Inside TikTok’s Algorithm [video]
wsj.com
wsj.com
Not saying TikTok isn't spooky. But:
The effort that went into making the viewer feel anxious while watching this was extreme; and the effort that went into actual explanation of the TikTok algorithm was minimal.
The only real discovery was the disparity between the TikTok spokesperson (who said that 7% of anyone's feed should be trying to broaden your interests) and their observation that those videos were in fact mostly adverts.
And (sorta) that hitting Dislike doesn't seem to do much, if you counter than signal by watching/liking other videos. But it was all very vague given how much data they said they'd gathered.
I agree I don't think the algorithm is particularly clever, or works towards any other goal than for users to spend more time with the app Which is the assumption I was starting from.
This worries me a lot, because people generally think they are choosing what they want to see, but the platform can shape the world views of many people all at once.
If you trap someone in a room and play violent videos for them all day long, when you let them out, they might come out thinking they'll have to fight for survival, just as an example.
Governments can encourage political chaos through subjecting people to certain types of videos through these platforms over time, and as another example, they can influence certain regions to start a riot or vote a certain way.
Behavioral psychologists are involved in algorithm development now just as much as developers and that's a big problem that most of the world, especially government regulators are totally unaware of.
I have a TikTok account, but only use it in really small doses because I found the suggestive content really was not good for my mental health. I hope more people realize that this is happening, and also understand the lies about potential for sharing independent work on platforms because the platforms are really not geared towards discovery of new content, they have very specific agendas and money making at the foremost behind them.
- see what videos you watch and how long you stay watching them
- show you more of the same
which is all it is really saying, just spread out over 10 minutes
edit:formatting
Facebook videos does the same, I get a lot of videos about Resin art and Woodworking and Streetfood, which are at best mildly interesting. I also wonder who pays for that or what their business model is since I see no ads. But maybe resin and wood tools are so expensive that it pays off for them to promote the videos.
I get some funny stuff but most of it is some real deep in the weeds nerd stuff. Programming, Ops, Sci-Fi book reviews, Dungeons and Dragons tips. I've seen other people's TikTok's occasionally and it never looks like mine. Even a friend of mine who works in tech and has similar interests, his looks completely different.
With all that being said it's at the cost of it being literally spyware. I've tried YouTube shorts. If someone could 10x that algorithm, or start a startup where it's TikTok but now with 20% less spying that would be awesome!
Oh and it's hyper addictive like other social media. Although I will say for at least my feed it's much more positive than social media normally is. I don't feel terrible after using it. Just feels like I wasted my time. To that end I uninstall it when I'm done and try to use it only once a week or so. But at the end of the once a week session I usually have a list of books and new tech related concepts to look up.
My experience of TikTok is essentially like a video hacker news that also cracks me up occasionally.
But lately I’m getting bored with it. I feel like TikTok has put me into too narrow of a type of interests. And now for every fun or interesting video that I see, there is like five or ten videos that are too much of the same as what I’ve seen a million times already.
Idk, maybe I’ve just been spending too much time on TikTok lately and it was bound to happen regardless. Maybe even it’s not TikTok maybe it’s just me. That I am tired of watching videos in general, except for the ones that I can use for something. I’m gonna take a break from TikTok.
And then BAM, TT swooped in sometime in 2018 and became huge.
I'm in the same age group as you and TT is also not of interest to me. It's possible that I just don't get it for the same reason I didn't get the concept of 'subscribe to this Youtuber'. That kind of amateur video style where you're staring into a camera from your bedroom or your car is just not for me.
It's talked about quite frequently on TT itself by people who are not programmers, and more well understood by those people then most people here on HN.
I'd be wary of applying anything you think you know to the community of people using TT today. You aren't familiar with it enough to make any judgement. You don't get it, and it has nothing to do with your age or anything other than your unfamiliarity with TT.
from the wiki:
"TikTok was launched in 2017 for iOS and Android in most markets outside of mainland China; however, it only became available worldwide after merging with another Chinese social media service, Musical.ly, on 2 August 2018."
Social media startups are still DOA in my book.
I've seen zero articles technically praising TikTok.
Like everything, it probably isn't for everyone (as an aside -- it seems like a considerable portion of TikTok's base now are middle aged...they aren't targeting any particular demographic), but personally I get a wonderful selection of FYP videos. I only use the app every week or so, but when I do it is one of the most interesting, entertaining digressions available.
That statement is not geared towards TikTok specifically, all of them are already dedicated towards encouraging users to create content in hopes of success, but these platforms and even advertisers on the platforms can engineer massive campaigns that influence a lot of people to do potentially very bad things... They really don't care about independent content, and there's very little chance of being discovered, that content just allows them to cover up the underlying motives more perhaps.
Replace 'TikTok' with 'Google' and the 'algorithm' is nothing more than 'personalisation' with mass data collection; Gamed by the influencers to compete for your attention and the same dark patterns used to track your actions and attention. No different to any other social network which the exception of the number of users on there. Nothing has changed.
They are all working for the algorithm and that governs whatever is seen or unseen on the platform. When TikTok decides to change that, well the users will complain once again as they did on other platforms.
https://philosopher.life/#:[search[tiktok.com]tag[Link%20Log]]
Like all social apps, the engagement is key. TikTok already has a simple UX, and there is zero burden for users to watch videos, vs figure out what tweet you want to write, or click through a bunch of pages on any other social app.
One swipe every however many seconds to 3min (used to be one min) is all you need for instant reward ... video plays.
TikTok needs to schedule some series of videos in advance,which includes video timing. Im sure videos themselves are a key part as well... videos where users lost interest within 3 seconds are probably ghosted.
TikTok has to keep all of this in mind along with the user profile. From there the user is being navigated by the algo which is trying to keep only one thing true -- keep the user engaged and measure the risk of a user leaving, when a user seems to be on the path of exiting the app, thats when you notice the algo throwing more random content out.
TBH ... Im not sure if TikTok cares about the information propagated. Its such a mix of culture, politics, whatever, and its all generally crowdsourced. A lot less innocent that Twitter.
When I watched the video my fist thought was "ok but how are their bots determining what kind of video they're watching?"
While maybe the best you can do in an automated way, I don't think it's representative of how a real human uses social media. ("I'm feeling depressed, guess I'll check out the depressed hashtag.")
They don't care unless it affects the interests of the shareholders waiting for the IPO of the parent company ByteDance.
As for the algorithm itself, I won't be surprised to see the complaints from many users as a result of changing the algorithm down the line since it is already gamed by the large users on the platform; just like how YouTube was.
Google Chrome's FLOC I believe sorts people into 5000 person groups with similar interests. I assume google picked this number for a reason. I imagine you can probably sort the world's population into groups of 5000 people with almost exactly the same interests and motivations.
i watch a lot of YouTube video without logging into my Google account. if i watch a digital camera review then Youtube will server up a lot of camera related content on the front page. TikTok seem to do the same.
I guess this is life in 21 century. Governed by algorithms and feeling empty inside
It's the same for everything people get hooked on, it changes you perception but in reality it's all in your mind.
All the empathy in the world won't save anyone here. On one side of that screen is you, alone. On the other side are an army of designers, developers and behavioural experts whose job it is to keep you looking at the screen for as long as possible.
Don't fall in the trap of social media / social-relationship.
Girls on TikTok are beautiful as actress are beautiful, it takes a tons of effort to look so attractive effortlessly!
Similar deal on tinder, maybe even worse.
Go out and bound with real people in real life! Do the effort of being the first one to reach out.
Feel ok with having friends that are busy and that may not reply immediately.
But meet people outside internet, and you will be happier.
What now?
Every time you take a selfie it subtly confronts you with what could be better about you. It's like a fridge that whispers "you're a fatty" every time you open it.
The face smoothing effect is subtle, but it's definitely there. It's not as extreme as "filters" that can basically change your skin tone and texture.
And it's possible that Samsung does this and not others. My last Samsung phone had this as well, and I usually buy from them.
I think the impact is fairly damaging. I'm surrounded by people with body image issues, and the impact their issues are having on them is heartbreaking.
Sadly when I discuss this with some folks from that industry they pushed me to an academic debate about "well everything is post-processed after the sensor anyway".
There's probably some debate to be had again about whether this is creating issues, exacerbating existing body image issues, or actually just not having any impact one way or another. But I find myself believing that it is both creating and exacerbating.
And for a while I thought these were "first world issues" but many, if not most, of my friends are not part of the "first world" and they still have them.
I sometimes ponder over the alternate timeline where front-facing cameras selfie cams were never invented.
[1] https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/1/17059566/pla...
Link for those who haven't seen it. Can't believe it's been 11 years...
I see the issue being more so with dating app algorithms, though. Those companies/algorithms are incentivized to keep men in the dating pool and paying Bumble/Tinder for dates. The best way to do this is to make those men think that they need to pay to win the game and will lose otherwise.
If the girl I'm with is pleasing to look at I'm content with that. How pleasing hardly matters
The relationships I've had and hate most in my life are almost perfectly inversely proportional to how much time they spent trying to look 'beautiful.'