TikTok May Be a Chinese Superweapon | Hacker News Reader

TikTok May Be a Chinese Superweapon

gurwinder.substack.com

12 pointsczue7 comments

This is all anti chinese BS. There is nothing specific to tiktok and applies to every social network

I think you're partly right and partly wrong.

The difference is likely that the US Government has more control over the other social media "Superweapons", so they're not worried about them. Also probably why they are familiar with the damage that can be done by them.

We play on offense with meta, google, twitter etc. while we have to play defense against tiktok. Just a thought.

"Two unfortunate victims of TikTok-induced brain damage."

Slightly judgmental caption... but it is pretty much correct.

Why keep attention spans any longer than necessary to evoke some response? In that sense it is a strict iteration of other social platforms. People might prefer it because the feedback cycle is even shorter.

I get why it is addiction. It does show you interesting stuff. But the longer you stay, the more stupid you will feel. Didn't believe anything could be even more mindless than classical TV shows, but here we are.

  >Why keep attention spans any longer than necessary to evoke some response?...

Wait a minute. This is hardly a recent TikTok/Chinese invention. Hasn't american TV been doing this for decades, with commercial breaks every 10 minutes? And surely the trend for online attention-deficiency and general dumbing down can be traced back to the likes of Twitter, with its text message length thoughtfarts and [as with most other social media] responses that eschew the use actual words, in favour of clicking on a 'Like' button, or some moronic emojis.

All TikTok has done has channelled this vacuuity into video.

No, this isn't new, my point was that it is the same formula, just improved.

Hopefully it is and finally someone has developed a competing weapon to the US's facebook, google, etc.

“The highest art of warfare is not to fight at all but to subvert your enemy.”

- Yuri Bezmenov ex KGB spy

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