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Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

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Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#731

Post by eddythompson80 »

toddmorey wrote: post #643

Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably upset about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me why it will sting for you? I was really surprised that my daughters (avid teenage TikTok users) are much more relieved than mad. Both said they wasted too much time on TikTok and were hoping life will now feel better. Seems the very thing that made the platform sticky puts it in a guilty pleasure categ…

TikTok has replaced Reddit for me (I can expand more on why I stopped using Reddit, but it's not related to TikTok) in terms of "checking what's up on the internet" or as Reddit would put it "Checking the homepage of the internet".

I trust TikTok's "algorithm" to give me quick and entertaining short-bits about what's going on, what's interesting, etc. It learns what I'm into effortlessly, and I appreciate how every now and then it would throw in a completely new (to me) genera or type of content to check out. Whenever I open it, there is a feed that's been curated to me about things I'm interested in checking out, few new things that are hit or miss (and I like that), and very few infuriating/stupid (to me) things.

Its recommendation engine is the best I have used. It's baffling how shitty YouTube's algorithm is. I discover YouTube channels I'm into form TikTok. Sometimes I'd discover new (or old) interesting videos from YouTube channels I already follow from TikTok first. For example, I follow Veritasium and 3Blue1Brown on YouTube but I certainly haven't watched their full back catalog. YouTube NEVER recommends to me anything from their back catalog. When I'm in the mood, I have to go to their channel, scroll for a while, then try to find a video I'd be interested in from the thumbnail/title. And once I do, YouTube will re-recommend to me all the videos I have already watched from them (which are already their best performing videos). Rarely would it recommend something new from them.

On TikTok, it frequently would pull clips from old Veritasium or 3Blue1Brown videos for me which I'd get hooked after watching 10 seconds, then hob on YouTube to watch the full video. It's insane how bad YouTube recommendation algorithm is. Literally the entire "recommended" section of youtube is stuff I have watched before, or stuff with exactly the same content as things I have watched before.

Here is how I find their recommendation algorithm to work:

YouTube: Oh you watched (and liked) a brisket smoking video? Here is that video again, and 10 other "brisket smoking videos". These are just gonna be stuck on your home page for the next couple of weeks now. You need to click on them one by one and mark "not interested" in which case you're clearly not interested in BBQ or cooking. Here are the last 10 videos you watched, and some MrBeast videos and some random YouTube drama videos.

TikTok: Oh you watched (and liked) a brisket smoking video? How about another BBQ video, a video about smokers and their models, some videos about cookouts and BBQ side dishes, a video about a DIY smoker, another about a DIY backyard project for hosting BBQ cookouts, a video about how smoke flavors food, a video about the history of BBQ in the south, a video about a BBQ joint in your city (or where ever my VPN is connected from), etc. And if you're not interested in any of those particular types, it learns from how long you spend watching the video and would branch more or less in that direction in the future.

Another example is search. Search for "sci fi books recommendations":

YouTube: Here are 3 videos about Sci-Fi books. Here are 4 brisket smoking videos. Here are some lost hikers videos (because you watched a video about a lost hiker 3 weeks ago). Here are 3 videos about a breaking story in the news. Here are 2 videos about sci-fi books, and another 8 about brisket.

TikTok: Here is a feed of videos about Sci-Fi books. And I'll make sure to throw in sci-fi book videos into your curated feed every now and then to see if you're interested.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#733

Post by quantumsequoia »

stevenAthompson wrote: post #726

The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China. They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities. Yet people are arguing that we should allow the…

> Tiktok is actively suppressing the stories.

Is there any evidence of this? FWIW, I saw plenty of tiktoks talking about the China hack

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#734

Post by bsimpson »

JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #693
aunterste wrote: post #628

This would have been a great opportunity to regulate and prohibit massive data collection on mobile phones, by writing a law that requires the platforms (iOS,android) to architect differently and police this aggressively. Takes care of a lot of the TikTok worry and cleans up ecosystems from location tracking/selling weather apps as well.

There's no compelling argument or evidence of data collection with TikTok, to my knowledge. Theres more evidence of data collection and aggregation with American platforms than TikTok. Additionally, TikTok is operated independently within the USA and hosted on American servers. I think if there's any opportunity to regulate data collection, TikTok seems to have positioned itself defensively and seems to be distant fr…

I met someone who did some high-level work for ByteDance. I asked them what they thought of the worries that TikTok was a CCP spying instrument.

They said ByteDance is as disorganized as any other big tech company, and it would be approximately impossible for them to discretely pull that off.

It's easy to see "CCP" and think bogeyman, but it is interesting to think about how achievable it would be to pull off something shady at Google or Facebook, and apply that same thought process to ByteDance.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#735

Post by glenstein »

whycome wrote: post #532
elzbardico wrote: post #181

This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used social network across the world WITHOUT american content. Until now, the closest thing we had like this were national our regional networks like Russia's vk, but Vk was never truly popular outside Russian speaking countries. Now we, for the first time ever, will have the situation where a social network has global reach but without american content. Will it…

How will YouTube shorts, and instagram stories pivot? They already aren’t seen as true rivals, but maybe they can change or spinoff a third brand. The gold in TR has always been its algorithm. Maybe they can fake it. How easy will it be to circumvent via vpn? Will other English content on tt skyrocket? Eg uk and Canada.

>The gold in TR has always been its algorithm.

Yes, but it's also singularly focused on its core experience rather than being a bolted-on experience that is confusingly blended into an ecosystem where it's not the primary experience.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#736

Post by archagon »

stevenAthompson wrote: post #726

The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China. They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities. Yet people are arguing that we should allow the…

Respectfully, I should be able to install whatever the fuck I want on my phone. Regardless of which apps I choose to rot my brain with, neither the US nor Chinese government should have any say in it, period.

If a red line is not drawn, websites will be next, then VPNs, then books. And then the Great Firewall of America will be complete.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#737

Post by oblio »

spandrew wrote: post #674
toddmorey wrote: post #643

Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably upset about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me why it will sting for you? I was really surprised that my daughters (avid teenage TikTok users) are much more relieved than mad. Both said they wasted too much time on TikTok and were hoping life will now feel better. Seems the very thing that made the platform sticky puts it in a guilty pleasure categ…

They'll be on RedNote within 2 weeks. Other's have said it; but TikTok was such a nice format for media. It emphasized what the creator can provide its users; what content was legit; entertaining, informative, etc. Whereas Instagram and FB are more about personal "branding". You post the best version of yourself and it's rewarded with engagement. Where on TikTok the emphasis is on the content; even creators I follow…

> The experience, in the end, was always on point for shortform content. Nothing else like it exists; and I don't think American tech can make it because they benefit too much from being ad networks.

How does TikTok make money?

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#738

Post by tmaly »

legitster wrote: post #119

TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social media app ever created. The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive. There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger, more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction. Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is…

I am surprised someone has not attempted to reverse engineer it or make something very similar.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#739

Post by ElevenLathe »

stevenAthompson wrote: post #726

The United States is currently in the middle of a cyber cold-war with China. They hacked all of our major telco's and many of America's regulatory organizations including the treasury department. Specifically they used the telco hacks to gather geolocation data in order to pinpoint Americans and to spy on phone calls by abusing our legally mandated wiretap capabilities. Yet people are arguing that we should allow the…

We just don't care. We know the all the American TLAs are on our phones, so what's a few more Chinese ones? It's a problem for Washington war wonks to freak out about, not teens in Omaha.

Re: Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban, but Trump might offer lifeline

#740

Post by SSLy »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #554
elzbardico wrote: post #181

This is going to be an interesting experiment: A widely used social network across the world WITHOUT american content. Until now, the closest thing we had like this were national our regional networks like Russia's vk, but Vk was never truly popular outside Russian speaking countries. Now we, for the first time ever, will have the situation where a social network has global reach but without american content. Will it…

Is TikTok big in Europe? Is Europe big on social media?

yes on both
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