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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

#241

Post by BurningFrog »

miguelmota wrote: post #220
papeda wrote: post #4

Geez, I thought this might be an overblown piece about algorithms unwittingly optimizing for the wrong things, but the headline is pretty accurate. Discussing how moderators choose content to recommend to people in the “For You” section (not a user — I assume this is something highlighted to users): > Under this policy, TikTok moderators were explicitly told to suppress uploads from users with flaws both congenital a…

Instagram does the same thing; my 'Explore' tab is full of beautiful people even though I don't follow them. From a business standpoint it makes sense to promote the best looking content since it'll lure in more young users. The young kids probably think something like "Hey look at all those beautiful people. I want to be like them and they use Tik Tok so I'm going to use Tik Tok too."

> since it'll lure in more young users

The older crowd also prefer to look at beautiful people.

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

#242

Post by leftyted »

stainforth wrote: post #230
kristopolous wrote: post #212

Although this ruffles sensibilities, isn't it kind of expected from an entertainment platform? Any traditional teen magazine from 20 years ago (seventeen, tigerbeat) wouldn't be scolded for heavily policing what photos go in the pages. Not only that, they heavily post processed everything. There's superficial and arbitrary gatekeepers for what is called news, what is played on the radio, basically everything. Even so…

We're moving past allowing this kind of manipulation and distortion of reality.

So...does that mean ugly people are going to be star actors too?

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

#243

Post by briandear »

ccktlmazeltov wrote: post #24
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…

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

When it’s your money building and running the club, you can decide who to let in or not. There is freedom of association and the freedom not to associate. If a nightclub was a public service, the argument might hold, but it’s not. However, let’s extend your discrimination opposition to universities— should they be allowed to admit or deny people based on their economic, racial, or other non-academic characteristics?

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

#244

Post by dang »

avocado4 wrote: post #234
papeda wrote: post #4

Geez, I thought this might be an overblown piece about algorithms unwittingly optimizing for the wrong things, but the headline is pretty accurate. Discussing how moderators choose content to recommend to people in the “For You” section (not a user — I assume this is something highlighted to users): > Under this policy, TikTok moderators were explicitly told to suppress uploads from users with flaws both congenital a…

China exporting its culture to the world.

Since you've ignored our many requests to stop doing nationalistic flamewar on Hacker News, I've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you can email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

Maybe you don't owe a country better, but you owe this community considerably better if you want to post here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#245

Post by s17n »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #222
orestarod wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is correlation. Someone who cannot take care of themselves is probably not suitable to lead others. In work, "beauty" regards more what you can alter on yourself than what you were given at birth.

There is some correlation, but it's not perfect. I've thought a lot about this and I think beauty is both shorthand for "that looks like someone healthy and very functional" and also is something that can be faked, so it's not a reliable indicator. For this reason, I think it will always be both valued and controversial. To whatever degree it genuinely signals something of underlying value, like health and competence…

Let me help: it's not actually a useful signal. Solved!

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

#246

Post by anigbrowl »

chillwaves wrote: post #160
anigbrowl wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rarely. I operate several facebook profiles that exclusively look at very racist or politically extreme people, and guess who FB keeps recommending as potential friends.

Why?

I study people like the other person who replied to you (whose comment has since been removed).

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

#247

Post by mattnewton »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #184
mattnewton wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it is normalized in some other parts of society doesn’t mean this isn’t a new front to fight this kind of discrimination on. Especially since this platform is gaining a lot of popularity with younger generations, an order of magnitude more than the nightclub scene’s impacted users https://www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics

The biological platform of humans discriminates. There seems to be a greater amount of pleasing chemical reactions happening when people see good looking people, so they seek them out themselves. I don't know how or if one can fight that, it's seems to be one of the fundamental mechanisms of mating.

There is a difference between recognizing biology, and apps weaponizing it to drive engagement. This is like saying that nicotine releases dopamine so no one can fight cigarettes.

Even disregarding social ideals about listening to people who don’t look like underwear models, the potential for harm is very real - look up Body dysmorphic disorder for the kinds of very real mental health problems this can create in younger generations.

I think given the potential risks, we should have conversations about what this problem is and possible policy solutions. Giving children skewed perceptions of the world, or encoding these kinds of biases about who is worth paying attention to is dangerous.

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

#248

Post by anigbrowl »

echelon wrote: post #63
anigbrowl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry but this is simply how humans work. If you disagree, then you are a hypocrite. No, that's how you work.

It's how sexual selection works in general throughout the animal kingdom. You can teach yourself to behave otherwise, but you're hardwired to behave a certain way. Humans exist within a fitness gradient and we naturally evaluate other humans according to how they fit within it. I don't like it, but we're bloody animals.

You're assuming a gradient of only one dimension.

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

#249

Post by badcede »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #82
ShorsHammer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Discriminating on mental agility seems an eminently useful thing to do.

They're not mentally agile enough to avoid MENSA.

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

#250

Post by jussij »

zapzupnz wrote: post #219
jussij wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I read the OP's analogy is just as the Night Club places restrictions on who can enter, TikTok is also placing restrictions on who can post content. And why I think the analogy does have some merit, is because the metric used to decide on who gets restricted is the very similar in both of these cases.

They don’t limit who can post content but rather whose content reaches the suggestions, regardless of a post’s popularity. Also, again, the people turned away from the night club door still can’t go in. Took Too users who don’t post can still view content.

All of that may well be true.

However, if this article is correct, they also seem to favour good looking TikTok users, which is not unlike Night Clubs who also like to favour good looking patrons.

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