The TikTok War • Hacker News Board

Re: The TikTok War

#331

Post by cwkoss » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:37 PM UTC

teekert wrote: post #8

azatris wrote: post #6

I absolutely love using TikTok, but would give it up in a heartbeat for a Western replacement. It has absolutely brought more positivity into my life. I am specifically feeding the algorithm with this intent and I get what I asked for. It is a psychological tool.

All I see is girls putting their phone somewhere, dancing in front of it, then getting back into being absorbed by their phones. Can you describe more specifically what is so positive about it? My kids are about to enter the age at which they get a smartphone and these things make me a bit afraid (like, who's watching? Why do they stare at that app for so long? etc). I don't understand the alure, but I want to keep a…

It seems to create affinity scores based on which videos you complete watching, like or share. Then they also maintain similar affinity scores for every tag on those videos and the creators of those videos. So as you watch stuff, you feed becomes tuned to your preferences without needing an explicit 'follow' step.

Users have little control of what videos they see explicitly, but if you like 5 videos with the same tag, it will present more videos with that tag.

Re: The TikTok War

#332

Post by thebooktocome » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:44 PM UTC

trcollinson wrote: post #299

thebooktocome wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the first principle that says "only women have cervixes"? It's medically false and objectively wrong. Now who is peddling in "amorphous relativism"?

I don't love fighting over these sorts of things, especially on Hacker News. So I am not trying to fight at all. But I am genuinely and honestly asking, where do I find research to say that not "only women have cervices"? After Googling for a few minutes I have found quite a bit of research on how cervical health of a female sexual partner can affect the male partner. I have found how male sexual partner health relat…

It's not an opinion: that's the whole point. This is basic, "there exists X which is Y, therefore not all X is not-Y" logic.

I find your framing device unnecessarily obtuse. Do all women have cervixes? No. Do all non-women lack cervixes? Also no. It's that simple.

Re: The TikTok War

#333

Post by scottLobster » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #321

scottLobster wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I'm sure they operate in even greater numbers internally, but I'm equally sure China puts out as much foreign propaganda as they think they can get away with. "Sinophobia" in response to criticism of verified CCP actions in particular seems an attempt to weaponize the current cancel culture in the west. Hell China did likewise to the Mongol tribes for centuries until Genghis Khan came along. It's not like sowing d…

I think it is quite ironic that on the one hand you completely dismiss sinophobia as a concept, and on the other hand you cite pre-Ghenis Khan times as the reason for being wary of 21st century China.

Once again withe the non-arguments and strawmen. These exchanges do nothing but prove my point.

Criticizing the CCP's actions in Hong Kong, for example, is not sinophobic. Criticizing their treatment of the Uighurs is not sinophobic, and criticizing their attempts at intelligence collection and propaganda is not sinophobic. Yet all have been called such at some point in Hacker News comments in recent posts.

And my point was that the strategy of sowing discord among one's rivals is thousands of years old and been proven effective. Would you prefer the example of the British in the Middle East? To suggest that the current CCP is unaware of or uninterested in promoting such a strategy is laughable.

Re: The TikTok War

#334

Post by detaro » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

dvt wrote: post #300

detaro wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference in the standing of the groups. Nowadays , even anti-Irish prejudice is probably not that common anymore in the anglosphere, and anti-Irish violence or laws are even less of a problem. That doesn't mean that there isn't an ugly history around that, and doesn't make all jokes ok, but it is a difference from groups where the topic is more sensitive. And given the prevalence of e.g. anti-trans senti…

This is a bad argument for a few reasons, but I'll cover my main gripe: the sorites wormhole. Is making fun of white straight men OK? Ok good. What about white women? What about white gay women? Black republican gay men? Mexican scientologists? What group takes precedence? Your race? Your religion? Your sexual orientation? Your eye color? Your hair color? It's probably OK to make fun of Christians in the US, but it's…

You seem to be under the impression that there has to be a simple "situation in, binary judgement out" function that always works. I don't think that exists, as for pretty much any large-scale social problem, especially if you expand it globally, and I don't think my comment suggested that. Doesn't mean it isn't a useful heuristic to suggest why people (in the anglospehere, nowadays) are generally less worried about "just jokes" about Irish people than about trans people.

Re: The TikTok War

#335

Post by haecceity » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:58 PM UTC

> What is increasingly clear, though, is that China’s insistence that the West ignore the country’s “internal affairs” is a sentiment that is not reciprocated; the list of Western companies bullied by China for Western content is long and growing, the country is flooding Twitter and Facebook with coronavirus propaganda, and is leveraging WeChat to spread misinformation and to surveil the Chinese diaspora.

None of those are "internal affairs" to any Western country. Those are international companies that have an interest in not pissing off their cash cow. If they poured money into the Cascadia independence movement then that would America and Canada's internal affairs. But the only party doing that is the State Department and NED.

There's a lot of inaccuracies in this article. He seems to think knowledge in tech translates to knowledge in other things. Pity.

Re: The TikTok War

#336

Post by trcollinson » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

thebooktocome wrote: post #332

trcollinson wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't love fighting over these sorts of things, especially on Hacker News. So I am not trying to fight at all. But I am genuinely and honestly asking, where do I find research to say that not "only women have cervices"? After Googling for a few minutes I have found quite a bit of research on how cervical health of a female sexual partner can affect the male partner. I have found how male sexual partner health relat…

It's not an opinion: that's the whole point. This is basic, "there exists X which is Y, therefore not all X is not-Y" logic. I find your framing device unnecessarily obtuse. Do all women have cervixes? No. Do all non-women lack cervixes? Also no. It's that simple.

You know, I'm trying to steer this towards a conversation. I guess I missed the mark. But I am undeterred. I will still try to pull something educational out for myself.

According to the knowledge I have humans born with two X chromosomes have a cervix unless they have a generic abnormality or have a surgical procedure to remove the cervix. Humans born with an X and Y chromosome do not have a cervix. There may be humans born with different chromosome arrangements that do have a cervix, but I can't find a lot of, or any, medical research on such. If there is, I would like to read about it. That's what I'm asking.

Again, according to my knowledge, humans can designate themselves with whatever noun (woman, man) and pronoun (he, she, it, etc) they wish. That means that humans who designate themselves as man can have a cervix because they picked the designation and that designation does not designate a set of reproductive organs.

Education is not obtuse. Language had become complicated. Social norms have become complicated. I'm trying to actually get an understanding from various sources.

Re: The TikTok War

#337

Post by kanox » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

kpennell wrote: post #11

I'm not sure how I got sucked into Tiktok but I was quickly hooked. There's something so refreshingly playful, authentic, and raw about so much Tiktok content compared to Instagram. Instagram (explore/discovery) is generally pretty people with pretty things in pretty places. That was fun for a while but it's just not that interesting after a while. I don't need to see more pretty pictures of women doing yoga. I don't…

My TikTok feed is ~70% animal videos and honestly it's the best app for positive content. It starts with way too many young women dancing but you can just mark them as "not interesting" and they will diminish.

Re: The TikTok War

#338

Post by sschueller » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 8:11 PM UTC

chvid wrote: post #39

As an European I am happy that someone is finally breaking the American monopoly on social media. It just feels wrong only being surveilled by the NSA.

I find it funny how the US is freaking out that they don't own it. Now you know what it feels like when the US owns all the large social media networks and you have to deal with their politics and censorship.

Re: The TikTok War

#339

Post by dvt » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #334

dvt wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad argument for a few reasons, but I'll cover my main gripe: the sorites wormhole. Is making fun of white straight men OK? Ok good. What about white women? What about white gay women? Black republican gay men? Mexican scientologists? What group takes precedence? Your race? Your religion? Your sexual orientation? Your eye color? Your hair color? It's probably OK to make fun of Christians in the US, but it's…

You seem to be under the impression that there has to be a simple "situation in, binary judgement out" function that always works. I don't think that exists, as for pretty much any large-scale social problem, especially if you expand it globally, and I don't think my comment suggested that. Doesn't mean it isn't a useful heuristic to suggest why people (in the anglospehere, nowadays) are generally less worried about…

> You seem to be under the impression that there has to be a simple "situation in, binary judgement out" function that always works.

There's a huge range between the ad hoc and the binary. For example, I think Mill's Harm Principle is a good place to start.

> Doesn't mean it isn't a useful heuristic...

I guess that's my point: I don't think it's a useful heuristic at all. Imo, the great majority of people worried about trans jokes and not Irish jokes are primarily on the political left, which makes it a political issue. But it should be (and in fact is) a moral issue: is X being harmed by Y? If so, we ought to punish Y.

Re: The TikTok War

#340

Post by dvt » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

fivre wrote: post #320

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…

> 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. No, you're right, they're not on the same playing field, though saying that they are because one issue is "politicize…

This is a silly argument, because it runs into a wall via a very simple reductio ad absurdum: it's the year 2000, and I made my career making fun of Muslims.. they wear funny things on their heads, do a weird carpet prayer, etc. Uh-oh, now it's 2002. Muslims are being persecuted again in some Southern states because of 9/11. Now, two years later, according to your very own present-day-contextualized-moral-joke-compass, you can't joke about Muslims anymore. When can I resume my comedy career joking about Muslims? 2005? 2006? Before or after Charlie Hebdo?

The Holocaust was a pretty big deal, can we joke about Jews yet? Or does comedy have a cooldown period?