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Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

TikTok reminds me of that woody allen movie (not a fan after hearing about him for the record) where they try to rob a bank by renting a store next door and tunneling to the vault. Except as a cover, they open up a bakery and eventually people liked their baking so much they became millionaires and didn't need to rob the bank anymore. A cop even catches them when they tunnel to the wrong place but he let them go for equity in the baking business.

Tiktok just wanted your data for the CCP but they found out the true treasure is the friends and insane market domination they made along the way.

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> Tiktok just wanted your data for the CCP

Is it?

Now that YouTube copied them with Shorts, shouldn't we be worried about YouTube having an influence over our youth with their secret algorithm too?

Considering Google's origin partly lies within the CIA/NSA which is basically the US government [1]

[1] - https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

No, the CIA and NSA are not hostile towards westerners but the CCP is. But Chinese people and many other people outside the west should be concerned about that, if there is a good reason to believe YT can be lawfully or reasonably compelled to do CIAs bidding.

TikTok’s algorithm in China promotes more “socially positive” content than in the west. For example, you don’t see “steal a car” challenges go viral there.

> TikTok’s algorithm in China promotes more “socially positive” content than in the west.

Because China literally has a law that states that apps for kids must provide educational content. The USA can do the same if it wants that.

blatant lie

Tate and Rogan and the likes all originate from Youtube/Instagram, Youtube is known for tasteless prank videos, it's full of politic content

On TikTok it's people dancing, DIY tutorials, travels, cooking stuff and cats

Send me a screenshot of your TikTok homepage vs your Youtube trending homepage ;)

Can someone summarize what would make the sort of data TikTok generates useful to the CCP?

I could assume there are a few needles in the haystack-- capturing location data from some new recruit who is filming in a secure location, or some 16-year-old gets mom's patent application in frame while twerking. But it's a huge and very expensive haystack to create and search. I'd think most nonclassified-level insights they could get are also easily obtained from commercial data brokers.

It would be interesting to try to leverage "cool" for military/political advantage. I can't really imagine it working in anything but a terribly cringy way.

On a broader level, I feel like there must be people in PLA research labs saying "Okay, so American teenagers are even more embarrassing, shallow and petty than our prior data indicates."

Not the data, but one concern is that China may decree certain topics boosted/diminished. My understanding is in the Chinese version of the app educational content is boosted for instance, and things having to do with Hong Kong are essentially shadow banned.

This seems like it's difficult to pull off in a competitive market though. If you have too hard of a moderating hand, it's going to drive users away.

Is this just conjecture? It just doesn't make logical sense: how could it have worked as a data collection app for the CCP if people didn't like it and not many installed it?

The scale is the point. There is popular and there is competing with youtube popular

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