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>Why is this?

I replied to the parent comment by accident, but:

That's the kind of content that survives the crucibles of Chinese censorship, "Creative and Joyful" opiate for the masses. This is an often overlooked aspect of Chinese social media / content filtering philosophy that has coalesced over time - block out the bad and divisive while elevating mundane joys. It's how the 50c operates, it floods the airwaves with small happy platitudes and avoids debates because engaging and challenging controversial topics (especially politics) is how toxicity is produced. It's counterproductive to even try. It's why TikTok's content policy is designed to protect the status quo, often misinterpreted as being pro-Beijing when it's broadly pro-establishment. The last thing Chinese social media platforms is designed to do is to start revolutions, encourage radicalization or sectarianism among impressionable audiences, things western social media platforms are dealing with now, and why they were blocked in China in the first place. That said, I guess it's possible for TikTok to be weaponized to sow division, but why would they need to when the whole of western media sphere is doing so already.

IMO the style has it's place, whole of China has no choice but to live under it, but in the west, a plurality of content management philosophies calibrated for different audiences is good. There's lessons in managing toxicity to learn from TikTok even if it gets banned.

This is a good point, although I suspect most people don't really want to see the toxicity. People are always complaining that they can't make certain things go away on Facebook even though they're constantly telling it "I don't want this". The one time I can remember where someone got "cancelled" on Tiktok, most of the criticism was carried out on other platforms like Twitter and Youtube ("Nurse Holly" if you're curious). I'd try to see how well Tiktok's recommendations can identify "toxic sectarian flame wars", but I don't want to clutter up my feed (which is 90% not in English anyway).

Enough people LOVE drama and toxicity to perpetuate reality TV and online beef culture. Many of my hobbyist communities have been affect at some point in the last few years. I personally enjoy some of the drama (powerlifting/bodybuilding), but I just don't want them to shit where they eat and keep it off the platforms for their OG non-drama content. It's nice to have moderated space away from all that. I have my private communities, but I think TikTok is attempting to bring that feel to a larger scale. It's problematic if that's all there is like Chinese firewall. But when there's many media options, it's a nice spot of respite.

Ah, good to know I “misinterpreted [it] as pro-Beijing” when it’s actually just “broadly pro-establishment” and put in place by the establishment in Beijing. Totally different.

I see plenty conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and quack medicine on TikTok. Way way way more than on other platforms. Less of traditional politics, blm and similar stuff tho.

"I found it funny that the author of this post is trying to defend liberal values like the free flow of information on the internet by...making Apple and Google remove Tiktok from people's phones."

This is what the posted article is about. I cannot write a rebuttal to this that is better than what Ben Thompson wrote, and I won't. The section "A Reluctant Prescription" section is directly about this.

I can rebut this, however:

"However, American tech companies manipulate their recommendation algorithms for political reasons (in the loose sense of the word political) all the time and I'm sure not everyone in the world likes that either."

They don't do it in China.

I find it very hard to believe they don't promote content intended to elicit an emotional response to drive engagement in China the same way they do everywhere else.

I was referring specifically to American companies. They don't do so in China for the simple reason that they're not allowed to operate there.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Youtube are all banned in China

My naive question is how is Tiktok bad and all other American social media platforms - FB/Insta/Snap good?

It is bad because it is Chinese.

Did you read the article?

My theoretical answer would be that we can regulate American companies more effectively and have them be held accountable, like when Zuckerberg had to go before Congress. I doubt you'd be able to get the CEO of a large Chinese company to do that.

In reality we don't regulate them nearly as much as we can, so the end result is that FB and Tiktok both invade your privacy.

> TikTok and Douyin's servers are each based in the market where the respective app is available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok

But getting him in front of Congress didn't nothing at all. Also then world is bigger than the US and PRC.

As a non-American looking on, it seems to me like the US government has failed spectacularly at any kind of regulation, and to the contrary is often actively trying to undermine privacy laws. Zuckerberg in front of congress achieved exactly zero, except provide footage for loads of memes of Zuckerberg as a lizard.

I prefer the idea of a US based social media company to a Chinese one. But only slightly. I would much rather the company be based somewhere with genuine intent to create consumer safety and privacy focused laws.

Algorithm and moderation policies are opaque. They can be used to subvert a geopolitical rival and spread discord.

It’s pretty trivial to do that, and nobody would be the wiser.

Agree, but doesn't that also apply to Twitter and Facebook?

Incentives for Twitter/FB are to keep advertisers happy.

Incentive for TikTok is to keep the CCP happy.

Given the geopolitical aims and ambitions of the latter, you can see why they aren't comparable.

This question is explored in-depth in the article.

I've never heard of facebook or snapchat or any of their major stakeholders being involved in mass (or any) industrial espionage.

The same can't be said of the Chinese Government. That seems like a pretty distinct reason to be more OK with FB/Insta/Snap than TikTok.

TikTok = Chinese government? That is quite a leap there.

No, it really isn't even a little bit of a leap. Can't tell if you're trolling or severely misinformed.

>Following the shutdown, ByteDance announced that it would give preference to Chinese Communist Party members in its hiring and increase its censors from 6,000 to 10,000 employees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance

From the article:

All Chinese Internet companies are compelled by the country’s National Intelligence Law to turn over any and all data that the government demands, and that power is not limited by China’s borders. Moreover, this requisition of data is not subject to warrants or courts, as is the case with U.S. government requests for data from Facebook or any other entity;

Their privacy policy notes data may be shared as well:

while TikTok claims that it is independent from ByteDance and stores data in the U.S. and Singapore, its privacy policy is clear:

"We may share your information with a parent, subsidiary, or other affiliate of our corporate group."

it's a "superior" product because it's new and not yet commercialized. once it is, you'll get the same sort of gaming (influencer culture, ad placement, etc) that you see in every other social media

How is the product not commercialized? Tik Tok has ads and influencers.

Yeah, somehow they are able to keep the heavy ads and influencer heavy stuff out of my feed. Probably, it will eventually creep in.

Because their ads product is underdeveloped and in closed beta. It'll be there soon.

haha very possible, but it is still quite shocking to me that my mom, who is almost 60, keep telling me how fun it is...

I think it has a lot to do with how TikTok manages the balance between consumption and creation. Only a fraction of viewers on YouTube for example create content where a significant portion (55%) on TikTok both create AND Consume.

This was an analysis on TikTok vs YouTube and focuses on how TikTok leverages mimcry to overcome the initial burden of ideation and yields significant content creation for its platform.

"On Youtube, 79% of views accrue to only 10% of its creators. While on TikTok 55% of viewers also create videos. " https://4thquadrant.io/freearticles/business-models/tiktok-a...

> Something about Tiktok, whether the algorithm or the sheer volume of content, seems to discourage the sort of look-at-me envy-bait narcissistic posturing that is so common on Instagram.

I haven't used Tiktok, but from what I understand you can only post videos taken using the phone's camera and they can only be edited using whatever filters are available within the app, effectively limiting how manipulated or manufactured the content can be. Sort of like a Snapchat for videos (with the caveat that you can save and post videos at a later time in Tiktok, whereas with Snapchat it's "now or never"). Coupled with not having an associated text component where you can easily post testimonials and links to a site where you're selling a self help book, get rich quick scheme, juice cleanse or gym routine, it should limit how easy it is to use it as a promotion platform.

FYI it is possible to upload a video edited in a 3rd-party app (i.e After Effects) in lieu of using the tools available within TikTok itself.