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Comment by stingraycharles | Hacker News Reader

Ok I’m not saying the OP is wrong, but couldn’t almost all of these arguments be made for Facebook / Instagram / Snapchat / etc as well? In general, social media has all these problems with addiction, platforms actively try to exploit that, and harvest data to monetise upon their users.

From the article:

“With these astounding numbers, TikTok must have something special, right?

“Well it has. It uses manipulative user experience (UX) design to keep users glued to it. It is built to trigger compulsive use, especially in more impressionable audiences such as teenagers. It is also harmful to privacy.”

Nothing of this list makes TikTok special, the only thing that makes it special is that it’s Chinese, and therefor subjected to more scrutiny (not claiming whether that’s justified or not, that’s another discussion in itself).

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I remember the craze about World of Warcraft back in the day that it was incredibly addictive, like no other video game. Where they supposedly tested people's dopamine response to playing the game. Marriages ended over the game and there were countless news articles and segments on how addictive the game is.

As I said in another post, saying that a particular thing drives pleasure or is designed to drive pleasure is obvious. Obviously you would design something so that it is pleasurable, otherwise people wouldn't use it. The difference here is the extent to how addictive it is and without some sort of measurement, it's hard to know if TikTok is any more dangerous than anything else that drives compulsive pleasure.

In short, no. TikTok is the first to have a public feed by default, not based on friends, plus the vertical swiping that forces you to see all the content it suggests. Its design and usage patterns are significantly different from all the others you mentioned.

That is not relevant to the general point. The article punchline is

> It uses manipulative user experience (UX) design to keep users glued to it. It is built to trigger compulsive use, especially in more impressionable audiences such as teenagers. It is also harmful to privacy.

Facebook / Instagram used manipulative user experience design, even if it didn't manifest as a vertical swipe or public feed. While the details may be different, the overall problem was just as true back then as it is now

I see you're ensuring we understand Facebook and Instagram also optimize for engagement, I think the novelty here, for me at least, was the differences from Facebook and Instagram are quite significant.

And that significant difference is that TikTok is a Chinese company, not an American one. When you let go of the pretense, this is what all these articles and threads are all about.

I was about to say only one of these runs concentration camps but then I remembered gitmo and extraordinary renditions.

The algorithmic-only feed is quite a significant difference, to wit, Zuck noted in the last FB all hands that they were ramping this up to compete with TikTok, and were hoping to get Facebook/Instagram to merely ~30% algorithmic content (if memory serves). Use of algorithmic content exacerbates e.g. the intermittent rewards ""features"".

I share your frustration with anyone who would use it as an excuse for xenophobia. I'm not sure why there's this dark cloud over the idea employees in China might be able to access videos that are public, sounds silly.

As someone who has seen close family members with advanced college degrees turn into zombies consuming toxic right-wing propaganda on Whatsapp, Facebook and Youtube non-stop and my country's (India) whole political environment become incredibly toxic and polarized as a result, I have very little sympathy for the argument that TikTok with its little dance skits and stupid humor is exceptionally worse.

YouTube and Facebook push users towards significantly more content that just strives to get a reaction out of people and they do so persistently. Often that content is filled with blatant lies which causes the engagement (to debunk/argue) in the first place. The cycle repeats, the user reacted and then it optimises to get even more such engagement, it shows even more such toxic content. There's really no functional dislike button, you'll keep on seeing shit that aims on riling you up.

That's not to say TikTok won't amplify what you engage with, it absolutely does but it's good at not showing content that makes you feel like shit. Obviously it does test showing new and different content, but it won't show people Fox News willy-nilly. Content can't be too far out of someone's interests. It also won't start an autoplay rabbit hole of conspiracy videos like YouTube does, you'll get your usual feed after the tests, there are plenty of chances to stay on "their side" of TikTok.

I too have very little sympathy vilifying one platform that optimises for content you like and then defending others that optimise for content you engage with. The former really letting people stay away from right-wing propaganda, the latter actively pushing everyone towards it.

> Often that content is filled with blatant lies which causes the engagement (to debunk/argue) in the first place. The cycle repeats, the user reacted and then it optimises to get even more such engagement, it shows even more such toxic content. There's really no functional dislike button, you'll keep on seeing shit that aims on riling you up.

While I cant't deny that that maybe something that could be happening, in my own experience, the more pernicious problem is the creation of filter bubbles where people only see and hear view points of those they already agree with and slowly get pushed into more and more extreme versions of their existing beliefs.

Yes, filter bubbles absolutely have their own downsides. But I don't think platforms (Facebook, YouTube) should attempt to break them with Fox News or previously Infowars. I find that much worse really.

> And that significant difference is that TikTok is a Chinese company, not an American one

Can't repeat this enough. The Americans in here might see that foreigness and national dick-measuring contest as enough justification for a ban. All while either willingly ignoring or relishing in the fact that they do the same thing in other countries. "But we're your allies!" my arse, I trust your government as much as I trust China's, which is to say I don't, at all.

I can't accurately express with words the anger I derive from the hypocrisy of the SV-types in here arguing for a ban on privacy grounds. And to be clear, I'm not trying to defend TikTok here, they do deserve to be banned from every country on Earth. I just wish American companies would get the same treatment, and die as they all deserve.

This tirade has just the right amount of indignation and outrage.

For someone not from the US I believe China collecting my data is even better because the US might share it with my government. I don't believe in safety trough government surveillance. Imagine the UK that hands out penalties for admittedly offensive posts on social media. Doesn't happen if you post it on a Chinese site. Not yet at least. Best form of legal certainty for average peasants.

In the same regard the surveillance by US tech companies is still not as impactful to me than it is for the average American.

I’m sorry but I just can’t believe that you’re being downvoted so much. It’s the exact same point I was trying to make, is it not obvious - or at least a valid argument of discussion - that the significant difference between TikTok and other social media companies is that they’re Chinese?

Nobody is defending China here I think, but the elephant in the room is that TikTok isn’t that much different from other social media platforms in terms of addictive behaviour, data harvesting, etc. The fact that this is done by a Chinese company, however, is what makes it significantly different.

If anything, the content on TikTok itself is far more inoccuous than what has been already allowed to run amok on other social media platforms. Can anybody honestly argue that the silly dance numbers and "funny" vines on TikTok are more dangerous than the toxic political propaganda on FB, Whatsapp and Youtube?

>I’m sorry but I just can’t believe that you’re being downvoted so much.

I can believe it just fine. It is very predictable behavior.

There’s enough political propaganda on TikTok too. It just happens to be newer than the rest.

They are just better at exactly the same game.

true patriots use homespun social networks. It might be itchy, but its the price of independence..

Also, the fact that its a chinese company, which in the long run all are owned by the state, could be taken as proof that the state makes a better entrepeneur then private companies.

Which rubs some libertarians here very wrong.. if only we had free market competition, a challenger might emerge then, but we killed it with privatized pension funds taking over whole sectors.

The beds we made, they are horrible to lie in.. oh, what tragedy, anyway...

Doesn't youtube shorts also have the same features.

YouTube Shorts is A) a transparent ripoff of TikTok, and B) not the only (or default) UI for YouTube.

YouTube has had a feed by default not based off subscribers for years before TikTok.

All of the aspects combined are what make TikTok what it is. You could say MySpace had public feeds way earlier, but that’s besides the point.

Facebook,twitter,flickr all had public feeds.

Yes, but they were uninteresting, so not a problem.

TikTok, has young people dancing... so there's your moral panic.

So TikTok are just playing exactly the same game, but playing it so well to the extent they should be regulated or banned?

That's one of the ways anti-trust works, yes. If you're just a business doing a thing, no problem. If you get so good you become a de facto monopoly in some area, and start to exploit that dominant position in whatever way, it's time for regulations or a forceful breaking up to constraint you.

TikTok is far from a monopoly though. Also break it up to what? The app is effectively a single feature.

exactly, they managed to make the level of addiction somehow even higher than yt or facebook.

In my opinion all of them should be restricted more, but tiktok was proven to do a lot of damage in a short time.

If facebook is like weed, tiktok is like crack.

Facebook is actually like heroin, so what's TikTok now, fentanyl?

Instagram? Twitter?

That’s my sentiment too. The daily hit pieces on TikTok here on HN reads like a desperate US tech sector admitting weakness.

If you define "weakness" as "failure to cause the most damage while maximizing surveillance and profit" then yes.

You're implying Facebook and YouTube don't?

No because by this rule TikTok is less problematic, it's just entertainment, it doesn't take the crown from FB/Twitter/YT for doing the most damage to society. Same for surveillance, the surface area is just too small compared to others.

> Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok

> The firm, Targeted Victory, pushed local operatives across the country to boost messages calling TikTok a threat to American children.

> “Dream would be to get stories with headlines like ‘From dances to danger,’ ” one campaign director said.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/faceboo...

Sure, but equally surely there's been no shortage of past articles raising similar issues about FB/IG/Snap.

I question the utility of proposed regulation but society'd do well to depend less on all of these for social connectivity.

> not claiming whether that’s justified or not

Spoiler: it's justified.

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