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TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

netzpolitik.org

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Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#131

Post by _ptgt »

ridaj wrote: post #74

Calling this censorship rather than editorial curation implies that content distribution platforms are somehow expected not to have an editorial line. I find this very odd and a misuse of the term censorship. "America's got talent" is a great show too, and they certainly select who gets onstage from all the people they audition. Is that censorship? I don't expect that TV show to give me info about protests any more t…

Did you miss the section about Hong Kong and the blanket ban on political/protest content?

The latter is very Brave New World-esque in that it both “keeps the app fun” and acts as a means to suppress dissent. If they have the capability to identify political/protest content, why not label and allow filtering instead of blanket removing all of it from the app?

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#132

Post by yorwba »

madiathomas wrote: post #112
andrepd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On HN, if you are from China, India, Russia, African country, the best thing you can do is to avoid articles about those geographical locations because comments will be mostly negative and any dissenting view will be downvoted until it becomes unreadable. I agree that downvoting for disagreement is bad, but have you considered you might simply be wrong? I strain to believe that anybody attacked you simply for being…

I feel a downvote must only be used for a comment that has vulgar, strong language or anything that isn’t in the good spirit of a good debate. Downvotes must be used only to flag comments violating guidelines, not as a way to silence those who share differing views. If you disagree, write a comment. I realised most people use downvotes powers to silence those who disagree with them.

There's a flag button to flag comments violating guidelines, which actually silences people (unless you have showdead on). That downvotes exist as a separate, more easily accessible feature is a strong suggestion that they're intended to be used for more than just rule-violations.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#133

Post by fzeroracer »

Reelin wrote: post #47
fzeroracer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but in that process you have to make decisions and weigh how to punish users. You have a set of rules and ideals users have to follow, which form the governance structure of your forum. And the definition of politics is the art or science of governing. Forums operate much like miniature societies with their own laws and best conduct. Forums might be entities targetted towards very specific subjects but that doe…

> And the definition of politics is the art or science of governing. > It just means that the forum is aligned to your specific beliefs. Those two statements are using different definitions of the word politics. Carefully enforcing a reasonably bland and objective set of rules is not political by any definition of the term in use by the people you're arguing with here. It only becomes political if the rules themselve…

It is very political because those rules are interpreted and applied to humans. We all use our best judgment to determine how to apply and govern forums we mod or admin.

But what you're doing is conflating 'political' with 'current social issues'. Those are two entirely separate things and while current social issues are political, not everything political relates to current social issues. Forums fit the use of the word political to a tee no matter the definition you use.

Which is really the greater issue I see here on HN and across the various tech communities. As I've mentioned it is impossible for your group to be apolitical because at best that just means you agree with the status quo which is a political stance in itself.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#134

Post by jarjoura »

yoz-y wrote: post #128
emmelaich wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a darker view of human nature than most. I mean, unmoderated, anonymous contents might have more penis vids than you want, but it doesn't mean that you have to watch them; a user sponsored moderation / rating would ensure that. If that wasn't possible, who would use the app except for penis enthusiasts?

That is how Chatroulette died.

Well, that's what inspired Evan Spiegel to start Snapchat.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#135

Post by jarjoura »

emmelaich wrote: post #127
CPLX wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I’m as much a fan of free speech as the next guy, but there are some pretty key differences between the concepts of “free speech in the culture” and “a giant collection of unmoderated user generated internet content”. I mean actual free speech would just be an endless collection of penis videos. Nobody is actually advocating for free speech. I don’t think every app has to be about political issues. Where did t…

You have a darker view of human nature than most. I mean, unmoderated, anonymous contents might have more penis vids than you want, but it doesn't mean that you have to watch them; a user sponsored moderation / rating would ensure that. If that wasn't possible, who would use the app except for penis enthusiasts?

Vine was mostly penis videos at the beginning. I think its original growth was due to the random clips of nudity until Twitter decided they needed to clean it up.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#136

Post by macmichael01 »

"Never before has a platform grown as fast as TikTok" - LOL that's what they all say!! I'm not interested in helping someone build out their AI stuff by freely contributing my data to their platform. But hey highschoolers might ignorantly willing to do so. I am really looking forward to a new technology coming out next year that will give power back to the people rather than a small group of people who think that they know what is best for the masses to see or not see.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#137

Post by ridaj »

_ptgt wrote: post #131
ridaj wrote: post #74

Calling this censorship rather than editorial curation implies that content distribution platforms are somehow expected not to have an editorial line. I find this very odd and a misuse of the term censorship. "America's got talent" is a great show too, and they certainly select who gets onstage from all the people they audition. Is that censorship? I don't expect that TV show to give me info about protests any more t…

Did you miss the section about Hong Kong and the blanket ban on political/protest content? The latter is very Brave New World-esque in that it both “keeps the app fun” and acts as a means to suppress dissent. If they have the capability to identify political/protest content, why not label and allow filtering instead of blanket removing all of it from the app?

I think it's very reasonable for a content platform to enforce some kind of norm on speech including against protest content. Back when Tiktok was musical.ly, ie more explicitly devoted to music-based content, I suppose it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#138

Post by _ptgt »

ridaj wrote: post #137
_ptgt wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the section about Hong Kong and the blanket ban on political/protest content? The latter is very Brave New World-esque in that it both “keeps the app fun” and acts as a means to suppress dissent. If they have the capability to identify political/protest content, why not label and allow filtering instead of blanket removing all of it from the app?

I think it's very reasonable for a content platform to enforce some kind of norm on speech including against protest content. Back when Tiktok was musical.ly, ie more explicitly devoted to music-based content, I suppose it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.

Sure, I might be okay with that for a niche community. But social networks tend to be monopolies or oligopolies due to network effects and general audience social network apps (which TikTok is) empirically appear to be the main for platform for large-scale organized protest movement in the internet world we now live in.

I don’t judge it as worthwhile to get rid of such a platform for capitalistic soma reasons. I’m even more suspicious when the company is from a country with close government-business ties where the government has openly demonstrated it uses such apps to suppress political dissent.

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#139

Post by AnimalMuppet »

CPLX wrote: post #126
giggles_giggles wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hypocritical to look at a Chinese app and question the motives of the censors there. Obviously their censors are controlled by the CCP. I dont have children yet but if I did they would not be allowed on TikTok, period. But then, I also think the free world shouldn't do business with the Communist Chinese. So that's just my opinion.

> the free world lol

Are you really either so naive or so propagandized that you can't see a difference in freedom between China and the west? Or are you so focused on the west's failings (admittedly far larger than they should be) that you can't see that the west has still done far better than China has?

Re: TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship

#140

Post by ridaj »

_ptgt wrote: post #138
ridaj wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's very reasonable for a content platform to enforce some kind of norm on speech including against protest content. Back when Tiktok was musical.ly, ie more explicitly devoted to music-based content, I suppose it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.

Sure, I might be okay with that for a niche community. But social networks tend to be monopolies or oligopolies due to network effects and general audience social network apps (which TikTok is) empirically appear to be the main for platform for large-scale organized protest movement in the internet world we now live in. I don’t judge it as worthwhile to get rid of such a platform for capitalistic soma reasons. I’m ev…

It's not clear to me that Tiktok is, or wants to be, a general audience social network. In any case I really haven't seen it used to advertise or organize protests... And let's be honest it is by itself in no monopoly situation...

> I’m even more suspicious when the company is from a country with close government-business ties where the government has openly demonstrated it uses such apps to suppress political dissent.

I agree it's a reason for heightened suspicion but I feel like in this and a lot of stories around Tiktok, the suspicion is close to the only thing there is.

What I don't like about this argument that all platforms, even privately-owned, should be open to political or protest speech, is that the same argument can be used to criticize the moderation of hate speech, conspiracy theories, recruitment for fundamentalist religious terrorism networks, and other toxic social forces. In the US, the law prevents the government from getting involved, so we are dependent on private actors to moderate speech online.

Now if there's something in these policies about Tiktok censoring differently videos of HK protests or criticism of the Chinese communist party vs those of unrelated protests in the US, that would be different. It's not what I've seen though....

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