Hey! Anu here, a Partner at YC's Continuity Fund. Happy to chat about anything discussed in this post and would love any feedback.
I see how this could easily be manipulated into an extremely powerful propaganda tool - especially hiding behind a guise of "algorithms" are doing all the work - and yet it is not mentioned at all in the post.
We have already seen how content systems like Facebook, Google, and Twitter can be manipulated via botnets, but when a central power manages this it can obviously get significantly worse.
Does this concern you as an investor who lives in America?
In my opinion it's the absence of this topic from the article that makes YC look tone deaf once again by glossing over a serious repercussion that technology can have on society for the sake of self-promotion -- especially given current events regarding the manipulation of social networks by foreign entities and a very serious history of censorship and media control.
And given the amount of money in China, why did Toutiao need or want non-Chinese investors, particularly individual investors?
I'm guessing there's a part of the app where the user goes for Q&As. If a user asks "How do I flush my car's cooling system?", does the question get sent to all users who like cars?