Question…
I don’t use tiktok. I have a Twitter account. Why is tiktok bad while a privately owned social media platform (twitter) that’s partially financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar not bad?
it’s not. all social media has the same risks but tiktok is obviously the worst because it’s Chinese.
I guess a video platform with content identical to youtube is bad if it’s Chinese.
Well, it is slightly different. The reason TikTok poses a different type of problem with people’s addiction is the tailoring of the content.
All social media uses a basic port for people to come on and find others, but mainly create their own space. And even that was addictive and harmful to mental health. Not to mention proved a great way to manipulate people. But it also gave people a route to alter their interactions with the app—to a degree.
TikTok, on the other hand, tailors everything that happens when you open the app. You don’t get to follow people, change the flavor of content you’re seeing. You open the app, and the algorithm is all that dictates what you’re scrolling through.
I don’t know where I stand on this. I think all social media should die out. It’s killing discourse, it’s creating hate, it’s misinforming people like never before. It’s radicalizing people and generally making everyone stupider and less able to conceive of, let alone discuss nuance. And without nuance, we are truly fucking doomed. It’s far too easy to manipulate people with regular social media, and TikTok has turned all of those problems into an art form. It’s literally like a perfect little brainwashing machine. I’ve seen people use it on the train. They’re like…zombies.
On the other, it’s shocking to me to see a representative claim that having their constituents…call their offices and, yknow, participate in the process is portrayed as being “weaponized against America.”
It’s like a rock and a hard place. Firstly, TikTok is poisoning the minds of people. It’s like social media on steroids, and social media was already having a profoundly negative effect. On the other, it’s always dicey when taking things away from people “for the good of America.” Like…where was this attitude when instagram and Facebook were weaponized against the American people? Like, didn’t they prove it was used to sway elections here and in the UK? Why the uneven hand? Because they like demonizing foreigners and they protect white rich people weaponizing their wealth.
So yeah, maybe it’s the right move, but in context, it’s so blatantly favoritism shown to the evil fuckers causing harm for their own ends.
actually you do get to tailor your experience on tiktok. you can absolutely follow people. you even have the option to have the algorithm that’s tailored to your liked content (fyp) or specifically look at a feed of your followed accounts.
You said that tiktok tailors every bit of what happens on the app.
I have some news for you… so does youtube and every other social media platform out there.
people who don’t use tiktok seem to not really understand that 95% of the content on it is from youtube or shares creator spaces with youtube and other social media. my fyp and follows are mostly artists, musicians, funny people, animal videos and I even get some news as well.
tiktok is weirdly villanized by those that don’t even use the app.
I agree with you that social media is bad, but tiktok isn’t really the world ending propaganda machine it’s portrayed to be. I don’t know if I’d consider funny videos and anime edits to be “poisoning the minds of people”.
For example — last year they sent what a spy balloon over the USA in what a lot of experts believe was a test of US defence systems - weapons used to shoot down the balloon had never been used before outside of top secret test facilities. And that balloon was covered in high tech sensors and almost certainly broadcasting data in real time. There’s no plausible explanation for the incident other than to find out how the US would respond.
Why does China want to know how US defence systems work? A lot of people already think there’s a chance of war between the two super powers. That balloon incident didn’t help things.
And what went viral on TikTok? Claims that the balloon was a actually flying over Canada and never went near US soil. Claims that it was launched by kids in the USA. Where did those claims originate from? Nobody knows, but it seems pretty coincidental. These claims were spread on other social networks too - but they went viral on TikTok alone.
That’s not the only incident, it’s just one of the most recent one that involved TikTok. Others have been far more serious especially in busy international waters south of China.
If Twitter’s financial backing by Saudi Arabia/Qatar is ever a concern, I’m sure the US will act on that as well.
Later Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said that the balloon not only did not transmit data back to China – it never collected any.
“We’re aware that it had intelligence collection capabilities, but it was our – and it has been our – assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States,” Ryder said
Twitter / X gets railed on nonstop. Where are you getting the idea that anyone thinks it’s not “bad”?!
To me, that’s the only complaint I have about this, that they’re singling out Tiktok.
But, im not against it because the US has always singled out “the biggest guy” to set a precedent, which then causes all tbe smaller social media platforms to get their shit together. From Microsoft, to Google, to Facebook.
I personally don’t really mind TikTok. But the algorithm is a bit too addictive. The short form 30 second content consumption format is slowly eroding our attention span.
