Earlier quoted context omitted.
While you're at it, some tips for getting hooked on heroin?
[flagged]
In the meantime they will happily spend 12 hours a day watching cnn or fox.
TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
151–160 of 288 posts
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#152I 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…
> TikTok (Douyin) also operates in China. No kid is spared. Can’t vouch for the following observation, since I’ve never used either one, but: "In their version of TikTok, if you're under 14 years old, they show you science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos," said Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. "And they also limit it to only 40 m…
So 1. The Chinese govt makes laws restricting these apps for young children which are only valid in China, 2. Tiktok obeys local laws in China and local laws in the US, 3. the US and other Western govts don't force social media companies to make the apps safer for children, and you are blaming the Chinese govt for making American kids stupid and addicted?
How does the behavior of Instagram, Pinterest and others fit into this theory?
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
When have we ever expected companies to do the right thing? Governments are needed to come up with regulations for that, but restricting which content or how much someone can consume, even kids, would be touted as deeply authoritarian in our societies. So the otus is then on parents...
> restricting which content or how much someone can consume, even kids, would be touted as deeply authoritarian in our societies No. We have industry-voluntary schemes such as PEGI ratings, and most products have kid-friendly modes. Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime all have kid-specific modes, for example. They're selling to parents, and that's what parents want, so that's what they get. You're ri…
Parents also want cheap gas and big engines that make them feel macho, and to be able to use hand me down car seats of dubious safety.
Sometimes what's good for society takes precedence over what people want.
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> restricting which content or how much someone can consume, even kids, would be touted as deeply authoritarian in our societies No. We have industry-voluntary schemes such as PEGI ratings, and most products have kid-friendly modes. Spotify, Netflix, YouTube, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime all have kid-specific modes, for example. They're selling to parents, and that's what parents want, so that's what they get. You're ri…
Parents also want cheap gas and big engines that make them feel macho, and to be able to use hand me down car seats of dubious safety. Sometimes what's good for society takes precedence over what people want.
Sometimes, as you say. Even the car seats fall into the not-society category more than the society category.
And happily your examples are nothing to do with the call for regulations on the topic of having kid-safe versions of content production, so I feel encouraged.
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#155I 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…
> TikTok (Douyin) also operates in China. No kid is spared. Can’t vouch for the following observation, since I’ve never used either one, but: "In their version of TikTok, if you're under 14 years old, they show you science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos," said Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology. "And they also limit it to only 40 m…
Who would have thought that WW3 is fought via social media apps.
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#156Nope. Tiktok’s greatest asset is big tech monopolies and their inability/unwillingness to innovate.
They do innovate, but not to better humanity or make a product better. They innovate to make more money for the share holder.
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Use a VPN and download the british / european version of the app? US legislation will probably not be enforced in the rest of the world, in the case of TikTok.
Using a VPN is a HUGE barrier for the general public, esp. considering that TikToks biggest selling point is quick and easy tailored videos. Having to pay for a VPN and activating it just to watch a few TikToks means barely any non-tech people use it. Ergo, the network effect dies down dramatically.
The general public, sure, but young adults and teenagers? Aren't they already getting sponsors for e.g. NordVPN pushed down their throats regularly?
"This video is sponsored by NordVPN! NordVPN can help you stay secure and get back access to the social media content you love - when you want, how long you want. Check out the link in the description to get 10% off using code INFLUENCERNAME" doesn't seem very outlandish, IMO.
Those VPNs are also more or less fire and forget - download the app from the app store, pay, accept the OS modal, done.
I agree that fewer people will use those apps after such regulation, but I also think that a very substantial part of the (young) userbase will do their best to circumvent the regulations, because they like social media and TikTok very much. Not the best comparison, I know, but: When Epic Games only provided the game Fortnite as a direct APK download for Android, it also didn't stop kids and young adults from downloading it en masse, even though most probably never sideloaded an app before.
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#158After 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…
Similar experience, although I didn't even search actively but wanted to let the famed algorithm work its magic. I think I made it to maybe 30mins before I meh'd out. I might have given it another try now, but I just saw that I already uninstalled it.
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#159I 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 think TikTok and similar products are garbage and will lower the average IQ, especially of younger generations. I have lots of concerns about TikTok and refuse to use it myself. But this is ridiculous - and that upsets me quite a bit because is delegitimizes the actual problems with TikTok. TikTok will not lower anyone's IQ. This is straight up just old man yelling at cloud. And that does us all a disservice.
Previous generations spouted the same strawman about TV, and in general, all previous forms of media
Re: TikTok’s greatest asset isn’t its algorithm, it’s your phone
#160Recommendations algorithms are definitely out of control, and need regulation urgently.
I don't use TikTok, so my personal anecdote will concern Youtube, which with its shorts definitely try to become TikTok.
I don't use it logged-in, but I had kept the same cookie for a few years, and I was getting great recommendations, mostly science and youtubers that I watch regularly would be suggested. It was working too well to the point I was sinking at least two hours a day and becoming problematic. The content was interesting and relevant, but not very in depth.
About three months ago, everything took a dive for the worst. YT kept pushing shorts, although I never clicked them, one line out of 4 was shorts. So I added a filter in my ublock origin list so they don't appear anymore. It kept working great, until one day for unrelated reasons my Firefox crashed and needed to be factory reset, and my beloved cookie was lost.
The YT experience instantly changed and hasn't recovered after three months. It is total garbage now.
I am located in France but used to watch almost exclusively English content. The content now look like a generic mix-up of popular french youtuber, news, and religious content (for some reason YT has decided to show me Surat in Arab everyday even though I don't speak Arab and I am not Muslim).
I am quite privacy conscious so I only accept necessary cookies anywhere I browse. But YT is still trying to learn as some of the content it recommends stuff related to some things I watched, or browsed about.
I tried to explicitly search for the previous english speaking youtuber I used to watch, and watch their content. Like for example every night I watch Anton Petrov before going to sleep. It used to recommend it automatically, but now I have to search for it every night, and it still hasn't learn after 3 months.
My YT consumption was drastically reduced to one or two video a day as a consequence of this.
Even though I work in machine learning, I don't understand what sources it is using to update its recommendations, I don't understand how YT can provide such different experiences to different people. Or maybe I'm just in some bad beta test bucket like a lab rat. No way to know from my side.
In the best case, it feels like being under the whim of an algorithm no one has control over, and in the worst case feels like being the subject in some sort of sick psychological experiment.
And it's not even TikTok.