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TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

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Re: TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

#371

Post by AussieWog93 »

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.

>TikTok content comes across as completely vapid.

I think that's exactly the point.

Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and (to a lesser extent) YouTube are weapons of psychological warfare that have been optimised to spread political misinformation and outrage.

TikTok, on the other hand, is just hot chicks dancing, stupid memes and Shrugging Black Italian Man. It reminds me a lot of old YouTube in that regard.

Re: TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

#372

Post by WaitWaitWha »

mrtksn wrote: post #25

I'm a huge fan of TikTok because after years of content stagnation and dullness, the internet is fun again. Especially places like Twitter and Instagram are outrage and depression inducers for me, consumed together it feels like the society is collapsing but everyone is living a perfect life at the same time. The China thing is touchy but I want the west to beat them by being better, not by being dismissive and prote…

> outrage and depression inducers for me, consumed together it feels like the society is collapsing but everyone is living a perfect life at the same time.

I am sorry to hear this.

Are you comparing yourself to yourself of yesterday, or are you comparing yourself to the fictional characters of others on social media?

Re: TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

#374

Post by n8cpdx »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #311
n8cpdx wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an out of touch take from the TikTok=China=bad days of 2019/2020. I see queer creators on TikTok all the time. Quite frequently actually. This was the second video that showed up for me today, with 500k views (it is propaganda out of the White House, in collaboration with a popular queer creator): https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosCgTr/ Only 50k views from an amateur creator, because TikTok hates queers: https://vm.…

50k is really amateur numbers. 50k people have probably already read you comment. Charli Damelio's last post was her eating a bag of Takis for 20 seconds and it got 15 MILLION views. We're just not seeing those numbers in marginalized communities on tiktok but we do see queer creators with top-tier numbers on youtube, facebook, insta, etc. Where's the trans Charli or the obese Charli or the anti-capitalist Charli? Se…

As a queer person who uses TikTok, I think you should take some time to challenge your assumptions and get some more information. This video might be informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MYEtQ5Zdn8

I should correct a mistake I made earlier: all of my numbers cited are likes not views. The TikTok promoting vaccines was seen 3.5 Million times. There are many queer creators with videos in the millions of views, and many more with videos in the hundreds of thousands.

Still, I don't think its reasonable to expect niche content from obese people to perform as well as generic content from normative people. I also don't think its reasonable to expect trans content to perform as well, given that a substantial portion of the US population still doesn't want to recognize or legalize their existence.

Yet, there is an abundance of queer content (content that sought me out, I never told TikTok that I'm gay), much of it quite niche. TikTok sends me enough gay male twink armpit fetish content that I don't realistically think you can say they're making a serious effort to suppress it.

If you're focusing on hashtags and not algorithm suggestions, I think you don't have a strong grasp of how TikTok works. All of the cited sources are quite old, so perhaps it was too early for folks to actually have time to use and understand the service.

Your claim that there is nothing threatening to China or TikTok economically is suspect, given the algorithm has also suggested Uighur muslim genocide content: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMR1RhcUj/ - there are many more. This one has 65k likes. I also had no trouble searching for Taiwan and finding content that is quite hostile to China. I've had the fyp send me content directly critical of TikTok itself.

> “In practice, most of these hashtags are categorised in TikTok’s code in the same way that terrorist groups, illicit substances, and swear words are treated on the platform.”

The implementation details of an app aren't necessarily meaningful in the way you suggest. Twitter does something similar; I can type #isis #gay #weed #sex, and now Twitter has code that handles lgbtq, terrorist, and illicit substance content the same way.

Re: TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

#376

Post by meowtimemania »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #372
mrtksn wrote: post #25

I'm a huge fan of TikTok because after years of content stagnation and dullness, the internet is fun again. Especially places like Twitter and Instagram are outrage and depression inducers for me, consumed together it feels like the society is collapsing but everyone is living a perfect life at the same time. The China thing is touchy but I want the west to beat them by being better, not by being dismissive and prote…

> outrage and depression inducers for me, consumed together it feels like the society is collapsing but everyone is living a perfect life at the same time. I am sorry to hear this. Are you comparing yourself to yourself of yesterday, or are you comparing yourself to the fictional characters of others on social media?

If I use tiktok regularly it makes me feel depressed. For me it's best just to limit social media as much as possible.

Re: TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

#377

Post by narrator »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #93
mrtksn wrote: post #25

I'm a huge fan of TikTok because after years of content stagnation and dullness, the internet is fun again. Especially places like Twitter and Instagram are outrage and depression inducers for me, consumed together it feels like the society is collapsing but everyone is living a perfect life at the same time. The China thing is touchy but I want the west to beat them by being better, not by being dismissive and prote…

> Especially places like Twitter and Instagram are outrage and depression inducers for me, consumed together it feels like the society is collapsing It's been interesting to watch the steady decline of Reddit and Twitter since they launched. They've always had a significant amount of doom-and-gloom clickbait headlines, but in the past it was far easier to filter out the bad and follow subreddits or Twitter people wit…

The value of social networks to manipulate politics is way more valuable than any ads. The ads are there to just cover the bills. Reddit is going downhill because it's a radicalization factory filled to the brim with bots. Anyone who presents an unpopular opinion is banned on most subs.

This is why the whole social media world is easy to disrupt. It's not listening to the consumer and focused on influence. I mean the whole reason Gab.com exists is not because it's a good site with cool features. Nope. The reason it exists is nobody can host that stuff without building their whole infrastructure from scratch because of the political controversy.

TikTok on the other hand is just focused on user engagement right now and not politics, so whatever. There will come a day though when it become too powerful for just that.

Re: TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

#378

Post by rvz »

npteljes wrote: post #292
rvz wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the children be free to download this app and let them play in it. They are going to realise soon how much of an addictive nightmare this app is and it just takes a slip up or a scandal from ByteDance to anger the majority users on the platform. The news about it being the most downloaded app is great news if you are an investor in ByteDance; I don't know what you get out of it if you're a mere user. As always yo…

>They are going to realise soon how much of an addictive nightmare this app is and it just takes a slip up or a scandal from ByteDance to anger the majority users on the platform. Have you seen this previously anywhere? Sounds like a pipe dream to me. Did, for example, Facebook's scandals kill Facebook? The spywares that Lenovo bundled even make a dent in Lenovo's brand? Reddit's constant push of dark pattern shrink…

> Have you seen this previously anywhere? Sounds like a pipe dream to me.

That's because it has already happened. They already were sued for screwing with their users privacy. [0] [1] Facebook's brand has been damaged because of this, as for Reddit they hasn't even started yet. Even with the 'dark patterns' you speak of.

The worst part is TikTok has already started these violations for everyone to see and the fact they are still getting sued over this, probably means they will continue to do it anyway.

I don't blame them, both Reddit and ByteDance (TikTok) need to IPO.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56815480

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/25/22301704/tiktok-92-millio...

Re: TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

#379

Post by [deleted] »

skinnymuch wrote: post #334
Barrin92 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people on the planet don't use ios, and in 2016 when whatsapp had, IIRC about 900 million users was about when they cancelled it. It's fair to assume a lot of people paid that dollar.

Why did you assume I wasn’t only talking about iOS in my post when I only brought up iOS? I did not even bring up Android. Regardless, most of you’re reply isn’t true. First, people who talk about iOS maimly charging $1 usually also bring up android charging a dollar after the first free year. Are you only claiming the iOS part? If so. Why ignore the android part? Why would Facebook, one of the most profitable compan…

[deleted]

Re: TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

#380

Post by gnopgnip »

travoc wrote: post #225
gnopgnip wrote: post #155

What is the advantage of installing the app over using your web browser?

You can’t even browse the website anymore unless you download the app or log in.

Is there some feature installing the app gives you over logging in in the browser?
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