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The TikTok War

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Re: The TikTok War

#211

Post by ralfd »

bstar77 wrote: post #10
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.

I was a bit critical of my wife using TikTok until I realized that she replaced the negativity of Facebook with something that, in its current form, is pretty harmless. It's replaced rants and frustration with laughter and positivity.

This.

Take any social media app and there is something toxic, mean, snarky about it. Twitter is optimized for snark and shit storms. Facebook has your crazy uncle sharing fake news. Instagram posts are fake and pretentiousness. Reddit has their subreddit drama.

TikTok is just fun. Even wholesome fun.

I tried if I could find one mean tiktok video, but there was not one bullying video. Even if the girl making a dance video was ugly/fat the comments on that were encouraging and positive.

Re: The TikTok War

#212

Post by vmception »

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…

this is funny to read as I have five instagram accounts connected,

and the one I have curated the least has TikTok teenage lip sync videos as default.

Its literally Charlie De Malio all over the explore page. And no, this is not based on things I have liked. Its Hype House stuff promoted straight from Bytedance.

Re: The TikTok War

#213

Post by raphlinus »

Relevant to the topic of political propaganda and in particular conspiracy theories, the leftist blogger Digby wrote a good post [1] critical of TikTok even though she was sympathetic to the punking of the Trump rally in Tulsa. In particular, she cites reporting from the Daily Beast that Pizzagate conspiracy theories are circulating widely on the platform. I'm not endorsing this reporting as fact, but do think it is good food for thought. In any case, the platform seems to be very poorly optimized for critical thinking, which is fine for "laughter and dancing" but less fine in other domains.

[1]: https://digbysblog.net/2020/06/tiktok-isnt-the-answer-folks/

Re: The TikTok War

#214

Post by orangse »

sharadov wrote: post #182
analyte123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My theoretical answer would be that we can regulate American companies more effectively and have them be held accountable, like when Zuckerberg had to go before Congress. I doubt you'd be able to get the CEO of a large Chinese company to do that.

In reality we don't regulate them nearly as much as we can, so the end result is that FB and Tiktok both invade your privacy.

Re: The TikTok War

#215

Post by toohotatopic »

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,…

How can Twitter destroy the idea of Vine? Twitter can destroy Vine.co, but why is there no competitor with the same idea?

The moment they had shut down vine.co, a new site with the same idea could have gone life and absorbed all the users.

Why does this not happen? There are Facebook user groups, reddits and other social networks, even Twitter itself. A replacement for something that popular should be known instantly and take over without friction. Why does 'The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it' not work here?

Re: The TikTok War

#216

Post by giancarlostoro »

kpennell wrote: post #116
giancarlostoro wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Btw IG discovery is mainly based on people you follow and things you like. For example I see more memes and tech stuff on IG than I ever do of yoga pants. If I see something I dont like I mark it as not interested.

I know. I tried that so many times. I think I must have marked 'not interested' on thousands of posts at this point. For some reason, IG thinks I'm a track athlete (among many other things). Even for stuff I am legitimately into (like mountain biking), my IG explore page mostly serves me up these random accounts called things like 'MTBdaze' or 'bike247' that just seem to repost random pics/memes as a way to grow the…

Oh I see, yeah that doesn't help sadly, for me though the stuff it shows me does not correlate with the people I follow at all. The algorithm must be weird I guess?

Re: The TikTok War

#218

Post by chvid »

nix23 wrote: post #198
chvid wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give you guys a glimpse of the future - here is #coding and #startup on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/tag/coding https://www.tiktok.com/tag/startup

To give you a glimpse of reality: https://ayende.com/blog/Images/Windows-Live-Writer/Pair-Prog... EDIT: Wow i clicked on #Coding and it is like i taught about it...pure waste of time with Rainbowhairs and talking needle slim guy's with more grease on top than the hole movie 'Grease'

I don't know what you are seeing - TikTok gives you localised contents straight away even when browsing their website.

If you play around with it for a bit, the algorithm will adapt to your taste.

Re: The TikTok War

#219

Post by dirtyid »

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…

>refreshingly playful

That's the kind of content that survives the crucibles of Chinese censorship, "Creative and Joyful" opiate for the masses. This is an often overlooked aspect of Chinese social media / content filtering philosophy that has coalesced over time - block out the bad and divisive while elevating mundane joys. It's how the 50c operates, it floods the airwaves with small happy platitudes and avoids debates because engaging and challenging controversial topics (especially politics) is how toxicity is produced. It's counterproductive to even try. It's why TikTok's content policy is designed to protect the status quo, often misinterpreted as being pro-Beijing when it's broadly pro-establishment. The last thing Chinese social media platforms is designed to do is to start revolutions, encourage radicalization or sectarianism among impressionable audiences, things western social media platforms are dealing with now, and why they were blocked in China in the first place.

E: IMO the style has it's place, whole of China has no choice but to live under it, but in the west, a plurality of content management philosophies calibrated for different audiences is good. There's lessons in managing toxicity to learn from TikTok even if it gets banned.

Re: The TikTok War

#220

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

msbarnett wrote: post #87
cameronbrown wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, because the US is well known for its Muslim concentration camps, social credit scores and surveillance panopticon. > Hand wringing about TikTok seems more rooted in sinophobia than genuine privacy concerns, from where I’m sitting. This is a strawman. People dislike the CCP not the Chinese.

> Ah yes, because the US is well known for its Muslim concentration camps, social credit scores and surveillance panopticon. Perhaps I simply don’t consider the Hispanic concentration camps, private credit scores that still gate hiring, access to healthcare (via hiring) and renting and apartment, and surveillance panopticon powered by Google, better?

Try sneaking into the EU and act all idignant when they kick you out.
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