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TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

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Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#111

Post by roguesherlock »

somenameforme wrote: post #95
googlryas wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't care about privacy issues not because of apathy, but because they have a different sense of privacy than privacy advocates. I believe privacy advocates view private information without nuance, whereas normal people do not. Many people would not care a lick of you could figure out they ate at subway earlier in the day, whereas this is worrying to privacy advocates.

This claim is regularly repeated, but strongly and directly contradicted by literally every study on the topic. Here [1] is one from Pew in late 2019. 81% of Americans believe the potential risks of companies collecting about them outweighs and benefits. 79% are very/somewhat concerned about how the data collected on them is used. The big issue 81% also believe that little or no control over the data collection. Inte…

I hear you. It’s just that the rise of TikTok contradicts all the survey results. I.e. I don’t see their sentiments reflect in their actions.

I mean if you’re concerned about your data and feel helpless, simply don’t use the app. But TikTok keeps rising doesn’t it.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#112

Post by thefz »

googlryas wrote: post #68
planetsprite wrote: post #5

Even if TikTok were suddenly wiped off every phone on the planet, a competitor would take its place. TikTok simply takes advantage of people's desire to be entertained and apathy over privacy issues.

Most people don't care about privacy issues not because of apathy, but because they have a different sense of privacy than privacy advocates. I believe privacy advocates view private information without nuance, whereas normal people do not. Many people would not care a lick of you could figure out they ate at subway earlier in the day, whereas this is worrying to privacy advocates.

Most people don't know the extent of data collection on them and its usage. If they knew, they would be against it.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#113

Post by jojobas »

nemothekid wrote: post #106
MichaelCollins wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the content on youtube is trash, but some of it isn't. On youtube you can find lectures and talks, historic films, documentaries and instructional videos. Tiktok's short-video format does not support any of that. The videos purporting to be educational are vapid shallow trash, necessarily, because of the short-video format. > Because the Chinese government has regulations against it. The same government, conv…

> lectures and talks, historic films, documentaries and instructional videos Please point to such content on Instagram. Instagram has the same qualities you ascribe to TikTok but the only difference is you cannot point to a chinese boogeyman. > happily allows Bytedance to export it. This is nonsense. TikTok produced crap is produced locally . It's not Chinese influencers generating "vapid shallow trash"; and if Tikto…

Userbase dynamics is weird. Instagram is somehow dominated by women seeking attention and has an appropriate audience, facebook doesn't seem to be bent on changing that and dumbing their users down.

Tiktok seems to deliberately promote degenerate behaviour, nothing organic about that.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#114

Post by dontbenebby »

nagonago wrote: post #89

After hearing so much about TikTok's addictiveness, I decided to give it a whirl. I spent a good few hours trying to get a feed that was interesting to me by searching for various keywords. I was mostly looking for weird, abstract, absurdist videos, but also anything else that interested me. Unfortunately it was quite difficult to find anything I actually liked. Most of "weird tiktok" seemed to be a teenager's idea o…

No post body was provided.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#115

Post by clement_b »

I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I am deeply concerned when I see kids hooked on that crack, because they are burning their potential. It's scary, and if I had one far fetched easy theory to make, I'd say TikTok is a way for China to mitigate the threat coming from the west's upcoming generations, by ensuring their collective capabilities are as limited as possible. That theory doesn't stand though, as TikTok (Douyin) also operates in China. No kid is spared.

But, two things:

- What they collect is literally nothing special. Worse things happen, and have happened in mobile apps/mobile SDKs. (remember Onavo, acquired by Facebook? Way worse). What do we think Google and Apple know about our devices (Check Apple terms, it's good fun [0])? Isn't this again about the recurring fear/shock that a Chinese company should not hold data about western citizens?

- the article isn't about how much TikTok can know by being in our phones, despite what most comments here imply. Instead, it's about how deeply TikTok taps in users minds by leveraging the unhealthy and addictive relationship we have with phones, acting as "prosthetic extension of our [my] corporeal being".

> What matters is that we rely on these external tools in the way we rely on our brain; if those objects are similarly accessible, endorsed, and integrated into cognition, we should simply consider them part of the mind.

[0] https://twitter.com/mysk_co/status/1589239911219331072

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#116

Post by autoexec »

googlryas wrote: post #68
planetsprite wrote: post #5

Even if TikTok were suddenly wiped off every phone on the planet, a competitor would take its place. TikTok simply takes advantage of people's desire to be entertained and apathy over privacy issues.

Most people don't care about privacy issues not because of apathy, but because they have a different sense of privacy than privacy advocates. I believe privacy advocates view private information without nuance, whereas normal people do not. Many people would not care a lick of you could figure out they ate at subway earlier in the day, whereas this is worrying to privacy advocates.

> I believe privacy advocates view private information without nuance, whereas normal people do not.

Most people aren't making informed, nuanced decisions about their privacy. Most people think online privacy doesn't impact anything more than what ads they see and so they don't care out of ignorance.

If people were aware of when and how the data they gave up is used against them they'd probably reconsider their views. The trouble is that people aren't allowed to know, so it's never in their face enough to register for them. People generally aren't great about evaluating consequences that aren't immediate or dangers that are at all abstract. That's what's enabled a multi-billion dollar a year industry to spring up around the buying and selling of data that "doesn't matter" and that "no one cares about".

That kind of thinking lets people get taken advantage of over and over again, get manipulated, lose opportunities, and have their money siphoned from their pockets without even realizing it had anything to do with the data that was taken from them.

Unless things change people will be trying to reassure each other that it doesn't matter who knows what they ate for breakfast even while they're being sorted into digital caste systems that will define and limit their options across many areas of their life.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#117

Post by [deleted] »

nagonago wrote: post #89

After hearing so much about TikTok's addictiveness, I decided to give it a whirl. I spent a good few hours trying to get a feed that was interesting to me by searching for various keywords. I was mostly looking for weird, abstract, absurdist videos, but also anything else that interested me. Unfortunately it was quite difficult to find anything I actually liked. Most of "weird tiktok" seemed to be a teenager's idea o…

[deleted]

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#118

Post by mrweasel »

clement_b wrote: post #115

I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I am deeply concerned when I see kids hooked on that crack, because they are burning their potential. It's scary, and if I had one far fetched easy theory to make, I'd say TikTok is a way for China to mitigate the threat coming from the west's upcoming generations, by ensuring their collective capabilitie…

> What they collect is literally nothing special.

For the most part I agree, but it depends on the owner of the phone. Danish politicians have increasingly been using TikTok. It doesn't take a Chinese genius to correlate the location of two or more MPs during the current talks, regarding how to form the next government, to gain insights into how that could possibly pan out. They've basically stuffed a tracking device into the pockets of the most important politicians in the country and are now able to know when they meet.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#119

Post by RHSman2 »

clement_b wrote: post #115

I think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I am deeply concerned when I see kids hooked on that crack, because they are burning their potential. It's scary, and if I had one far fetched easy theory to make, I'd say TikTok is a way for China to mitigate the threat coming from the west's upcoming generations, by ensuring their collective capabilitie…

I interviewed for a data science product manager role (I am one) at a games company. They were doing very interesting things with generative models however the person running it’s speciality was a Phd in addiction (and plenty of work in the field)

Was so interesting from an intellectual stand point but so very very evil.

Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone

#120

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

planetsprite wrote: post #5

Even if TikTok were suddenly wiped off every phone on the planet, a competitor would take its place. TikTok simply takes advantage of people's desire to be entertained and apathy over privacy issues.

help me understand please. i am not from USA so i don't see of things as us vs them thing when it comes to china, for me, its all "them" anyway so be it china or usa.

what tangible privacy issues are with tiktok? in india the govt banned it last time over some bs reasons helping instagram but that is unrelated to "privacy"...

tiktok sells ads, instagram/fb sells ads. if i am using both, how is one better and another really bad?

its not like the US based companies aren't in for the money for the highest bidder and even harmful for their own citizens like the recent case of fb snitching on a girl who wanted an abortion?

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