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TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

theintercept.com

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Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#161

Post by wayoutthere »

pulisse wrote: post #155
Consultant32452 wrote: post #10

This is what happens when you mix utilitarian morality with a desire to stop online bullying. You just stop letting the most likely targets of bullying be seen. This is much cheaper and easier than trying to get rid of everyone who has ever been mean online, because that's everyone.

> This is what happens when you mix utilitarian morality with a desire to stop online bullying. What in TFA indicates that these policies were intended to stop online bullying? Just as plausible to think that they were intended to create a saccharine user experience in order to promote growth.

The Chinese solution to "disharmony" is to simply erase anyone who is different. LGBT people are allowed to exist so long as they don't draw attention to themselves. Also the ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang.

I don't think these were intended to stop online bullying as much as they are just another bullying tactic themselves.

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#162

Post by leereeves »

whoisjuan wrote: post #156
gbear605 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about “I’m not allowed to use attractiveness to determine if you can come into my nightclub”

Because the above counter-argument is that you only belong to this class when people put you in it.

People aren't in or out of a protected class. Protections for race, sex, orientation, etc apply to everyone, even straight white men. Protections for religion even apply to atheists.

The laws prohibit certain behaviors, like excluding people from nightclubs on the basis of skin color. They could easily also prohibit excluding people from nightclubs on other appearance criteria.

Of course no one can control thoughts, and some people will still feel and think hateful things, but that's true for every protected class.

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#163

Post by leshenka »

tedk-42 wrote: post #116
mwfunk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because TikTok isn't a nightclub, it's a place for people to put their own content out on the Internet. Not just people, but primarily people living in a pathologically authoritarian state that doesn't allow them to access other places on the Internet that they could put their content on. But even ignoring the authoritarian state angle, surely you'd think it'd be weird and counterproductive for user content from YouT…

The entitlement is too real here. Their platform, their choice for what goes on. You want something better? Go build in yourself. I have no problem with platforms self moderating. At the end of the day consumers speak with their actions. How many TV shows feature dwarfs or people with who are abnormal? Don't blame a platform for the inherit flaws in most of us. It really only serves as a black mirror to the truth.

> Their platform, their choice for what goes on.

Can you say the same about Facebook?

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#164

Post by PaulKeeble »

cosmodisk wrote: post #139

I only heard about TikTok probably a couple of month ago,as I 'checked out' from social media platforms long time ago. Now what they are doing is is awful, however, that's already the case across the board. The world celebrates handsome men chasing a ball, women that have more silicone and botox in them than an average lab. We somehow give more attention to someone,who's ass size falls within 9th percentile, than the…

In offices, managers are taller and more handsome than the average. What we reward as a society in the west is beauty, not merit and hard work, unfortunately. Study after study shows the same trend in a huge variety of ways, from believing in social mobility to thinking job performance is about job performance despite the often opposite. But I also think this level of anti-intellectualism is temporary.

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#165

Post by klyrs »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #56
afterburner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So should high end nightclubs be publicly shamed for doing what they do (when what their "users" want is exactly non-ugly people) and driven out of business? Sure, why not?

Should MENSA be shutdown on the grounds of it's discriminatory membership model?

Amusingly, my mom and grandma were both MENSA members. My mom hated it 'cause it was a meat market. My grandma loved it for the same reason.

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#166

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

55555 wrote: post #142
mwfunk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because TikTok isn't a nightclub, it's a place for people to put their own content out on the Internet. Not just people, but primarily people living in a pathologically authoritarian state that doesn't allow them to access other places on the Internet that they could put their content on. But even ignoring the authoritarian state angle, surely you'd think it'd be weird and counterproductive for user content from YouT…

fyi tiktok isnt used in China. ByteDance has a different brand there.

Douyin 抖音. It's the same app though.

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#167

Post by EpicEng »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #20

How is this different from nightclubs having a high bar to entry? I am not saying this is an ethical thing to do, I am saying these apps are no different from nightclubs and they gotta do what they gotta do to survive. And no matter what you may say, humans prefer non ugly people over ugly people. I am sorry but this is simply how humans work. If you disagree, then you are a hypocrite. So should high end nightclubs b…

>How is this different from nightclubs having a high bar to entry?

The nightclub lets you know where you stand at the door. I took a read of tik-tok's about page, and it gives me the impression that they're here for everyone. Just a platform to share short videos. The author of one of the featured videos on that page looks like someone who may have been filtered out.

I don't think the analogy is completely off base, but we can judge tik-tok for being deceptive.

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#168

Post by nomel »

leshenka wrote: post #163
tedk-42 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entitlement is too real here. Their platform, their choice for what goes on. You want something better? Go build in yourself. I have no problem with platforms self moderating. At the end of the day consumers speak with their actions. How many TV shows feature dwarfs or people with who are abnormal? Don't blame a platform for the inherit flaws in most of us. It really only serves as a black mirror to the truth.

> Their platform, their choice for what goes on. Can you say the same about Facebook?

I'm not sure what their current policy is, but they also had community standards [1] which they defined and enacted.

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/heres-what-facebook-wont-let-you...

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#169

Post by bjourne »

whoisjuan wrote: post #88
leereeves wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 100 years ago race, sex, and sexual orientation weren't protected classes. Society makes progress, slowly.

But how can you objectively establish that somebody is unattractive? Assuming the world moves into this hypothetical society you're describing nobody wants to be part of that new protected class. If you're by some semantic classified as unattractive, you will automatically feel segregated and marginalized. This is not like sexual orientation where non-heterosexual people actually have a desire to express their sexual…

I can assure you that most gay people don't want to be gay either. There is nothing substantial that differentiates these attributes. It's just two features -- some have it, some don't and some have both. It is not "natural" for one of the features to be negative but not the other.

Re: TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by “ugly” people and the poor

#170

Post by klyrs »

whoisjuan wrote: post #88
leereeves wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 100 years ago race, sex, and sexual orientation weren't protected classes. Society makes progress, slowly.

But how can you objectively establish that somebody is unattractive? Assuming the world moves into this hypothetical society you're describing nobody wants to be part of that new protected class. If you're by some semantic classified as unattractive, you will automatically feel segregated and marginalized. This is not like sexual orientation where non-heterosexual people actually have a desire to express their sexual…

> But how can you objectively establish that somebody is unattractive?

It's difficult to prove individual cases of discrimination. Evidence can take the form of written commentary about a person's looks, or a documented policy about hiring practices. That is to say, you don't need to prove that somebody's unattractive; only that damage was done on the basis of that perception / judgement.

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