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TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

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Re: TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

#31

Post by krapp »

Refreeze5224 wrote: post #24
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #23

the solution to this is very obvious, but I know some folks won't cease using the product. It's sort've cliche at this point but we got the worst of both Orwell and Huxley in that our super-invasive surveillance apparatus is also a super-addictive apparatus designed to hit all our evolutionary buttons like a slot machine.

What is the solution? You imply that it is just to quit using it, but then you mention how super-addictive social media and especially TikTok is. Which it is, by design, by very smart people who very intentionally exploit every aspect of human psychology they can, for profit. I don't blame the victims of social media, I blame the architects of it. To me it's clear that social media does more harm than good, and is on…

Social media is addictive, but Hacker News overplays how addictive it is.

Most of what keeps people on it isn't heroin-like dependence but convenience and habit.

Re: TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

#32

Post by direwolf20 »

krapp wrote: post #31
Refreeze5224 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the solution? You imply that it is just to quit using it, but then you mention how super-addictive social media and especially TikTok is. Which it is, by design, by very smart people who very intentionally exploit every aspect of human psychology they can, for profit. I don't blame the victims of social media, I blame the architects of it. To me it's clear that social media does more harm than good, and is on…

Social media is addictive, but Hacker News overplays how addictive it is. Most of what keeps people on it isn't heroin-like dependence but convenience and habit.

Convenience of what? What goal is achieved most efficiently by using social media?

Re: TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

#33

Post by coldtea »

wileydragonfly wrote: post #29

I played with TikTok for a week or so. Every time I opened it, it was suggesting feeds featuring clearly mentally impaired people with large audiences throwing money at them for saying their name. It felt like a very concerted effort to dumb down the American population. You wouldn’t listen to these people for 10 seconds out in public. The fetal alcohol syndrome phenotype was widespread. The entire experience was dis…

Maybe it's just you. To me it shows totally different stuff, equally stupid, by default (e.g. if I go with a new account), but easily changeable with very little targeted watching (it picks your interests quite fast)

Re: TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

#34

Post by coldtea »

nikkwong wrote: post #25
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Americans are probably better off using Chinese apps that the Chinese government uses to snoop on them and Chinese are better off using American apps that the American govt uses to snoop on them than the opposite. The impact the Chinese government can have on an individual American is minor compared to the US govt and the same goes for the American and Chinese govts on the average Chinese person.

...Highly disagree. China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor. They've been doing this for at least a decade now, and have played a silent hand in reshaping American politics. If (when) a conflict arises, trust that they will use this tool to manip…

>China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor

Nothing a tin-foil hat can't prevent

As if the public needed any manipulation. You can just read what actual public figures, journalists, and such have been openly saying for the last 15-20 years...

When a long-time political player, wife of a President, and presidential candidate calls a big chunk of the population "deplorables", when opposing candidates call for the jailing or even shooting of their opponent, or when the current President is saying what he says and doing what he does, you need more to get "chaos" and "distrust of the neighbor"?

Re: TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

#35

Post by SanjayMehta »

coldtea wrote: post #34
nikkwong wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...Highly disagree. China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor. They've been doing this for at least a decade now, and have played a silent hand in reshaping American politics. If (when) a conflict arises, trust that they will use this tool to manip…

> China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor Nothing a tin-foil hat can't prevent As if the public needed any manipulation. You can just read what actual public figures, journalists, and such have been openly saying for the last 15-20 years... When…

A Tin Dome which might actually work.

Re: TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

#36

Post by hwillis »

nikkwong wrote: post #25
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Americans are probably better off using Chinese apps that the Chinese government uses to snoop on them and Chinese are better off using American apps that the American govt uses to snoop on them than the opposite. The impact the Chinese government can have on an individual American is minor compared to the US govt and the same goes for the American and Chinese govts on the average Chinese person.

...Highly disagree. China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor. They've been doing this for at least a decade now, and have played a silent hand in reshaping American politics. If (when) a conflict arises, trust that they will use this tool to manip…

> skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor.

I don't really have respect for this idea; we do this to ourselves far more effectively than people who frankly have a pretty hamfisted cultural understanding- just as we have of china or russia.

IMO influence over real concrete choices is much more alarming. Someone with household-level information has an insane amount of advantage in an election. You can target politcal messaging street by street to play up the worst aspects of your opposed candidate and the least repulsive aspects of your own candidate.

But if you're in china, the most you can do is try to push towards whatever of the two candidates is least bad for you. And spoiler, zero american politicians are pro-china.

Re: TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

#37

Post by krapp »

direwolf20 wrote: post #32
krapp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media is addictive, but Hacker News overplays how addictive it is. Most of what keeps people on it isn't heroin-like dependence but convenience and habit.

Convenience of what? What goal is achieved most efficiently by using social media?

People use social media to consume news and entertainment and to curate and communicate with people and accounts using an interface that allows them to read and share multiple media types.

My mother used it to communicate with her COPD support group and chat with in-laws in Australia. I use it to follow up on work groups and authors and developers I'm interested in. Most people's usage of social media is banal and mundane, little different than watching television in the 1990s. They use social media because it provides value for them, not because they're addicted to dopamine.

Re: TikTok is now collecting more data about its users

#38

Post by gerdesj »

wileydragonfly wrote: post #29

I played with TikTok for a week or so. Every time I opened it, it was suggesting feeds featuring clearly mentally impaired people with large audiences throwing money at them for saying their name. It felt like a very concerted effort to dumb down the American population. You wouldn’t listen to these people for 10 seconds out in public. The fetal alcohol syndrome phenotype was widespread. The entire experience was dis…

I'm not a fan either (and don't bother with it) but TikTok and co try to prey on your ... sorry try to show you stuff that they think you want to see, indexed on advert spend and a few other factors that will maximise advert spend return. That is their entire raison d'etre.

So, why on earth are they displaying stuff that you say is disturbing? There is no profit in that and TikTok is all about profit, ideally from abroad, ie market share.

I'm sure that the American population is incapable of being dumbed down any further.

Log a bug.

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