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The TikTok War

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Re: The TikTok War

#61

Post by moron4hire »

Asad445 wrote: post #5
collegeburner wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Current young person here (entering college this fall). I can't think of a single way it's changed "the mindset of our generation", and it seems it's used very heavily by a specific type of person but not by others (as opposed to other social media which is more widely used). How is it changing anything?

People doing suicides in different countries due to this.. In India in pakistan etc

"The kids doing suicides" is a common trope dragged out anytime the establishment wants to put something down. Come up with evidence that TikTok is causing more suicidal ideation than people typically experience, and then we might have a conversation. Until then, this is just fearmongering, and a lazy form of it at that.

Re: The TikTok War

#62

Post by cj »

bstar77 wrote: post #24
mschuster91 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's replaced rants and frustration with laughter and positivity. ... and Chinese spyware in the pockets of children.

Since the copy/paste exploit was addressed (in ios) I'm not sure what useful information "chinese spyware" can gather from this app. As long as it's being used for goofy dance and lip sync videos, I don't see the harm.

I see the risk being less about spyware, and more about giving CCP the ability to push its agenda at the flick of an algorithm tweak.

A lot of people in comments are talking about how great the feed algorithm is out weeding out teenage dance videos and showing interesting content.

You can easily imagine a scenario where CCP tweaks its algorithms to favor content relating to one party or candidate vs. the other.

The scary part is that I think it wouldn't be obvious to know whether China is exploiting TikTok's American audience via algorithms driving a certain agenda since it can be done very subtly in non-obvious ways.

Re: The TikTok War

#63

Post by xapata »

alextheparrot wrote: post #23
mschuster91 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's replaced rants and frustration with laughter and positivity. ... and Chinese spyware in the pockets of children.

Can you explain the threat model you're using here to assess Facebook vs TikTok? This sounds like just emotional language as I could call most of the modern web spyware and not be too far off the mark

It's less about threat model than willingness to use it.

If the US government were using Facebook to censor and disseminate propaganda, we'd likely eventually hear about it.

In contrast, the Chinese government is certainly using TikTok to censor and quite likely to disseminate propaganda. Critics of that policy will be imprisoned.

Re: The TikTok War

#64

Post by vorpalhex »

actuator wrote: post #26
vorpalhex wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak with your money, call in complaints to advertisers, communicate the importance of these actions to your friends.

I am all for activism but does this work unless it reaches a sizeable mass, look at how FB brushed aside the impact of protests by their advertisers.

The current Facebook situation is a bit of a different beast. Most of those advertisers were already cutting their marketing spend because Covid, and are using the current cause to still get attention while reducing direct spend (though I'm sure they'd like Facebook to be a bit heavier on the censorship all the same).

Facebook is likely doing the math now on what makes sense in terms of keeping advertisers happy while resisting temporary market pressure. The answer will probably be a discount on ads, not actually changing content policies, which is what the advertisers are likely gunning for anyways.

Re: The TikTok War

#65

Post by amadeuspagel »

Interesting that only India's decision to ban TikTok made that possible in the US. Shows how polarized the US is. If one side suggested banning TikTok, the other side would immidiately defend it, but India banning it can bring it into the conversation in a way that doesn't force everyone to adopt a view on it reflexively.

Re: The TikTok War

#66

Post by xapata »

moron4hire wrote: post #47
netcan wrote: post #29

This tiktok "war" is, ultimately, changing the way people politicians think about media tech. With Twitter or Facebook, it's a lot easier to dismiss the magnitude of their influence. After all, they're not in business to influence politics. They just want to make tech & sell ads and make money. They don't care what becomes news, who wins elections etc. Benign commercial interests, that's all With tiktok and the chine…

> After all, they're not in business to influence politics. Dude, I personally know people who work in Facebook's own lobbying department. I would be very surprised if Twitter didn't have the same thing.

There's a difference between Facebook lobbying and Facebook using its products to disseminate propaganda.

Re: The TikTok War

#67

Post by msbarnett »

xapata wrote: post #51
msbarnett wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I consider Chinese spyware any worse than the US spyware of Facebook, as a resident of neither country. Hand wringing about TikTok seems more rooted in sinophobia than genuine privacy concerns, from where I’m sitting.

Do you agree with the censorship and propaganda policies of mainland China? If not, Sinophobia is not paranoia.

No, but then again I’m equally opposed to much of contemporary US politics and the long history of US meddling in foreign countries affairs to obtain anti-democratic results that happen to favour US goals (broadly, Latin American 20th century history), so again, this “TikTok’s data gathering is an existential threat to freedom but please pay Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google et al no mind” framing is... unconvincing to say the least.

Re: The TikTok War

#68

Post by puranjay »

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…

Here in India, TikTok was massively popular in smaller towns and villages. The content was so different than Instagram.

I really thought it was invaluable (TikTok is banned now). For us city dwelling upper middle class people, it gave a rare glimpse into the lives of people less privileged. And it wasn't maudlin or patronizing as a lot of narratives about the poor tend to be. Rather it was fun and authentic.

I remember when the lockdown happened and a lot of migrant workers were left stranded, the news channels were filled with horror stories and heartbreaking videos of poor families walking hundreds of kilometres to their homes. But on TikTok, there were plenty of videos shot by the same migrant workers where they shared their woes, but would sometimes break into a dance or make fun of their situation.

Re: The TikTok War

#69

Post by Waterfall »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #38
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.

> give it up in a heartbeat for a Western replacement. It's important to recognized that it's not a coincidence that TikTok exists and is run by a Chinese company. In the West that replacement would have been immediately purchased by FB or Twitter and then summarily destroyed. This is literally what happened to the closest Western equivalent: Vine. The Chinese government has many faults, but unlike the US government,…

Vine wasn't destroyed, it was bought by Twitter long before it released.

Re: The TikTok War

#70

Post by nxc18 »

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…

I get mostly cooking, gardening, life hacks, and occasionally political humor. I'm also on gay TikTok so there's some 'fun' content there.

I've learned lots of cool stuff on TikTok - my favorite tip recently has been a trick for partially juicing lemons while leaving them intact; last week I broke my soda habit as a result of easily accessible homemade la croix.

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