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Comment by marsrover | Hacker News Reader

I personally would much rather Facebook succeed in this space. I’m extremely apprehensive about TikTok and how China is using the data.

I’m fully aware that Facebook will collect data (possible the same data), but I believe the motives and outcomes are more in my favor when it’s my country doing it.

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I'd rather the whole idea fucked off out of existence.

That would be ideal but it’s not going to happen.

What is wrong with the idea? I don't use it because i don't enjoy the content but I don't find anything wrong with the idea. Genuine question.

52 minutes a day is average engagement. 800M users. 32,000 man years or 400 human lifetimes of attention wasted every day (if I got my mathematics right).

We could be colonising mars or something instead of watching short videos of something totally ephemeral. And I’m sure in time it will be used much like Facebook to polarise people.

Then again I’m shitposting on HN so perhaps I’m just a hypocrite :)

Edit: the colonising mars thing was facetious and I probably should outline that. The issue is that our attention and mental health is more valuable than wasting on these shitty platforms.

Must produce. Must create value. Life worthless if no create value.

Seriously, let people have their free time why don't you. A lot of the western world is already half stuck in deadass jobs they hate, getting barely enough money to get through life so they can have the privilege of working more. It's quite something to read, on HN, in a place that has a majority of people lucky enough to not be stuck in that kind of life, judgement on how other people spend their free time instead of "colonizing Mars".

In my opinion humanity has put in the effort to get first world countries running water, sewer systems, electricity, access to the internet - all luxuries that a lot of the world can not afford. Because we don't have to worry about these things, I believe we are obliged to spend time to problem solve and tackle the biggest challenges the world has today - and not waste it watching 200 8 second videos before -- drooling off to sleep -- (not the best way to put that)

Do you even sort of hear yourself?

You know the two aren't mutually exclusive?

And what do you, dear commenter, exactly do before drooling off to sleep that is so much more productive? Seriously hope it's not watching Netflix, wasting your time reading fiction, or God forbid, spend time on social media such as HN.

Wake up, tackle the biggest challenges the world has today, go to work, go home to do some more tackling in your free time up until you fall asleep.

If I sound annoyed, I am. This is what privilege looks like: people who have it easy in life, judging the fuck out of people who don't and aren't "doing their part".

I don't use tiktok for what it's worth and I don't care if it disappears, but jeez, attitude.

You are right. "Drooling off to sleep" is a condescending way to put it. I don't want to be condescending - my goal is not to judge people who don't have it easy in life. However, I think it is important that the people who do have it easy in life to realize that, realize the luxuries that they have and not take them for granted. I want people to utilize the resources they have to do good in the world.

But thank you. I should be more empathetic

Yeah you're right but staring at 30 second clips of better lives than your selected by algorithm to bias your mind in some way to perpetuate either the existence of the platform or the product being sold is part of the downward spiral. At some point it becomes compulsion rather than choice. That's mental slavery by shitting in your head and I will judge that with extreme prejudice.

> Yeah you're right but staring at 30 second clips of better lives

That's instagram. TikTok is about average people having normal lives doing funny skits, often making fun of their own hardship rather than bragging about how they're living the high life as in other social medias.

That's your bubble. I've seen other people's and it's not. Instagram is worse I agree.

There are people flexing indeed and it shows up in my bubble too but I would say average people doing funny skits is what defines TikTok and what made it so appealing to many and still makes up the biggest part of TikTok content.

So for what it's worth I deeply agree with your edit of your above post. I just dislike putting the onus on the users themselves rather than the platform.

> A lot of the western world is already half stuck in deadass jobs they hate, getting barely enough money to get through life so they can have the privilege of working more.

Two wrongs does not make a right.

Exactly. Humans are incredibly capable of solving major problems if we have a desire and urge to solve them. This whole instant entertainment phenomenon is sucking the human desire to change out the window. "Is your life hard?" your phone asks. "Well just reach into your pocket and forget all of your problems! Be entertained instantly! Don't worry about fixing your problems, just forget them!"

Eh, you can argue the same about people taking a bit of time off to relax, watch TV, play videogames, and yes, shitpost on HN, what's the difference? Let's take TV more specifically. I'd say that it may be better than watching TV, at the very least.

If you used it you would know. It’s fucking terrifying. I used to use it and hours would just disappear without even noticing. It also destroys your attention span. It turns out than if you spend two hours watching some novel thing every 15 seconds, it becomes much harder to focus on a task or watch a movie, where you need to follow a cohesive plan for two hours.

>I’m extremely apprehensive about TikTok and how China is using the data.

There isn't any evidence that China is using any TikTok data, so why is this presented as fact here about five dozen times per day?

TikTok has got a distinct privacy policy for people outside of China, stores American data in the US and Singapore IIRC, and there hasn't been any evidence presented yet that this is not true.

'China' is literally just used as a derogatory term on this website, which is embarassing for a tech community.

China should be substituted with CCP.

The CCP have done an incredible job of linking their government with the Chinese nation. Which to me is an absolute tragedy.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...

China has never been a democracy though. It's always been a one party system for thousands of years, CCP is just the current name but it is not that different than what was there before. When you take this into account, it makes sense to consider CCP and China the same thing (ie the one party system in place for thousands of years).

In fact it is quite an improvement at least since Tchang Kaï-Chek (the Mao era was for the most part horrific and worse than what preceded it).

I'm sure people living in Honk Kong and Xinjiang would disagree with your assessment.

Xinjiang surely wants to be left alone but I doubt they're looking for a progressive liberal western style democracy. Hong Kong has been under heavy influence of the British so they have indeed developed an attachment to Western style democracy but to what extend I don't know.

> I believe the motives and outcomes are more in my favor when it’s my country doing it.

This makes zero sense to me, particularly when the argument is applied to the US. If anything, European companies seem to be taking privacy and consent much more seriously out of necessity than American companies do.

The idea that an American company is more aligned with my interests because I'm an American is completely laughable.

Except we’re talking about a geopolitical rival that now has a lever to influence the minds and opinions via an opaque algorithm and moderation policies.

One wants to provide better targeted ads, the other wants to subvert a rival nation state to achieve geopolitical aims.

You can see how they aren’t really equivalent.

How would they do that? Push to my stream more content made by the small userbase of young Trump supporters? Have you been on tiktok? Cause that doesn't not end up well for most of them as tiktok is INCREDIBLY woke. This isn't facebook with a bunch of older users reposting lies. If tiktok alienates their young userbase, they have nothing. Not to say that things cant change, but not by november 2020.

If it's anything like what Russia was doing on reddit in 2016, most of the activity is actually anti-Trump. They don't really care who wins, they just want the country to be divided and weak.

Yes, but it's video content, not text. So they would need to hire young pretty americans to produce and distribute political content. That is a much higher bar than a fake bot account reposting a link.

If they control the recommendation algorithm, they don't need to make their own posts, they can just recommend existing content that fits the message they want to promote.

Simple, promote divisive content that sows discord with your rival society.

We saw Russia taking advantage of this with Facebook groups. The threat model exists. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/if-r...

Pushing divisive content is what social media does, regardless of owner. But I gotta be honest, the reason I use tiktok is that is does not do this. When I see content I dont like, I skip past it or even mark it as not interested. The algorithm adjusts. If it didnt, tiktok would not be as popular. It is a very happy place to be compared to any other social media app out there.

> Except we’re talking about a geopolitical rival that now has a lever to influence the minds and opinions via an opaque algorithm and moderation policies.

There are American companies that seem fine with influencing the minds and opinions of users via opaque algorithms and moderation policies (looking at you, Facebook). How does the fact that I'm an American and it's an American company (with a global reach, I might add) benefit me or us as a society?

If you have a problem with companies influencing minds and opinions, the nationality of the company is a really strange demarcation line, no?

I didn’t make any value statements of benefit.

I merely stated that the two aren’t comparable.

One can be used as a tool for subversion of a geopolitical rival, the other sells you things.

The thing is you can’t decouple large companies from their governments, especially not in China. It presents a very easy avenue for spreading propaganda and suppressing dissent

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...

> The thing is you can’t decouple large companies from their governments, especially not in China.

Funny, I'd say the US is just as bad as china with respect to government having their grimy little laws in large company data. Let's not forget how FISA can sign a warrant for vague national security reasons, and immediately have full access to internal company data, and they can also prevent the company from disclosing anything about it.

But let's not stop there. The Cambridge Analytics problem, and Facebook's ridiculously hesitant response to it, shows that Facebook's data isn't just distributed to governments or even the highest bidder, but literally anybody who waves money in their face.

> One can be used as a tool for subversion of a geopolitical rival, the other sells you things.

Facebook doesn’t just “sell you things”, that’s a gross oversimplification of their objective as a social platform. They’ve refused over and over again to police political speech on their platform coming from incumbents. What about that isn’t spreading propaganda?

You’re arguing that FB is just this place to see ads of things to buy when they’re constantly in the news for allowing race-baiting hateful political speech to spread. That’s absolutely comparable to some of what China does.

I would question the implied premise that Facebook does not want to subvert rival nation states (or subvert the United States government itself) to achieve geopolitical aims.

I didn’t read it as implied that Facebook isn’t used to subvert rival nations, I would fully expect it. Subverting rival governments is a part of life. Though I would imagine if Facebook wants to subvert the United States government they would be severely hamstrung.

Facebook is not your country. You have zero say in who is in charge at Facebook or what Facebook does with your data. Even if they aren't compelled to share your data with any government, history has shown that they will sell it, not just to the highest bidder, but likely many times over. History has also shown that they will spend little effort to go after developers who misuse this data according to their TOS.

I'm not saying this is worse than TikTok, but it is certainly not better.

We've actually seen Facebook use their data for Political purposes and profiting.

They are about as Anti US as any country.

One company wants to keep advertisers happy. The other wants to keep the CCP happy.

With those incentive structures how can you even posit that the two are comparable?

I'm pretty much in the opposite boat, I would never use the facebook replacement and really have no issue with Tiktok. My tiktok does not have access to my camera, mic or location services (i'm a consumer, not a creator) and I clear my clipboard prior to opening it.

The solution I want is for Apple to provide more access toggles and transparency about what apps are doing

Not an american but I would certainly prefer that some country that I don't and never will live in spies on me than my own government who could use that data against me.

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