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The TikTok War

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Re: The TikTok War

#281

Post by bob33212 »

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…

Where do you draw the line? Scott Adams put up a photo of his wedding on Twitter yesterday and people made mean comments about his sexual preference and choice to marry a woman 30 years younger than him. Should twitter classify that as ageism?

Re: The TikTok War

#282

Post by philipkglass »

mercer wrote: post #138
skizm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's something so refreshingly playful, authentic, and raw about so much Tiktok content compared to Instagram. Isn't that because Tiktock's content is manually curated (for better or worse)?

I thought so too, but if the article is to be believed it's algorithmic / AI (with at the very least Chinese censors doing /some/ degree of curation).

I think it's both. In my experience algorithms can do a great job of matching good user generated content to people who will appreciate it, after all the trash has been filtered out. I still haven't seen a viable way to keep good content and remove bad without human reviewers in the loop. Trying to fight bad UGC with algorithms alone appears to be an AI complete problem, because there are humans actively learning and working around your defenses on the other side.

Re: The TikTok War

#283

Post by scruple »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #254
scruple wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you actually concerned that the Chinese government might get access to your data or is it a matter of principle? Both. > What do you think they want to do with it? Absolutely no idea. Much like I had no idea what Facebook was doing, or planned to do, with my data back in the 00s. I think we've been down this road enough in the modern era to be distrustful of any entity, especially a government, especially my ow…

Possibly, but it could be just be pragmatic - if I lived in the PRC, I would be very, very nervous about sharing some kind of unfiltered feed of my data with state entities. Living outside of the PRC, it's harder to imagine what kind of practical use they'd put that same data to - though that might get more exciting if I traveled to China at some point in the future...

Maybe you're right, but I don't think so. For me, personally, it is kind of personal...

I have visited China multiple times. My wife is Chinese-American. My children are half-Chinese and will, hopefully, be fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese (MIL is Vietnam-born Chinese and a Vietnam War refugee), and English. A lot of our extended family still lives in China, in Hong Kong and the mainland (and even Taiwan). I am critical of China, online and off, and I have been for many, many years.

This isn't even that new to us, specifically. We decided in 2014 that we were not willing to go into the mainland anymore. Most of my wifes paternal family left Hong Kong after the hand-off in 1997 -- the writing was on the wall for anyone willing to pay attention. Given everything that has happened in Hong Kong in the last year or so, I don't think we'll ever visit family there again, either.

More on topic, though... It's bad enough that I have this nagging feeling in the back of my head about what sorts of bullshit the NSA, etc..., (and how they probably share this data freely, if asked, with the FVEY, allied intelligence agencies, etc...) are getting up to with my data, but I've learned how to deal with that without experiencing too much of a chilling effect. I don't have the mental capacity to fight this on yet another front, especially when my own understanding of Chinese state politics is so inadequate. Thankfully, I can easily opt out by simply not installing and/or using TikTok, or any of the other Chinese state-sponsored spyware, on any of our devices.

> Living outside of the PRC, it's harder to imagine what kind of practical use they'd put that same data to

Their reach doesn't end at their borders. The same can be said of every modern government / state on the planet today.

If you want a specific example, the Blitzchung controversy is worth understanding. [0] There's a list of censorship-related issues on Wikipedia, too. [1]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_censorship_of_Chinese...

Re: The TikTok War

#284

Post by Barrin92 »

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…

because you don't actually gain anything from banning it in the West too. Banning apps remains a bad thing even if China does it.

That China bans Google is bad for customers in China. What do we gain if we ban TikTok?

Re: The TikTok War

#285

Post by dvt »

newacct583 wrote: post #274
dvt wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 shoul…

You picked Irish men (note your stereotypes: all male) because they're reasonably elite in modern US society and so this seems harmless. Repeat the analysis with jokes about women ("so emotional"), blacks ("criminal"), mexicans ("rapists" -- I think someone tried this once, even), arabs ("rag heads"), republicans ("nazis"), etc... Tell me you want all that stuff on your website. But because you and your Irish buddies…

> You picked Irish men (note your stereotypes: all male)

You're obviously not arguing in good faith, as I am quite careful with my words and specifically mentioned people. But I do agree that thick skin is a requirement of a free and open society (this is where I'd usually cite J.S. Mill's On Liberty). Finally, I just want to add that your conclusion is off-base: anti-Irish sentiment (known as Hibernophobia) has a long and storied history.

Re: The TikTok War

#286

Post by cwkoss »

andreilys wrote: post #235
sharadov wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Algorithm and moderation policies are opaque. They can be used to subvert a geopolitical rival and spread discord. It’s pretty trivial to do that, and nobody would be the wiser.

Agree, but doesn't that also apply to Twitter and Facebook?

Re: The TikTok War

#287

Post by dirtyid »

analyte123 wrote: post #258
dirtyid wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

This is a good point, although I suspect most people don't really want to see the toxicity. People are always complaining that they can't make certain things go away on Facebook even though they're constantly telling it "I don't want this". The one time I can remember where someone got "cancelled" on Tiktok, most of the criticism was carried out on other platforms like Twitter and Youtube ("Nurse Holly" if you're cur…

Enough people LOVE drama and toxicity to perpetuate reality TV and online beef culture. Many of my hobbyist communities have been affect at some point in the last few years. I personally enjoy some of the drama (powerlifting/bodybuilding), but I just don't want them to shit where they eat and keep it off the platforms for their OG non-drama content. It's nice to have moderated space away from all that. I have my private communities, but I think TikTok is attempting to bring that feel to a larger scale. It's problematic if that's all there is like Chinese firewall. But when there's many media options, it's a nice spot of respite.

Re: The TikTok War

#288

Post by moreorless »

tw04 wrote: post #273
sharadov wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've never heard of facebook or snapchat or any of their major stakeholders being involved in mass (or any) industrial espionage. The same can't be said of the Chinese Government. That seems like a pretty distinct reason to be more OK with FB/Insta/Snap than TikTok.

TikTok = Chinese government? That is quite a leap there.

Re: The TikTok War

#289

Post by jl6 »

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…

For what it’s worth, I came across Gender Critical a couple of months back, as a confused neutral trying to understand what everybody was talking about. My impression was of a community uniting around a common anger at new trans-rights encroaching on hard-fought womens’ rights. I didn’t see much hate, and indeed many posters took pains to call out their support for trans-rights in principle. I think the anger was real though, and maybe was mistaken for hate by whoever decided to ban them.

Re: The TikTok War

#290

Post by newacct583 »

dvt wrote: post #285
newacct583 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You picked Irish men (note your stereotypes: all male) because they're reasonably elite in modern US society and so this seems harmless. Repeat the analysis with jokes about women ("so emotional"), blacks ("criminal"), mexicans ("rapists" -- I think someone tried this once, even), arabs ("rag heads"), republicans ("nazis"), etc... Tell me you want all that stuff on your website. But because you and your Irish buddies…

> You picked Irish men (note your stereotypes: all male) You're obviously not arguing in good faith, as I am quite careful with my words and specifically mentioned people . But I do agree that thick skin is a requirement of a free and open society (this is where I'd usually cite J.S. Mill's On Liberty ). Finally, I just want to add that your conclusion is off-base: anti-Irish sentiment (known as Hibernophobia) has a…

> anti-Irish sentiment (known as Hibernophobia) has a long and storied history.

OK, then let's ban the mean Irish jokes too.

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