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

theintercept.com

171–180 of 356 posts

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

#171

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?

Absolutely. Why would it be any different?

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

#172

So... "Sex sells." Is this new? I feel like we want the world to be a better place in 2020, and then we are reminded the humans are basically still humans.

It's like you expect the cook at the restaurant to thoroughly wash their hands, they don't legally have to do it thoroughly, but ultimately if you knew they didn't you probably wouldn't eat there to begin with.

Users deserve to know how hard they are being fucked. Informed consent, even for the naive users, basically.

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

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what a lot of nightclubs end up doing is definitely discriminatory and we should not tolerate that.

As someone who does not frequent nightclubs, I don't really see the problem with a self-selecting group of people with standards? Some people don't want to see you, and that's their business.

About a decade ago there was a huge controversy where I live about many nightclubs limiting the number of immigrant male patrons per night. I guess you don't see a problem with that either?

"Protected class" is a cop out because the question isn't about what the law says but what is moral.

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

#174

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.

Unfortunately ? We're promoting keeping body healthy and proprotional and fit.

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

#175
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted here. Everyone knows that there are exclusive cliques and there always will be. If you desperately want to be part of a group that doesn’t want you, then that’s your problem to overcome.

> If you desperately want to be part of a group that doesn’t want you, then that’s your problem to overcome. Tell that to the black people who demanded the right to eat in "white" restaurants.

Wow, so now the nightclub line is a civil rights issue?

This is an incredibly ignorant and offensive analogy.

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

#176
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…

Except, it IS a night club. The Web is not what it used to be decades ago. There is no elusive concept as "The Web", it's now just a different way for people to connect, just like going to a nightclub. It's been like that ever since the majority of the world got on it. You say "it's a place for people to put their content out on the internet", but you don't ask WHY they would do that. And I don't know if you have use…

The web is still there, you can still dump some HTML in IIS on your crappy windows laptop from bestbuy and plug it into your router and have it show up on google (not that that’s a good idea.) Heck you can dump your html files on github pages with the same effect, you don’t even need to know git.

The web is still the web, most people still don’t bother using it.

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

#177

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.

Can't remember what was the country,where the absolute majority of parents give their children away to institutions if they were born with any mental or physical disabilities....Nice not have those nasties around,I suppose,right?

Do you seriously think that getting rid of a child is somehow even remotely comparable to not being able to use an ephemeral social media app that is essentially just Vine 2.0?

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

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except, it IS a night club. The Web is not what it used to be decades ago. There is no elusive concept as "The Web", it's now just a different way for people to connect, just like going to a nightclub. It's been like that ever since the majority of the world got on it. You say "it's a place for people to put their content out on the internet", but you don't ask WHY they would do that. And I don't know if you have use…

The web was never a commons. It all rests on accessing content hosted by privately owned platforms. The commons is SMTP, SNTP, and IRC. Digital natives don't care about these because they aren't shiny and expect that the free stuff they've been given all their life is an inalienable right.

Apple has intentionally killed chat apps other than email and centralized stuff by not allowing self hosted push servers.

Don’t blame this on young people, IRC was becoming popular again right around when the iPhone started to become necessary for everything.

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

#179

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…

> humans prefer non ugly people over ugly people

Nightclubs that have physical appearance standards have a business model designed around one end of the beauty preference spectrum. By itself, that's not bad; if you want to have a club for only right-handed people, that's fine.

But it's unethical to then pretend that the club is for everyone, when it's really not. That's more like selling someone a car with a top speed of 120mph, but artificially limiting the speed for poorer people, and not telling them. Just because nightclubs walk a fine ethical line doesn't make other companies that also walk that line a great idea.

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

#180

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.

I agree completely, but these companies need to make their policies transparent so the users will have an informed choice about their platform. Yet for some reason, TikTok wants to hide this story. Why do you think that is?

Because it's not a good look. They want to use a clean app, but they don't want to see the cleaning being done.

This is what people want. I mean, if they wanted to see ugly people or whatever, then TikTok would show them it. It's not any different than Tinder filtering out the duds.

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