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The TikTok War

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Re: The TikTok War

#261

Post by dirtyid »

kpennell wrote: post #236
dirtyid wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 deba…

Sorry my original comment didn't cover this. Lots and lots of the content I see in my feed is liberal, left, anti-authoritarian. I get nuanced views about the black lives matter movement, feminism, social media, etc. even blatant critiques about what tiktok is doing to young people (especially young women). Maybe every 5th video in my feed is extremely political. It's not all just la-di-da dance and cat videos.

West got their regionalized treatment and given more latitude in response to media pieces alleging political censorship last year. I surmise controversial content doesn't get promoted much outside the immediate circles. Main point is the DNA of why TikTok feels the way it does is connected to experiences learned cultivating media platforms behind Chinese firewall. Politics and toxicity exist all over Chinese internet as well, they just get filtered / harmonized over time or never reach many eyes in the first place. My hope is that TikTok sticks around at least long enough to monetize and demonstrate that social media doesn't have to primarily drive conflict to reach eyeballs. Douyin (TikTok parent app) is fairly profitable in China, but it's hard to tell if the model works unless its exported and flourishes under different cultural backgrounds.

Re: The TikTok War

#262

Post by Spivak »

spinach wrote: post #227

It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas. Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women (they say it's to stop hate, but they leave up violent porn subs and other subs that hate women). Even subreddits like PCOS - a very serious cond…

Reddit banned a bunch of hate subreddits. Full stop. I don't care what you think about trans men and women but this is not a case of people being overly sensitive. "Gender Critical" is the spiritual equivalent of "Race Realists" and their subreddits were nothing other than a safe space for them to express their overt hate. This was not a place "simply" for people with an opinion.

You don't understand hate speech. Misgendering a trans person isn't hate unless you do it with the intent to hurt them. Saying that only women get cervical cancer or that that shit that JK spouts about menstruation is literally no issue except for the fact that it's said to purposely be mean and exclusive.

Like FFS, I'm glad we're finally at the point where this bullshit "I'm speaking in coded language and therefore technically not being a hateful pos despite everyone and especially my followers know exactly what I mean" is being called out for what it is an not tolerated anymore.

Re: The TikTok War

#263

Post by oxymoran »

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?

[flagged]

Re: The TikTok War

#264

Post by dvt »

newacct583 wrote: post #246
spinach wrote: post #227

It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas. Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women (they say it's to stop hate, but they leave up violent porn subs and other subs that hate women). Even subreddits like PCOS - a very serious cond…

> Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women This is a deeply misleading way of understanding this controversy. You can be "simply critical" of the way we define gender or of reddit's policies without being an asshole. "Inclusive" behavior consists, essentially, of just not being an asshole. If someone tells you they're a woman and you don't agr…

> share a bunch of memes making fun of them

Making fun of people is crossing the line? This seems like a dangerous slippery slope to say the least. Suppose I make an entire career out of making fun of (say) Irish people. Jokes and stereotypes like "they drink a lot" and "they get into bar fights" and "they're dumb potato farmers" are my bread and butter. Most people would probably agree that this kind of speech should be protected.

However, because trans rights, LGBT, race, etc. has been so profusely politicized, it's become a third rail. Making fun of a trans person and an Irish person are, for whatever reason, not on the same playing field any more. I'm not sure what the solution is, but let's not pretend there's no problem.

Re: The TikTok War

#265

Post by brownbat »

_2d30 wrote: post #72
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

Why assume FB would kill an acquisition? They didn’t kill WA, IG or Beluga. They made them into massive billion+ DAU services.

It may be harder to monetize short video content than short text or longer videos (maybe that drives YouTube revenue nudges for longer content?).

But people like short videos, so there's a tension there. If you're in ads, maybe just buy a few short video companies, get their patents to sue their competitors, and shut them down, so no one gets access to the thing that they like but is less lucrative for you.

But maybe you're right and they would have followed an IG model just fine.

Re: The TikTok War

#266

Post by ehsankia »

Spivak wrote: post #262
spinach wrote: post #227

It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas. Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women (they say it's to stop hate, but they leave up violent porn subs and other subs that hate women). Even subreddits like PCOS - a very serious cond…

Reddit banned a bunch of hate subreddits. Full stop. I don't care what you think about trans men and women but this is not a case of people being overly sensitive. "Gender Critical" is the spiritual equivalent of "Race Realists" and their subreddits were nothing other than a safe space for them to express their overt hate. This was not a place "simply" for people with an opinion. You don't understand hate speech. Mis…

From my understanding, most subreddits that are banned generally are breaking wider rules, which often consists of hate spilling outside of the subreddit itself

From my experience, reddit is actually pretty hands off as long as what you do is contained to your sub, but brigading is a very common occurrence in these more "heated" subreddits, intentional or not.

Re: The TikTok War

#267

Post by dvt »

Spivak wrote: post #262
spinach wrote: post #227

It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas. Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women (they say it's to stop hate, but they leave up violent porn subs and other subs that hate women). Even subreddits like PCOS - a very serious cond…

Reddit banned a bunch of hate subreddits. Full stop. I don't care what you think about trans men and women but this is not a case of people being overly sensitive. "Gender Critical" is the spiritual equivalent of "Race Realists" and their subreddits were nothing other than a safe space for them to express their overt hate. This was not a place "simply" for people with an opinion. You don't understand hate speech. Mis…

> You don't understand hate speech.

This is "no true Scotsman" in its full glory, but I'll bite. Even if we agree that "Gender Critical" was hateful, in no way would the sub be "hate speech" as it would need to (by your own definition) target specific people with the intent to hurt them (which was explicitly against the sub's rules).

Re: The TikTok War

#268

Post by oxymoran »

coliveira wrote: post #231

Because of the dominantly racist view prevailing in the US: if it is a Chinese company, it must somehow be bad, anti-democracy. If it comes from an American company, then it must be democratic and good (even when it does harm).

It has nothing to do with race. China is bad because of the CCP. And the Chinese people suffer the most because of it. Remember in 1968 when the CCP encouraged the cultural revolution that lead to the death of millions of Chinese at the hands of the Red Guard? Or when the Red Guard literally cannibalized their fellow citizens as an ideological purity test? Same party is still in charge with similar goals, just a different leader.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi_Massacre

Re: The TikTok War

#269

Post by Lammy »

dirtyid wrote: post #228
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…

>Why is this? I replied to the parent comment by accident, but: 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 w…

Ah, good to know I “misinterpreted [it] as pro-Beijing” when it’s actually just “broadly pro-establishment” and put in place by the establishment in Beijing. Totally different.

Re: The TikTok War

#270

Post by specialist »

seebetter wrote: post #260
driverdan wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas I downvoted you because this is not true. Watch YT logged out and you will discover it quickly starts recommending far right videos, recommending more extreme videos as you watch them. As for "gender critical" and your following paragraph, people aren't being banned for simply misgendering people. It's intentional misgendering from hateful p…

That’s not true about YT wormholes pushing viewers into far right content. And yes people are being banned for innocuous misgendering. And for saying only biological women are women. It’s not hate speech to say that. Declaring things as true don’t make them true. Let’s try reasoning from first principles and acknowledging that principles actually exist. Amorphous relativism is a destructive force in society.

"That’s not true about YT wormholes pushing viewers into far right content."

What measure of proof do you require?

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