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TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

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Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#81

Post by dkn »

Jochim wrote: post #60
4gotunameagain wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I go to china, download the app on a chinese phone and use it, I cannot see for myself.

You could easily see for yourself by visiting the link in the previous comment. For what it's worth. Four out of the first five videos I saw on Douyin were sexualised in some way, the first was of a train driver. I scrolled through 20 or 30 of the videos on TikTok's website and didn't find anything close.

I think the parent poster is pointing out that there are more ways of discriminating traffic than just a domain name. Such as geographic location, device IDs, etc. All of which are commonly used.

It's not proof of what is being claimed, but they are variables that would need to be controlled before being confident that Douyin is or is not adjusting content to foreign or domestic users.

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#82

Post by bagels »

robopsychology wrote: post #38
kranke155 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think an American comedian said this and it become a meme repeated by the right wing us media. The comedian has said it’s BS.

Do you have a source for this?

I probably saw the same claim and admission that the parent poster did: https://youtu.be/tAV3QkzHC5E

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#83

Post by discardedrefuse »

AlexandrB wrote: post #50
Dig1t wrote: post #8

Seriously though, why haven't we banned TikTok yet? There is no legitimate reason to allow them to keep pushing disinfo here. There are already tons of replacements lined up ready to replace it, it would not hurt anyone in the US at all to ban it.

The US government is working on it by giving themselves sweeping new powers to throw you in jail for using apps that are not approved. This answers your question: the harm banning it does is the laws that will be pushed to make it happen. Meanwhile, as you said, Instagram stands ready to show the same kind of content to teenagers if TikTok goes away. I suspect the actual harm reduction will be minimal.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/could-tiktok-ban...

Who wants to bet e2ee capable apps hit the ban list next? All tech companies are gonna be hit with a "backdoor or ban" ultimatum from the US.

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#84

Post by duncan-donuts »

maxehmookau wrote: post #31

I still don't get how TikTok (and other "feed"-based social media) isn't regulated more strongly. We don't allow 12 year olds to buy cigarettes because they're harmful and addictive. These apps are no different, they just don't cause obvious physical diseases like lung cancer. It's clearly designed to entrap users in to addiction, but as a society we're still cool with it and it blows my mind.

We didn't have a federal law in the US for age restriction on tobacco until the 90s. As far as I can tell tobacco wasn't regulated at all until after the cigarette roller was invented (1881) and tobacco was pushed onto society in massive quantities. Even then it took 2 years for a single state to pass age restrictions on cigarettes and it wasn't until 1939 that all states had a law. Some states even removed the law before it was federally unforced in the 90s.

My point is that if an industry has enough money and influence it doesn't actually matter if it's bad for people. Businesses will sell anything to anyone as long as it's profitable. We've known tobacco can cause cancer for almost as long as cigarettes have existed.

source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4902755/

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#85

Post by Name_Chawps »

nineplay wrote: post #23
4gotunameagain wrote: post #7

I don't know how true it is, but allegedly[1] the algorithm of tiktok in china is tuned to promote achievements and education, while in the western world it promotes debauchery and stupidity. Doesn't take a huge leap to think it could be intentional.. [1] https://www.opindia.com/2022/07/tiktok-china-engineering-oth...

It's the conspiracy theory I 100% believe in. I don't think the reason to ban TikTok is that it gathers information, I think the reason to ban it is that its ranking algorithm is deliberately destructive. Maybe it's a coincidence that all the dangerous stunts and vandalism "pranks" come from TikTok and not Meta and Twitter, but I don't buy it. I'm leftist liberal and I have no particular paranoia about China, but I'm…

It is not unreasonable to believe in conspiracy theories involving China, because they have a centralized, authoritarian government, which means that true conspiracies occur frequently, and are mandated by the government.

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#86

Post by bagels »

dragonwriter wrote: post #72
bagels wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming "algorithms" is really imprecise. Any media site has to use some algorithm to pick what content to present, even if it's a chronological sort algorithm.

Algorithmic recommendation systems in the real world (as opposed to those theoretically possible) have common goals and features, and common problems, whether or not these common issues generalize to every algorithmic recommendation system that might be possible in the abstract.

Maybe true, but it'd be good to figure out what the harms are, if they exist, and their causes instead of handwaving about algorithms. It's the difference between banning all social media and regulating it to remove specific harms.

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#87

Post by 411111111111111 »

justsocrateasin wrote: post #32
vlunkr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a completely leftist liberal I'm confused. Do you think the CPP is liberal? It's very authoritarian.

How are you under the impression OP that thinks the CPP is liberal??

Maybe they're a LLM and got confused by the keyword "conspiracy theory" and the double negative in the statement.

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#88

Post by smolder »

noufalibrahim wrote: post #56
4gotunameagain wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about kids. They will want what you teach them to want. With parents working insane hours in the US and outsourcing the socialisation and education of kids to electronics and corporations with perverse incentives, with local communities practically gone in an urban lifestyle, we are raising generations of porn addicted dopamine junkies. The west is fucked.

This is true. Tiktok is the current problem but there's going to be a lot of stuff like this that the world is going to throw at kids. It's the parents responsibility to curate the world the their kids are exposed to and build up their defences for all the crap that they're going to finally encounter.

I think it's also the responsibility of societies participants to not seek profit from activities that harm and undermine the society they're a part of. If all we do is play zero sum games and try to get as much money as possible from the people around us for the least effort, you end up with this modern-west mess where we're all shooting each other's feet off to be the tallest instead of... building stools?

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#89

Post by vorpalhex »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #68
vorpalhex wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will if you explain it to them. I do mean explain and not command. Sit down with them and go through tiktok or insta. Point out dark patterns, bad content. Answer their questions truthfully. Sometimes the truthful answer is "I don't know".

Then they goto school and their friends say their parents are fucking jackasses and then they're bullied.

Talk through it.

The field you want is "family dynamics". If things are already off the rails, find a mediator (doesn't have to be an actual legal mediator).

1. Understand their viewpoint and give them the tools to understand yours

2. Find common ground and define the areas of conflict

3. Reassure and reaffirm relationship

4. Repeat

Re: TikTok’s algorithm keeps pushing suicide to vulnerable kids

#90

Post by robopsychology »

> When she opened the TikTok app on his iPad, she found a library of more than 3,000 videos her son had bookmarked, liked, saved or tagged as a favorite. She could see the terms he’d searched for: Batman, basketball, weightlifting, motivational speeches. And she could see what the algorithm had brought him: many videos about depression, hopelessness and death.

Horrific.

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