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The TikTok War

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Re: The TikTok War

#141

Post by La1n »

scottLobster wrote: post #133
redblacktree wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like they may also be brigading this post. Two downvotes pretty quickly on my comment. Maybe I'm out-of-touch with Hacker News norms, but I didn't think I said anything that warrants downvotes. Edit to add: I don't make this post to complain about downvotes. The point was the potential brigading, since we're talking negatively about the Chinese state.

Yeah, it's been a pattern on recent posts concerning China that any comment describing CCP malevolence gets instantly downvoted, and often responded to with the same extremely weak what-aboutisms and other non-arguments, accusations of Sinophobia and such. So either there's a rather unintelligent group of Hacker News users who just show up to downvote and post bad arguments on every article criticizing China and then…

Sure, people who downvote you are unintelligent or paid shills. You cant even imagine that you might be wrong, or people have different opinions?

Re: The TikTok War

#142

Post by saityi »

bstar77 wrote: post #16
teekert wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I see is girls putting their phone somewhere, dancing in front of it, then getting back into being absorbed by their phones. Can you describe more specifically what is so positive about it? My kids are about to enter the age at which they get a smartphone and these things make me a bit afraid (like, who's watching? Why do they stare at that app for so long? etc). I don't understand the alure, but I want to keep a…

You don't need to understand the allure. Are you not also absorbed by your phone in other ways? What wrong with people smiling, laughing and dancing? I'm an old parent trying to be open minded as well.

>Are you not also absorbed by your phone in other ways?

Honestly, no, and I feel very disconnected from modern culture as a result. I use my phone like a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy: to have access to everything we know as humans at my fingertips, in my pockets, at all times.

Otherwise, I don't use it. That said, I have nothing against people using their phone for enjoyment, and there's nothing wrong with people smiling, laughing, and dancing. It's just not easy to relate to the obsession with applications like Instagram, Vine, TikTok, and so on.

Re: The TikTok War

#143

Post by andrepd »

moron4hire wrote: post #109
hugh4life wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm not sure how I got sucked into Tiktok but I was quickly hooked." All these apps use behavioral design to get you hooked. Tiktok is oversocialization on steroids. You have people not only acting out the behavioral scripts embedded and triggered in some meme music or voice you have people mimetically acting out what others are acting out. The psychological manipulation possible though TikTok is immense.

Behavioral Psychology really needs to be a general studies topic, introduced to secondary education. I remember my local high school's motto when I was growing up was something like, "we're not here to teach, we're here to create good, informed consumers". Never mind the obvious problems with that statement, but just considering it on face-value: how can people become good, informed consumers without having some kind…

>I remember my local high school's motto when I was growing up was something like, "we're not here to teach, we're here to create good, informed consumers".

I don't get it, was this the actual real motto, or something people said tongue in cheek?

Re: The TikTok War

#144

Post by ardy42 »

msbarnett wrote: post #78
ardy42 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure I consider Chinese spyware any worse than the US spyware of Facebook, as a resident of neither country. I consider it quite different, because I know I'm more opposed to the ideology of the CCP than I am of the US. The US isn't intractably opposed to liberal democracy, but the CCP is: From the OP: > To that end, this long history looms large in how China thinks about its relationship to the U.S. specifical…

> I consider it quite different, because I know I'm more opposed to the ideology of the CCP than I am of the US. I don’t know that I’m particularly enthused about either country’s ideology, hence my more skeptical view of the idea that any of the major US social media networks are “better”.

> I don’t know that I’m particularly enthused about either country’s ideology, hence my more skeptical view of the idea that any of the major US social media networks are “better”.

Could you go into more detail about your thoughts on "[each] country’s ideology" and why you think that makes their social networks (which IMHO are a form of media) roughly equivalently desirable?

IMHO, the US does have faults and does do bad things, but those bad things are usually domestically controversial (to some degree). Since it's a liberal democracy, that controversy is tolerated, which means there's a path to something better. China's government, on the other hand, is pretty unrepentant about the bad things it does, and explicitly rejects and suppresses the mechanisms that could lead positive change in those areas. If the OP is correct and China's government sees itself in an ideological war with the West and its ideas of liberal democracy, then I'd expect that Chinese social networks will be drafted to serve in that war, either now or in the future.

If I dislike beef, I might not be enthusiastic about eating a steak, but I'd still prefer that to some chicken cooked in motor oil.

Re: The TikTok War

#146

Post by biztos »

kpennell wrote: post #11

I'm not sure how I got sucked into Tiktok but I was quickly hooked. There's something so refreshingly playful, authentic, and raw about so much Tiktok content compared to Instagram. Instagram (explore/discovery) is generally pretty people with pretty things in pretty places. That was fun for a while but it's just not that interesting after a while. I don't need to see more pretty pictures of women doing yoga. I don't…

Instagram has other uses as well. I use it mostly to follow artists, so for me it’s primarily the world’s most interesting (constantly) changing exhibition.

I see maybe one selfie a week. I also know people who use it for home workouts. I’m sure there are a bunch of other, non-shallow, non-bland uses I haven’t heard of.

Re: The TikTok War

#147

Post by Schnitz »

"the Chinese Communist Party very much believes that Marxism is the means by which that must be accomplished"

This is BS, the economic system in China is in no way Marxist, nor is it going in that direction. It's worse, lol. This sounds like someone is simply rehashing propaganda he heard somewhere that was intended to either smear Marx or China or both.

Re: The TikTok War

#148

Post by mercer »

mwcampbell wrote: post #126
addison-lee wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they get rid of content from "ugly, poor or disabled users" so you have an even "better" experience. So not only is it Chinese spyware, it is an awful company too. Source: https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-us...

As one of the replies to your comment suggests, I think this is a problem with photo-based and video-based social media in general. In an all-text environment like HN, each participant is nothing more than their words and the name they choose to post under. Consider that (unless you already looked at my profile), you have now read most of my comment without finding out that I'm legally blind. If I had to post this as…

It feels depressingly long ago when "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog" was both funny and true :-/.

Btw, I checked your profile and I was sad to find that your blog doesn't seem to exist anymore. I'd love to read more about accessibility and the particulars of being a blind developer. I can't imagine what that's like, but I have at times wondered how I would approach it. I imagine many of us web developers could benefit from more awareness when it comes to accessibility in general!

That said, your Twitter appears to still be operational and relevant to the topic.

Re: The TikTok War

#149

Post by rvz »

eclipsetheworld wrote: post #105

Why is TikTok allowed to gain market share in Western countries? China banned Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. while Chinese companies such as Baidu, Sina Weibo, WeChat were able to capture the entire Chinese market share. It seems that companies not adhering to censorship cannot expand into China, however, Chinese companies adhering to censorship (e.g. TikTok) are able to expand into Western countries. Isn't this ant…

Good question. If you want to get into the Chinese market, you must comply with its laws and not get in the way of angering the CCP. China is one of Apple's largest markets due to its access to over 1B+ people and it now has its hands tied and anything the CCP wants removed, Apple will do it. [0][1][2]

Like you just said, TikTok already compiles with this security law and censors/bans whatever the CCP requests. By moving outside of China it can either lose access to the Chinese market and get banned by China or still comply with its laws and get banned by the US.

The thing is, TikTok has offices out side of China due to the Musical.ly acquisition (Located in the US) so can still operate there whilst Bytedance being headquartered in Beijing.

A takedown request can be made to the App Store owner. Apple and Google.

[0] https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/04/new-york-times-apps-removed-i...

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2017/11/21/skype-china-app-store/

[2] https://9to5mac.com/2019/10/10/protest-app/

Re: The TikTok War

#150

Post by moron4hire »

andrepd wrote: post #143
moron4hire wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Behavioral Psychology really needs to be a general studies topic, introduced to secondary education. I remember my local high school's motto when I was growing up was something like, "we're not here to teach, we're here to create good, informed consumers". Never mind the obvious problems with that statement, but just considering it on face-value: how can people become good, informed consumers without having some kind…

>I remember my local high school's motto when I was growing up was something like, "we're not here to teach, we're here to create good, informed consumers". I don't get it, was this the actual real motto, or something people said tongue in cheek?

It was painted on the wall in the school office. The part where my memory is hazy is the number of additional adjectives used on "consumer".
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