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The TikTok War

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Re: The TikTok War

#171

Post by drewmate »

KineticLensman wrote: post #131
nix23 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hacker News all look seriously dated in comparison Yes please make a movie about your next it projekt ;) I even hate repair-videos on youtube, it's slow and lame, the fix-it manuals are 1000s times better (since i know what a torx is and that most screws open counter-clock-wise)

> I even hate repair-videos on youtube, it's slow and lame, Here are some TikTok tutorials on light painting [0]. I'm not saying that I like them, or that they are good, but they are incredibly pacey compared with the YouTube equivalents [0] https://www.tiktok.com/tag/lightpainting

Those are fascinating, and give me a glimpse into a world I didn't even know I found interesting.

One major difference (that some may care about less than I do) is that the TikTok format is great for seeing a variety of content, but does little to help me create. Admittedly, YouTube is filled with lots of filler information (to please their own algorithms) but I could probably figure out what cameras/lights to use, software settings, how to edit, etc... The best TikTok can do is show me what others are capable of.

Re: The TikTok War

#172

Post by ericls »

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…

I believe people who switched from weed to meth share a similar experience.

Re: The TikTok War

#173

Post by [deleted] »

jjuel wrote: post #28

I recently deleted TikTok from my phone. I didn't have it for too long, and until the recent press I had no idea it was a Chinese app. Honestly, I understand companies will mine my data, but I have an issue with those companies being forced to submit my data to the Chinese government on a whim. And it was really all the same thing. People doing the same skits or dances. Most of which were just chicks doing it in biki…

[deleted]

Re: The TikTok War

#174

Post by scottLobster »

La1n wrote: post #141
scottLobster wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, but people who post the same logical fallacies again and again (almost like they're getting them off a list somewhere) and never address the actual argument probably are.

It's like pointing out that POC living at higher latitudes likely need Vitamin D supplements because the sunlight isn't intense enough for darker skin to produce enough Vitamin D naturally, because that's how melanin works. Then someone jumps in, down-votes you, calls you racist, and points out that white people need vitamin D supplements too. The rules of logic say those are bad/non-arguments, not me. Once or twice is an unintelligent person. A consistent long-term pattern makes it likely some variety of shill/troll/plant, or Chinese intelligence in the case of China-related articles.

Re: The TikTok War

#175

Post by bigpumpkin »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #38
azatris wrote: post #6

I absolutely love using TikTok, but would give it up in a heartbeat for a Western replacement. It has absolutely brought more positivity into my life. I am specifically feeding the algorithm with this intent and I get what I asked for. It is a psychological tool.

> give it up in a heartbeat for a Western replacement. It's important to recognized that it's not a coincidence that TikTok exists and is run by a Chinese company. In the West that replacement would have been immediately purchased by FB or Twitter and then summarily destroyed. This is literally what happened to the closest Western equivalent: Vine. The Chinese government has many faults, but unlike the US government,…

Chinese companies like Tencent/Alibaba would try to crush any competitor that's not part of its ecosystem/ doesn't have a stake in.

Any Bytedance related links were prohibited in WeChat, for example.

Re: The TikTok War

#176

Post by kube-system »

YarickR2 wrote: post #157
kube-system wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugly, poor, and disabled people are absolutely capable of producing interesting content.

That's not the answer to the question I was asking. I wanted to know how many are watching this content , not if this this content exists . If nobody is watching, then result is the same

I definitely subscribe to some people who could be labelled that way, because I subscribe to interesting content. Most of my favorite YouTubers don't show their face at all, and a few show neither their face nor their voice. But, I am sure you can also find people who discriminate anyway, otherwise we wouldn't need to have conversations about discrimination.

But, there is a very different ethical and practical divide between a company implementing systematic discrimination and discrimination by individual users. This divide is large enough that most western nations have decided to draw their legislative lines there.

Re: The TikTok War

#177

Post by netcan »

moron4hire wrote: post #47
netcan wrote: post #29

This tiktok "war" is, ultimately, changing the way people politicians think about media tech. With Twitter or Facebook, it's a lot easier to dismiss the magnitude of their influence. After all, they're not in business to influence politics. They just want to make tech & sell ads and make money. They don't care what becomes news, who wins elections etc. Benign commercial interests, that's all With tiktok and the chine…

> After all, they're not in business to influence politics. Dude, I personally know people who work in Facebook's own lobbying department. I would be very surprised if Twitter didn't have the same thing.

I think you're missing my point.

First, I think "benign commercial interests" are not. At least not at that scale. Lobbying proves the point. Tech/media is not even the big example. Military industry, banking, mining and healthcare are all far more intertwined with government. Their most important activity is lobbying. That said, tech lobbying still pretty big and the combination of lobbying and controlling a media powerhouse is worse than just lobbying.

More importantly, Facebook (etc), being a massive media channel has lots of power and influence just by being facebook. Again, commercial interests aren't necessarily benign.

FB might tweak the feed to make sure covid-19 rumour mills or deliberate misinformation campaigns don't get out of hand. That might be a good decision (or not), but it isn't a benign decision. It demonstrates that commercial interests, feeds and such are not neutral. They are deliberate, opinionated and that opinion affects reality.

There are two questions that the tiktok case brings up: "how much power?" and "who's power." Zuck isn't as scary as Xi, hence the different response to tiktok. OTOH, Facebook have the same sort of power as tiktok, just a lot more of it.

Re: The TikTok War

#178

Post by nix23 »

chvid wrote: post #84
nix23 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Hacker News all look seriously dated in comparison Yes please make a movie about your next it projekt ;) I even hate repair-videos on youtube, it's slow and lame, the fix-it manuals are 1000s times better (since i know what a torx is and that most screws open counter-clock-wise)

I just might. Seriously. Social media for techies - what will that look like in ten years? Like HN? Or more like TikTok ...

VR headset and enriched reality....with a sexy manga girl in the right upper corner.

Re: The TikTok War

#179

Post by artificial »

analyte123 wrote: post #119
mochialex wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They are comparable in how they work technically and what they do with your data, but this is less true of "which geopolitical overlord are you supporting". I edited my post from "equally wrong when Facebook does it" to "also wrong when Facebook does it" to clarify this. To "see ads targeting you" Facebook has to steal as much of your personal data as is technically possible, map out all your social relationships, an…

How does FB sell the map of social relations and your information to companies?

Re: The TikTok War

#180

Post by giantrobot »

zzzcpan wrote: post #108
cj wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the risk being less about spyware, and more about giving CCP the ability to push its agenda at the flick of an algorithm tweak. A lot of people in comments are talking about how great the feed algorithm is out weeding out teenage dance videos and showing interesting content. You can easily imagine a scenario where CCP tweaks its algorithms to favor content relating to one party or candidate vs. the other. The s…

It's a private company, it's very unlikely for them to outright push government propaganda. They'll probably just censor "political activism" on the platform altogether and someday if government establishes tighter control of the platform they might be forced not to censor some of it, like things that undermine the US government.

Large "private" companies in China are not private as you would think of them in the West. The Chinese government or the CCP will own outright or through holding companies shares in a company. So even at the most benign the government or CCP will have influence in a company's governance. Executives and upper management will always be outwardly enthusiastic about all Chinese government/CCP talking points and decisions.

Due to China's "security" laws security and intelligence agencies have essentially full access to large companies' data. There's no real due process so a "private" company's data is essentially government data. There's also the overt and covert censorship and propaganda imposed by the government.

Company executives serve at the pleasure of the government. Anyone not towing the party line or acting with too much independence will get caught up in "anti-corruption" investigations or just be arrested for crimes they may or may not have actually committed.

Realistically it's better to just assume a priori that a Chinese social media company is pushing propaganda and building dossiers of users. It's certainly safer to assume that.

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