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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

#281

Post by rambojazz »

uwuhn wrote: post #252
jjcm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or news stations, which hire presenters based on attractiveness. Or fashion products, which hire models based on attractiveness. Or the music industry, which puts forward pop stars that are attractive while keeping ones that don't have sex appeal off the air. Or the film industry. Or the literally any other industry that tries to survive via popularity and getting eye time. Attractiveness sells. What TikTok is doing…

Don't forget the service industry. There's a correlation between how attractive you are and your earning ceiling for bartending and waitering/waitressing.

I can offer real world evidence in support of this correlation. I worked at 2 different restaurants in my life. I didn't get many tips; only pocket change if it was a good night. The hot waitresses could make as much as 1/3 of their monthly salary from tips.

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

#282

Post by hrktb »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #66
keanzu wrote: post #49

A TikTok spokesperson said the goal was to prevent bullying on the platform, tying the document to a report from December that showed that the company was suppressing vulnerable users’ videos in a misguided effort to prevent them from becoming the centre of attention that could turn sour. Now that is some fine spin! Reminds of the Oscar Wilde sketch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uycsfu4574w

I used TikTok for a while and saw plenty videos of actual bullying. The comments were never too happy about it, but there was clearly no effort to moderate it. TikTok doesn’t care about bullying.

It seems their goal is to make the issue go away altogether by pre-censoring people so they don’t have to police bullying after.

Here it’s humans taking that shortcut, in the future I’d totally imagine AIs resolving to eliminate the source of the problems when dealing with societal issues. And we sure won’t be happy about it.

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

#284

Post by fxtentacle »

chillwaves wrote: post #210
heartbeats wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's not a good look. They want to use a clean app, but they don't want to see the cleaning being done. This is what people want. I mean, if they wanted to see ugly people or whatever, then TikTok would show them it. It's not any different than Tinder filtering out the duds.

Then why not just leave it to an algorithm? Why the need for editorial intervention? The person I was responding to was basically saying "let the users decide" but that can't happen if TikTok is lying to the users.

These days, a lot of what tech companies call "artificial intelligence" is actually outsourced moderators used to train a linear regression.

So there isn't much difference between algorithmic and manual sorting yet, because the AI needed for algorithmic curation is not intelligent enough yet.

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

#285

Post by aabbcc1241 »

Drew_ wrote: post #256
zapzupnz wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the posted content is never shown to anyone then this is the same as not allowing the post.

if you can convince your peers to surf your profile, your content is still accessible I suppose

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

#286

Post by noobermin »

ViViDboarder wrote: post #257
pedrosorio wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instagram does the same thing No, it does not. There is a big difference between: - showing you unconnected content you are likely to engage with - having rules enforced with the help of human reviewers to prevent any user from getting recommendations with people deemed ugly/poor/etc.

I mean, if it’s the same result does it matter if it’s human or artificial moderation?

I think this is striking at the root. Many people in tech have explained away things that where is a selection that occurs algorithmically even if it unsavoury because the black box is a black box and thus has no ill intent. However, the moderation policy does have intent. It just matters whether you value intent vs. actual consequences when you decide whether something is moral or immoral.

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

#288

Post by kharak »

leereeves wrote: post #193
rrdharan wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, so now the nightclub line is a civil rights issue? This is an incredibly ignorant and offensive analogy.

The restaurant counter was one of the first civil rights issues. Not that different from a nightclub. What's the real difference here? That effectively segregating ugly people is more acceptable than segregating by skin color? The ignorance here is among those who don't understand that people are suffering from this discrimation, and the offense is coming from people who justify and defend it. Nightclubs and TikTok a…

So no group can select their members anymore? Nonsense. A model agency will continue to hire exclusively beautiful people. Top tier universities will remain a club for well doers in the education system. My group of friends remains closed to most everyone else and so does yours.

Exclusivity is a necessity for society.

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

#289

Post by scarmig »

mgraczyk wrote: post #276
miguelmota wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

No, having worked on explore sourcing and ranking I can tell you with certainty Instagram does not do the same thing.

Implementation is different, but passes all the same test cases.

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

#290

Post by thaumasiotes »

dependenttypes wrote: post #80
finnh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unattractive people are not a protected class

I am unsure how this is relevant. "protected class" is a legal term, it has nothing to do with morality. In addition to that I doubt that refusing to sell a cake to someone because they are ugly would be considered an acceptable thing in a court of law.

> "protected class" is a legal term, it has nothing to do with morality.

This is not a distinction that most people have the mental capacity to make. Whatever the law is, that's obviously what it should be.

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