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TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

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Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stepped back from a group chat because the fellows in it swore by “Mental Health TikTok,” where therapists give mental health advice. This is concerning to me. Beyond that, the data collection and the way it mixes young-but-of-age mildly sexual content with underage guys imitating them makes me stay far away. I enjoyed the handsome men in various states of undress but couldn’t find a way to make the app not veer in…

> I stepped back from a group chat because the fellows in it swore by “Mental Health TikTok,” where therapists give mental health advice. This is concerning to me What's concerning about this? I don't mean this rhetorically: I'm genuinely curious, as I've heard people say similar things recently. It seems to me that, like metabolic health, there's a pretty large body of basic mental health advice that's safe and salu…

Mental health discussions and advice are traditionally given under strong privacy guarantees

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#122
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A democracy is a form of government where citizens pick who is in charge. You can have pacifist government against war. You can have the opposite. Norway is a democracy but doesn't have an aggressive miliary posture. The US has the largest army and probably spends 800b on their military. Authoritarian government manage by suppressing their own people. This requires an aggressive military presence locally. All of the…

There's polling numbers on all this. You can check popular approval of imperial wars in the US (it is low), or you can check Chinese approval of their government (it is high).

Ah yes, the extremely reputable self-reporting from Chinese citizens, who absolutely have no fear for their safety should they say the wrong thing. Of course the Chinese love the CCP, they all say so!

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#123

I feel like I'm going crazy. Hasn't TikTok been proven malicious in it's excessive user tracking and data theft? Why does everyone I know still use it? Outside of privacy concerns, doesn't the blackbox algorithm make anyone worry? We're building automated echochambers for an entire population. We're giving a Chinese company the ability to control the content consumption, and therefore beliefs and knowledge, of entire…

I think the reason people use it is the reason why people still use dating apps. Choice is infinite. Every time you swipe, is a new person, a new video, a new hit of dopamine. An insatiable appetite for something new. It is also power. With the dating apps it’s the power to dismiss someone with a swipe, no need to waste time looking at their profile. In TikTok there are no YouTube ads, and you can swipe quickly past videos that don’t spike interest (dopamine).

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's polling numbers on all this. You can check popular approval of imperial wars in the US (it is low), or you can check Chinese approval of their government (it is high).

Ah yes, the extremely reputable self-reporting from Chinese citizens, who absolutely have no fear for their safety should they say the wrong thing. Of course the Chinese love the CCP, they all say so!

Go talk to some Chinese people, then, do your own research.

Just don't call them brainwashed while uncritically swallowing a story about how we're all free and they're all oppressed, no matter what they say about it.

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the previous election was heavily influenced by a foreign government using American social media networks to influence. Heavily influenced is a massive overstatement. Russia spent less money on US election influence than most individual mega-churches.

You’ve found those figures from the transparent and independent Russian statistics department giving the figures in roubles?

The cost to hack hilary's unauthorized personal email server could not have been that high.

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every TikTok user I know tells me that the primary reason they use it is the algorithm. Apparently it’s way ahead of YouTube. Anecdotally I am in the same boat as you—ended up removing the YouTube suggestion sidebar with an adblocker due to its increasingly poor quality.

One anecdote that I heard about the TikTok algo is that it favors new creators with I feel like this is what really helps TikTok always have fresh content. If you want to become a YouTuber, the path to having a good following can be years of grind. With TikTok, there is a good shot your first video might just propel you to stardom. Thus more people are inclined to create content for TikTok. It creates a feedback loop

Or, as famously yelled by Ballmer: Developers! Developers! Developers!, where the developers are content creators.

You can make really great content on YT and reach an audience. Creators like Tom Scott prove it's possible. But you have to hit a minimum production quality or the algorithm is going to discard you. Mostly this means that you still need a team of people to make it on YT. On TT, it's still totally fine to make bad production quality that has great informational content. So yes, YT has niche content, when considered against TV, but TT has one more factor of magnitude more niche content.

For a bit of anecdotes of the people that I am following: About 30% come from YouTube/Other Internet Media and produce TikTok style content, about 20% are TT Stars, and 50% are these small creators that YT wouldn't even consider. This group, checking their followers, averages about 10k. On YT I don't subscribe to a single person below 100k followers.

I have Category Theory TT accounts followed, but no Category Theory YT channels subscribed. Do CT have YT accounts? Possibly. But not once has YT shown me that content. This might be a problem with me, but TT resolves it through their natural flow, and as I am significantly more advanced than the average user, a problem with me is a problem for the platform.

At this point the path is going to be to start on TT and only move to YT once you have established a following that can make it over the YT recommendation escape velocity.

Developers! Developers! Developers!

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#127

I feel like I'm going crazy. Hasn't TikTok been proven malicious in it's excessive user tracking and data theft? Why does everyone I know still use it? Outside of privacy concerns, doesn't the blackbox algorithm make anyone worry? We're building automated echochambers for an entire population. We're giving a Chinese company the ability to control the content consumption, and therefore beliefs and knowledge, of entire…

As a Frenchmen, Youtube is exactly the same: - algo is a black box, and uncalibrated youtube makes my eyes bleed; - own by the biggest spy on the planet, google, known for manipulating information, monopolistic behavior, participation in the worst gov programs (e.g: PRISM); - impose American censorship rules to the entire world, and makes creators do inane cuts to fit some terrible metrics Besides, the typical Tik To…

I see where you're coming from, but Youtube isn't nearly as opaque as Tiktok. You can actually search for videos on youtube, typically content is longer and has a higher production quality which reduces probability of doom-scrolling. As someone else mentioned, TikTok is intentionally designed to be addictive and gamified, much more so that youtube or facebook.

And, objectively speaking, the US government is far preferable to the CCP. The US has it's issues and has made mistakes in the past, the CCP is still putting Muslims in concentration camps and exercises regular authoritarian controll over it's citizens. Militarily, the US is allied with most EU powers (including France) and generally has good intentions for it's allies. China, on the other hand, finds itself on the outside of most alliances, and considering that even their own people are treated poorly, I can only imagine that their intentions for others are not positive.

American tech companies take your data and sell it to advertisers, I don't like it, but they do. The US government only accesses it if they have a reason to do so and subpoena the specific information needed. The Chinese government? I have no doubt that they're collecting data for much more nefarious purposes. Intelligence indicates that they've been improving their military forces massively in the last several decades. It wouldn't be hard for them to subtly start slipping in propaganda into the tiktok feeds of countries they intend to invade, and then they'll have local-national support.

I think it's easy to look at this and say objectively that it's worse. If Youtube or Facebook were owned by France or Germany I would hold the same belief that tiktok is worse. It's not fear of some mysterious "other", but fear of a proven enemy to freedom and human rights, China.

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#128
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A democracy is a form of government where citizens pick who is in charge. You can have pacifist government against war. You can have the opposite. Norway is a democracy but doesn't have an aggressive miliary posture. The US has the largest army and probably spends 800b on their military. Authoritarian government manage by suppressing their own people. This requires an aggressive military presence locally. All of the…

There's polling numbers on all this. You can check popular approval of imperial wars in the US (it is low), or you can check Chinese approval of their government (it is high).

Approval of their government compared to what? What is the alternative? Chaos?

In a democracy you have many parties and points of view which would naturally lead to lower popularity as it spreads over many ideas. Each takes turns and this system renews ideas.

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#129

Something as massive as YouTube can be beaten. This feels like the circle of life, considering every empire that rises eventually falls too. Though I am not saying TikTok is the doom for YouTube since geo politics will play a significant role its future. And there are other metrics by which TikTok hasn’t probably caught up with YouTube yet like the size of the user base, revenue etc. What seems odd is how TikTok is m…

Don't they serve very different demographics and/or interests? I've been assuming TikTok is the equivalent of "what is trending today", where "what" is something related to dance moves, or other stuff I don't find very interesting. (Or, it's not that I find dance moves uninteresting, it's just that it's not something I'd want to spend time consuming). Are my assumptions wrong, and there is genuinely interesting, and…

While dance content is the most popular, the system that recommends videos allows a factor of magnitude more niches than other platforms. In no way is TT limited to dance. Within the first day I stopped seeing dance content. If you want to post stuff that would do well here, it would do well on TikTok.

Re: TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK

#130
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I stepped back from a group chat because the fellows in it swore by “Mental Health TikTok,” where therapists give mental health advice. This is concerning to me What's concerning about this? I don't mean this rhetorically: I'm genuinely curious, as I've heard people say similar things recently. It seems to me that, like metabolic health, there's a pretty large body of basic mental health advice that's safe and salu…

Mental health discussions and advice are traditionally given under strong privacy guarantees

You've mixed together two-way (discussion) and one-way (advice) mental health communication. Your point only applies to discussion, and the tiktok example only involves advice.

Concretely, what privacy concern do you see in watching a video with mental health tips? Do you think this privacy concern similarly extends to reading a Wikipedia article on (eg) CBT techniques?

Or am I misunderstanding, and "Mental health tiktok" involves users describing their mental health issues in videos that they post, and a back-and-forth with those who are claiming to "treat" them?

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