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Comment by TAForObvReasons | Hacker News Reader

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

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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.

> 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.

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

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...

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.

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