Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The TikTok War

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 386 posts

Re: The TikTok War

#181

Post by artificial »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #128
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 (explore/discovery) is generally pretty people with pretty things in pretty places. TikTok actively pressured the moderators to filter out 'ugly, poor or disabled'[1]. I haven't used TikTok, but I think such apps of mass appeal at this age of intense screen time competition will resort activities like this; there is no magical reason for TikTok to be better than other limited attention social networks. Eve…

Would that suggest that the moderation helped it gain immense popularity? If so how much in your opinion?

Re: The TikTok War

#182

Post by sharadov »

analyte123 wrote: post #76
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…

Something about Tiktok, whether the algorithm or the sheer volume of content, seems to discourage the sort of look-at-me envy-bait narcissistic posturing that is so common on Instagram. To be popular on Tiktok you actually have to do stuff (even it's fairly banal like dancing or telling stories), not just be (or pretend to be) someone. I found it funny that the author of this post is trying to defend liberal values l…

My naive question is how is Tiktok bad and all other American social media platforms - FB/Insta/Snap good?

Re: The TikTok War

#183

Post by xapata »

moron4hire wrote: post #73
xapata wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between Facebook lobbying and Facebook using its products to disseminate propaganda.

Where the hell have you been for the last 4 years? That's been the only conversation about Facebook. EDIT: Mark Zuckerberg had to appear before Congress in 2018 specifically to address Facebook disseminating propaganda!

> Mark Zuckerberg had to appear before Congress in 2018

Exactly. Whereas with TikTok the government is pushing the propaganda.

Re: The TikTok War

#185

Post by xapata »

agustif wrote: post #117
xapata wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between Facebook lobbying and Facebook using its products to disseminate propaganda.

Yeah right, Cambridge Analytica wasn't a thing...

That's considered a scandal, and was on behalf of political groups, not the government itself.

Re: The TikTok War

#186

Post by xapata »

kube-system wrote: post #152
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…

Yes, this is the trade war everyone is talking about. Note: TikTok doesn't write Chinese law, so they're not the ones being anti-competitive, even if they benefit from it.

I'd call it an information war, rather than a trade war.

Re: The TikTok War

#187

Post by dustinmoris »

Americans are losing everything at the moment because of their own shortcomings. Now just get to grips with it and stop constantly demonising other nations, whether it's the Middle East, Russia, China, the EU or whoever else, in order to prevent other countries and internet companies to become successful. America is losing dominance economically, socially and military and it scares them and so we should all expect to be fed more US anti China, anti Russia anti Asia, anti East, anti EU propaganda to keep the power in the house for as long as possible, but whatever bullshit they try to feed us nothing will prevent the inevitable change of power to take place over the next decade.

Re: The TikTok War

#188

Post by crazygringo »

This piece is ridiculous. Mainly:

> What matters more in an ideological war, though, is influence, and that is why I do believe that ByteDance’s continued ownership of TikTok is unacceptable.

What's implied but unsaid here is that somehow the CCP is going to fill TikTok with political propaganda that... a bunch of teens are going to somehow become influenced by? Sorry, but that's just completely far-fetched. Facebook is something to be concerned about, with people sharing political stories, memes, etc. But TikTok? A bunch of funny videos? There's nothing that could be further from ideology.

> Perhaps the most powerful argument against taking any sort of action is that we aren’t China, and isn’t blocking TikTok something that China would do?

Yes, this is precisely why we don't need to do this. We're better than China. Things like freedom of speech, democracy, and the free market set a moral example to the world. Once we start censoring things, we lose that moral leadership. (And sure you can argue all you want about our declining moral leadership and the state of our democracy, but let's not make it even worse, shall we?)

> If China is on the offensive against liberalism not only within its borders but within ours, it is in liberalism’s interest to cut off a vector that has taken root precisely because it is so brilliantly engineered to give humans exactly what they want.

Isn't every product trying to be brilliantly engineered to give customers exactly what they want? All this boils down to is, it's a good app, so let's kill it. Again, totally opposite the American values of competition, the free market, and consumers.

Sorry, but there is absolutely zero logic in this analysis.

Re: The TikTok War

#189

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

artificial wrote: post #181
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instagram (explore/discovery) is generally pretty people with pretty things in pretty places. TikTok actively pressured the moderators to filter out 'ugly, poor or disabled'[1]. I haven't used TikTok, but I think such apps of mass appeal at this age of intense screen time competition will resort activities like this; there is no magical reason for TikTok to be better than other limited attention social networks. Eve…

Would that suggest that the moderation helped it gain immense popularity? If so how much in your opinion?

What I mentioned was least of TikTok's initial criticism.

It was known to be a safe haven for much worse type of people(X) because the app was predominantly used by teens in Asian countries where child protection online laws are nearly nonexistent.

Apart from turning a blind eye to it, along with moderation principles which made sure X got what they want, TikTok rose to market leader due to sheer number of Asian population.

TikTok (Musically) was an Asian first app unlike Instagram, high Smartphone/Internet penetration acted as a catalyst.

Only when they got prominence in western market, they started regulating the content for vulgarity.

Post reply on HN