TikTok overtakes Facebook as most downloaded app

Privacy-wise... OK, I'm an ex-FAANG, and that ship has sailed long ago. My cynical view is that TikTok is far down the line of entities that collect all the same data.

As for the car analogy, yes, this was exactly what I was trying to say; apologies for lack of clarity.

I was arguing with others who were saying "TikTok is juts as bad as all the others, and if it's not, it will be", which is an empty statement.

I'd switch to a privacy-conscious alternative in a heartbeat, and my point is that there is none, by a long shot.

And that's the thing. If you care about the downsides of TikTok, you better understand why the users go there instead of other platforms that are ostensibly "just the same".

Facebook didn't grow because it was "same" as MySpace; and everyone missing the difference is why Facebook is the giant it is today.

I'm trying to explain the value users derive from TikTok that other platforms don't provide.

Specifically as a member of the "vulnerable" groups on TikTok. I am bringing here a perspective that the person speaking on my behalf clearly doesn't have, being neither a TikTok user, nor, it seems, a member of any of these groups.

The discourse here reached a point of gaslighting where people are convincing me that I'm being "exploited" when I point out that out.

I joined last month.

Specifically, over a year after the article cited by the parent comment was written.

That's my point here: I don't know if their algorithms were bad in the past, they are not bad now in the way the parent comment claimed then to be.

As for the rest of your comment, you seem to miss that we're already out of sight away from TikTok, so your doomsday scenario is my yesterday. And we are so isolated that a walled garden is a huge improvement over solitude.

There's tremendous value in creating safe spaces for people to connect with people who understand each other better. HackerNews is such space for tech.

The incredible thing about TikTok is the the algorithm can connect you to the right people even if you're not consciously aware of belonging to the group.

As in "Wait, I didn't know that I'd be into programming so much until I found out what it actually is after watching all these videos, and now that I know, I enjoy interacting with software developers tremendously".

And, as I pointed out, we already have other platforms to speak out to the world (which, consistently, chooses not to listen).

What TikTok does is an unparalleled reach to speak to each other.

It's peer-to-peer way more than you'd think looking from the outside in.

I have been incredibly disappointed by the queer presence on TikTok. Most of the people who I watched seemed misinformed, or were trying to sell me something. The shorter length of the medium encourages sensationalized media rather than longer, more reasoned takes. Furthermore, there's not a single worse place for vulnerable communities to exist than a Chinese app. China has demonstrated, at length, that they intend to oppress their queer population, Uighur population, Taiwanese population, student population and anyone who opposes them politically. As a queer person myself, I couldn't imagine a less comfortable platform if I tried. TikTok feels like a clinical exposure to queer identity, stripped of passion and packaged as a shiny toy. It's demeaning and degrading.

> My point was that TikTok is more than that (addictive entertainment). It saves lives too.

I think every social media platform of a certain size has "saved a life" before. I remember hanging out in an IRC chat with people who I used to drink with, and we had to call 911 for someone who had alcohol poisoning. There was only like 30-40 members, so "life saving" can really happen on any platform.

Communities can happen anywhere, too: you just need passionate people to drive them. I hope in the future there will be less corrupt/centralized alternatives, if you feel that this medium is particularly helpful for you.

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So, I don't understand what any of what you linked has to do with "legalizing the existence of trans people." Nothing referenced in the wikipedia article is remotely to do with making it illegal to be transgender, and I have never heard an argument advocating for that.

So what is being debated is whether or not transgender individuals should be granted protections on the basis of their gender identity. That is not debating whether or not they should exist, it is debating whether or not an additional legislative layer should be put in place to prevent workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Then there is a debate about birth certificates, about whether or not transgender individuals should be able to have their birth certificate reflect their chosen gender identity, but this is just as much to do with language as anything else. The concept of sex vs gender identity, and the meaning of "gender" as ambiguous between those depending on political faction. Again, this isn't a debate about whether transgender people can legally exist, it's a debate about whether the world should be altered so as to conform to their own perception of themselves.

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This leads to "recognition." Your definition of "recognition" seems to be "recognized within the exact framing of themselves as they wish to be seen." Let's consider two examples of identity related dysphoria. One is a born biological male who considers his gender identity to be female, and one is a man on a street corner that believes himself to be Jesus Christ. If the rest of society refused to see the man on the corner as Jesus Christ, would you say that this was society not recognizing the existence of the man? Surely not. The acceptance of his existence, and the application of all human rights applied to the individual have nothing to do with whether or not people accept this man on all of the terms of his asserted identity. In regards to transgender individuals, accepting this person's identity often boils down to strict hardline questions, a la "is this person a woman?" Any degree of nuance in the answer to that question is to be understood as society "not recognizing the existence" of transgender people? No. I'm sorry. But a failure to recognize somebody exactly within the framing of their own identity that they put forward is not the same as not accepting their existence. That language is absurd.