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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

#201

Post by rasz »

m348e912 wrote: post #195
MikePlacid wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'd love to have someone verify this. If you type Douyin into YouTube you see the platform contains the same nonsense videos that TikTok has. So we know the content is similar. The question is the experience really different for users under 14. And if so, how is this enforced? If it's a matter of stating your birth date when you sign up then I don't think the restriction means much.

Might be problematic if they enforce identity verification. With social passports and other nonsense it might be impossible to just register new anonymous account.

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

#202

Post by iso1631 »

richrichardsson wrote: post #185
robertlagrant wrote: post #147

Earlier 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…

Where is the time limit in Netflix for Kids? All I see is a selection of content that is appropriate for children. It is much easier to set a limit on a device that is cold and inhuman and can't be pleaded with for more screen time than it is to try and manually enforce such a limit.

> Where is the time limit in Netflix for Kids?

It's called parenting

> It is much easier to set a limit on a device that is cold and inhuman and can't be pleaded with for more screen time than it is to try and manually enforce such a limit.

If you don't want to do parenting, then you can also block access to netflix (or from the tv or whatever) at your router.

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

#203

Post by iso1631 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #182

I don't know why, but I hate the tiktok trends and it's spread all over other platforms (eg. "shorts" on youtube). Cooking channel? What was once a 10 minute video with a recipe and all the details is now a reddit-gif style recipe, 30 seconds without any details (eg. how cooked the first ingredient is, when s/he throws in the second, etc.). Tech channel? Yeah, 30 seconds can only be a teaser (=ad) for a full video. M…

I'm in a different generation from you and I prefer my recipes and tech information in text form. Horses for courses.

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

#204

Post by iso1631 »

notpushkin wrote: post #81
ehsankia wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the point. Every social media's goal is to take advantage of people's desire to be entertained. Youtube, Instagram, etc. Yet TikTik has managed to come from behind and overtake all the other apps. People are so quick to dismiss its algorithm, yet no other app comes close to recreating the experience.

That's not because of the algorithm. That's because everybody's already on TikTok. If you make a new Facebook, you better make something about it different because otherwise people would just stay on Facebook.

How did Tiktok start? Everyone was already on youtube.

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

#205

Post by bilsbie »

I feel like such an outlier that I like it and have benefited from it.

I’ve learned all kinds of useful info about everything from nutrition to history in entertaining bit sized chunks.

And the humorous clips are really funny too.

I don’t feel addicted either. Some days I’ll scroll for 45 minutes. Other days I have zero interest.

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

#206

Post by jojo259 »

mcculley wrote: post #179
jojo259 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they're linked by some form of government ID. Of course, it's probably very easy to get around that in some manner by just playing offline games or using a parent's ID.

The question is asking about multiple apps coordinating. Wouldn’t this require a central database and an API for querying/updating time spent in an app per ID? Where is that API?

Yes that's what I meant, the apps coordinate by being linked to some government ID. At least that's what I've heard.

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

#207

Post by bfgoodrich »

was_a_dev wrote: post #159
dagenix wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

No post body was provided.

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

#208

Post by DoneWithAllThat »

iso1631 wrote: post #202
richrichardsson wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the time limit in Netflix for Kids? All I see is a selection of content that is appropriate for children. It is much easier to set a limit on a device that is cold and inhuman and can't be pleaded with for more screen time than it is to try and manually enforce such a limit.

> Where is the time limit in Netflix for Kids? It's called parenting > It is much easier to set a limit on a device that is cold and inhuman and can't be pleaded with for more screen time than it is to try and manually enforce such a limit. If you don't want to do parenting, then you can also block access to netflix (or from the tv or whatever) at your router.

While I mostly agree with you there’s an interesting discussion to be had that China also has parents, and they’ve decided that it’s not enough to rely on parenting to address childhood addiction to things like social media. You can argue it’s a good or a bad thing but clearly they’ve taken a different approach, and whether that leads to empirically better outcomes is worth exploring.

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

#209

Post by werber »

I’m not sure if Tik tok drastically changed their algorithm or if the people generating content changed from the height of the pandemic into this phase but I really can’t think of another app that I found so great and useful becoming so fundamentally boring to me that I deleted it. When I started using it the content it served up was so weirdly specific to my needs and when I lost interest earlier this year it was like half text to speech nonsense over found tv footage that was occasionally salacious
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