showed benefits to regular coffee consumption.

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

#76

Post by patmcc »

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…

Maybe parents should actually be responsible and do this? I'm getting more and more convinced that smartphones should probably not be in the hands of minors. A dumb phone with call and text capability is probably good for 12+ but social media is a scourge.

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

#77

Post by thaen »

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…

Any suggestions on software to use for home site whitelisting?

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

#78

Post by ssnistfajen »

theelous3 wrote: post #71
ssnistfajen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

Ah yes. Just as every website comsiders me to be born January first, about seven scrolls down the years.

Online services can only do so much due diligence. Do you want mandatory photo ID & facial verficiation instead? That would be infinitely more harmful to user privacy.

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

#79

Post by falcolas »

Should hear what they said about books...

Up! Up! my friend, and quit your books!

Or surely you'll grow double.

Up! Up! my friend and close your books

Why all this toil and trouble?

===

There is no doubt, but that study is an occasion of exciting lust, and of giving rise to many obscene actions... Hence, as I suppose it is, that we find, in Euripides and Juvenal, that the learned women of antiquity were accused of immodesty.

===

... he so buried himself in his books that he spent the nights reading from twilight till daybreak and the days from dawn till dark; and so from little sleep and much reading, his brain dried up and he lost his wits.

And that doesn't even count the multitude of ills brought upon society by the television. Perhaps we should take a brief step back and consider before we continue our clamor over TikTok.

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

#80

Post by CharlesW »

angio wrote: post #68
charles_kaw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> There's no need to single out TikTok…

There absolutely is. TikTok is Max Headroom blipverts come to life, and the effect is hypnotic. They're relentlessly slicing and dicing you as you watch to a far greater degree than anything that's come before it.

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