TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

Post by fidesomnes » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #276

underwater wrote: post #184

I'm baffled by the glowing endorsements of TikTok on Hacker News of all places. TikTok content comes across as completely vapid. It's like the worst possible mashup of bad television and social media. As a company TikTok seems to have zero goals beyond increasing engagement.

Sure it's vapid and I'm glad I've aged out of feeling I need to participate in any of these things. But it's great to see competition with SV, competition FAANG, competition with the US even. It's not a solution, but it's a breath of fleetingly fresh error for everyone sick of endless monopoly, acquisitions, and "tech nationalism for me, free trade and dependency for thee".

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 11:16 PM UTC

cronix wrote: post #171

warning26 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an abstract level, that sounds terrible, doesn't it? At the same time though, I feel like this seems like the "least bad" possible solution. If a subset of accounts are only going viral because people want to bully them, it seems reasonable to limit that content's reach.

Yes, it does sound terrible, on any level. Just get rid of minority viewpoints rather than enforce some sort of basic civility when discussing them? Just get rid of the harassed rather than the harassers? How will that iterate over time? That would be like firing the current women coming forward against Governor Cuomo and leaving the governor alone to continue his ways, to put it in a current headline context.

Post by sen » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

buryat wrote: post #330

ren_engineer wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok's algorithm is just pre 2017 YT and FB cranked up by 100X. For some reason the media hasn't gone after TikTok yet for pushing people into "echo chambers" but they basically just feed the most engaging content with no breaks on the train. I read an article about the parent company and they have one of the most popular news app in India as well despite none of the engineers being able to read what content is bei…

> they basically just feed the most engaging content with no breaks on the train. this is simply not true, i regularly get videos with less than 100 views, and a few videos i published got a few hundred views.

Post by birdyrooster » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #191

tablespoon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As opposed to US based networks? There are important differences between being influenced by domestic actors, as part of a domestic political process, and being influenced by foreign actors. The latter is a far more serious threat to political independence. It's also pretty well documented that the PRC political authorities already use its domestic social networks in this way.

It's also documented that Cambridge Analytica used data made available to it by Facebook to target millions with political propaganda. It wasn't just the US election, they had plenty of practice validating the strategy in elections in smaller countries. Where's the evidence that TT has been successfully used for nefarious purposes on a similar scale?

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC