TikTok Feeds Teens a Diet of Darkness
wsj.com
wsj.com
I don’t know if it’s intentional or not - it’s possibly not - but I know it makes her more sad than happy.
One of the main reasons TikTok has been grilled by congress is because of China's stance and willingness to violate any law for their own benefit.
One of those benefits not very commonly understood in America by the general populace is Political Warfare, which China calls the destruction of national will in their own documentation.
The USMC University has an ebook that is freely available that describes what is done, why its important, and its effects. It is a worthwhile read, if you do further research on this know that Bezmenov is not credible; there are much more credible sources, that's not to say what he says is necessarily incorrect, the best deceit weaves truth into lies.
The general gist is they seek to put people into a psychological state of demoralization, in that state you typically polarize into two separate groups.
Apathetic and complacent where you don't react to anything, and the other where you lash out at anything that you perceive or triggers you (through psychological anchoring [using NLP vocabulary], and various form of isolation). The conflict between these three groups (apathetic, violent, rational) allows a smaller number of people to seize power in a destabilization event which is a regime change playbook that most governments have used at one point or another. Historically, the last stage of that playbook involves getting back to a new normal by consolidating, and eliminating detractors (those people that lashed out).
Its subtle, and deceitful, but certain things you just can't give others the benefit of the doubt. Existential threats to your individual identity (which is what's often targeted during propaganda, and political warfare efforts), are one of those things. If its present, the source isn't credible and shouldn't be used regardless of what they say.
P.S. There's also a lawsuit from a TikTok insider that just made headlines recently disclosing how code was in the app to allow CCP backdoor access to US data and amplify or de-amplify narratives according to Communist core values. If there was any question about TikTok's credibility and their narrative that they don't do this; that pretty much seals the deal given everything else assuming of course what was said is factually correct.
They clearly would not have credibility, which would eliminate them as a potential choice in any risk management analysis you might need to do.
[Link]: https://www.businessinsider.com/new-lawsuit-alleges-tiktok-o...
The history of all social media shows that when you optimize for engagement in that way dark, hostile, triggering, or just mindless addictive filler is what you get. As I said elsewhere: trash seems to maximize engagement.
If China let TikTok prioritize only engagement in China they’d also have a feed of nothing but mental junk food.
I think TikTok is generally damaging, but not any more damaging than Twitter, Instagram, FB. Ultimately the content is produced by users.
The post above containing a detailed conspiracy of political warfare was entertaining to read, but it's likely bullshit.
> Maybe the interests of teenagers in China and in the US differ?
Maybe China has an extensive and well-known censorship and social media control apparatus, that shapes experiences according to the plans of the authorities?
For that reason, ByteDance almost certainly has technology to force the experience in a particular direction, because if they didn't they'd run afoul of the Chinese authorities. So the question is, why have they chosen to have (Chinese) Douyin show "generally affirmative content to teens" but not (US) TikTok? It's plausible that the reason is a program of national demoralization directed at the US. Another plausible reason is the Chinese system is better able to regulate certain self-destructive tendencies that liberal democracies are more vulnerable to.
Given that's my experience with Facebook, I'm going with that ad the more likely explanation.
Can you imagine if they did? People would go bonkers with conspiracy, saying that they don't respect free speech, etc.
Not exactly. Let me explain in a slightly roundabout way: there's an old article/song that states a truth "Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly." The Chinese government censorship requirements mean ByteDance certainly has the technology to prevent showing beauty magazines to teens (because they also have to suppress so much else), and the Chinese government (in a good bit of policy that goes with the bad) may have directly told them to use that technology to not show beauty magazines to teens. That means they loose some $$$ in China because they can't make Chinese teens feel ugly by showing them beauty magazines. However, they come to America, shut off that technology, and make go some $$$ in the US by making American teens feel ugly.
Note: I'm not literally talking about beauty magazines, I'm just using them as a stand in for "negative, but appealing" content, because that quote I started with came to mind.
These platforms are designed and optimized to achieve goals set by various parties. It's naive to look at a difference like this and assume the algorithm is neutral and they cause is some "difference in interests."
In the West, they are not required to restrict content (and that for them es great, if people use the app more for that). I really disagree that there's any conspiracy there.
But it is ironic that people would like Chinese-style censorship on social media now. It's an interesting time to be alive.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/american-kids-would-...
I must mention that overgeneralizing is a form of flawed reasoning and must be guarded against, also simply saying its the algorithm neglects the fact that people had to design and approve the algorithm which included their intentions that went into that. That statement tacitly absolves responsibility for actions done in bringing it to market.
None of this would be possible to this degree if there wasn't a many to one platform of fake people where a monolithic entity can determine how much certain subjects people get exposed to and talk about.
Communication is a fundamental part of human identity, and distorting process leads to issues from reflected appraisal.
I fail to see how this is any different than what USA based media does.
It isn't but that doesn't make it any less egregious.
Can you share more specifics about this eBook? Thanks!
I appreciated it as an interesting read because it takes a here's what happened, here's what we were seeing. This is what was happening based on other information we have available, and historically what we know to be true about the doctrine they are following with real examples.
Compared to other material where you have to critically evaluate and parse doublespeak, and other tautological traps, on a paragraph by paragraph basis; the book in comparison gets pretty straight to the point, and its gratuitous use of references (& footnotes) to support what is said is a sign of any well researched, and rational document.
https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press...
https://steemit.com/security/@tinfoilfedora/the-gentlemans-g...
[1] https://www.usmcu.edu/Portals/218/Political%20Warfare_web.pd...
1. Proper data protection laws that apply universally to every company. No more “oh sorry we fucked up here’s free credit monitoring”. I’m talking fines of 5% base + 1% daily increase for every day they delay announcing their fuck up of global revenue. If they’ve tried to hide it and it comes out later, that company gets nationalized.
2. Actual lawsuits against the various social media companies that have actively aided in manipulating people. E.g Cambridge Analytica
3. Removal of any “limited liability” protections against execs that actively stood by and waited for this to happen. Execs being defined by the top 10-20% of the company by both assets and income (stock and cash)
If you’re talking about “communist core values” you’re, respectfully, fallen into a weird propaganda trap. Nothing about China is “communist”. North Korea calls themselves democratic, but no one actually calls them that.
To me, your comment sounds like a bag of Sinophobia mixed in with a bunch of “ok” takes assuming you want this applied to everyone. Not just the new big baddie.
The general Chinese population are not to blame here as they are just another victim of the CPP.
Growing up my self in a totalitarian "communist" regime (none of them are communist for that matter, they incorporate socialist and communist ideas in their propaganda) I know there's nothing you can do as an individual to change the system and getting organized with other people is technically impossible, as the climate of fear and distrust is such that you don't dare to talk about anything closely related to politics among neighbors, friends and even relatives.
We know what happens to Chinese exec, artists and athletes when they don't play by the CPP rules.
Just imagine if in the US it was normal for people like Jeff Bezos, LeBron James or Jennifer Lawrence "dissappear" every time they confront the US government and the psychological impact that would have on the regular population.
https://calvert.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-calvert-t...
Maybe a typo in both cases?
Maybe it was a romanized translation of CCP, or perhaps poster wrote C++ a lot, or CPP really was associated with CCP. However, I don't yet know what it stands for.
If it were any other way, then Maoist "Struggle Sessions" could be completed in hours or days, rather than taking weeks and months--and including stages of change that have to be completed before moving on (and, conversely, the manufactured fear of inadvertent regression in a moment of "temporary insanity" being a significant driver of the process) .
The process ("struggle," meaning a process that is explicitly laborious at each step) of "reeducation" (brainwashing) is a topic that entire books have been written about. One such book, by Robert Lifton, contains interviews with American soldiers captured in NK and Chinese dissidents who were subjected to brainwashing by the Mao Zedong regime, called "Thought Reform and the Psychology of a Totalism" (the claim that merely addressing this subject at all is "sinophobic" is actually one of the integral steps in the administration of a struggle session; calling someone"racist" or "sexist" in similar circumstances, likewise).
I'll end this comment by reiterating its central tenet: there is a reason they were called struggle sessions, not "moments of insight." It's a process, rather than a realization. If you read 1984, then the description of the events in room 101 give you a l crude understanding of the process, but written by someone who might be deemed a B-/C+ scholar of the subject: having internalized the process in its entirety and having a general understanding of the process (so they could be a facilitator of it, perhaps), but without the full appreciation of the psychological significance of each stage (I.e. insufficient to be an "architect," or someone capable of optimizing a process they themselves do not fully understand). To his credit, Orwell does a not too bad job of explaining the mechanism of brainwashing to a layman audience; but--and especially if you've read the book yourself--there are aspects in it that remain intellectually obtuse, or counterintuitive.
PS: I concede, it is perhaps possible to have lived in a totalitarian system, without ever experiencing a struggle session in person. It's after all a fairly intensive process and therefore mostly reserved for political prisoners. For example, the NKVD in Soviet Russia didn't mass arrest people to subject them to struggle sessions (something written about in detail by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Gulag Archipelago)--it mass arrested people and shipped them off to Siberia.
PPS: I forgot to add, one example of a modern implementation of Struggle Sessions is the so-called "Cancel Culture." Conversely, watch the stages the person being publicly "cancelled" undergo, beginning with refusal and rejection (correct), but then transitioning to admission (incorrect, because they are more often than not not guilty of what they're accused of, they merely want the pain to end and for things to return to normal, which is a normal and sane human desire; where they go wrong is in assuming that once they cave, things will go back to normal; if, by "normal," they mean release, then read what happens after Winston Smith is released) and finally concluding with profound, heartfelt apology, and subsequent loss in their previous standing/authority, since they just admitted to the (mostly fabricated) crimes they were accused of (incorrect, because they were dragged through the mud and admitted to manufactured crimes). Come to think of it, Cancel Culture is actually a pretty optimal form of Struggle Sessions. Mao would be proud, especially after learning where this was taking place.
Nobody here is complaining about Chinese people. They are complaining about a particular regime at the head of the Chinese government. They have approximately zero overlap and accusations of Sinophobia are designed to smokescreen any accusations of a government.
Anyone that's educated in this area knows just because someone says something is true, it doesn't make it so, and discussing that wasn't even part of the comment so you are getting into the weeds.
For your own edifice, can you (for yourself) tell what are the differences between socialism, communism, fascism and fabianism; and which ones are mutually exclusive? A google search surface view won't be much help with answering that; best resource is historical texts and essays.
To me, you seem to have mixed objectives or have been seriously misled. You claim its new, but this in fact is a very old 'baddie' wrapped up in new clothing.
With additional education one might also know that something not being actually true very often has little influence on whether people believe it to be true, which is what really matters when it comes to propaganda...and I found your text quite impressive, very believable.
Could you give a summary of these? Especially, which ones are mutually exclusive.
As well, do you agree with the following summary?
F means "anti-"
state capital anarchist flavor
T T non-anarchist / unknown
T F libertarian socialist?
F T impossible anarchist
F F libertarian communist
References
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35851409
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35851392
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35845460
Thank-you for your time.
Development, selection, tuning, and ultimately deployment of that algorithm were all intentional actions.
Do you know this for certain?
The counterintelligence and economic espionage efforts emanating from the government of China and the Chinese Communist Party are a grave threat to the economic well-being and democratic values of the United States.
Confronting this threat is the FBI’s top counterintelligence priority.
To be clear, the adversary is not the Chinese people or people of Chinese descent or heritage. The threat comes from the programs and policies pursued by an authoritarian government.
The Chinese government is employing tactics that seek to influence lawmakers and public opinion to achieve policies that are more favorable to China.
At the same time, the Chinese government is seeking to become the world’s greatest superpower through predatory lending and business practices, systematic theft of intellectual property, and brazen cyber intrusions.
China’s efforts target businesses, academic institutions, researchers, lawmakers, and the general public and will require a whole-of-society response. The government and the private sector must commit to working together to better understand and counter the threat.
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/the-chin...
ByteDance's motives should, by now, be clear.
Are Sandy Hook Promise and St Jude's Hospital (manor YouTube advertisers) also CCP propaganda?
There is no algorithm acting independently. The responsibile agent(s) is(are) a person(people).
I didn't absolve the creator of guilt, I just said that it's unlikely they're intentionally trying to make her sad. They're just trying to increase engagement - at any cost.
I've already, with her consent, wiped her advertising profiles once. This reduced the incidents from, at its peak, every couple days, to every couple weeks.
Thing is, none of these stories are against any kind of content policy. News reporting and articles about history are all above-board. But this kind of stuff showing up on her feed, mixed with "normal" baby stuff, with alarming frequency? That's for the first time that I felt how "the algorithm" can fuck people over.
Many years ago, I tried using Facebook. I few months later I decided it was causing distress, as political discussion among people I knew was reducing my respect for friends and acquaintances. My next logical action was to completely abandon Facebook. I didn't even bother to delete my account, I just removed the app and never browsed it again.
I always wonder why people keep using apps that distress them.
I showed her this thread and her response was that these sudden and intense emotional videos hidden among the dozens of happy ones is actually why she doesn’t use is as much as she would otherwise.
I protect my SO, with whom I cohabitate, by sharing my knowledge and experience with. By leading.
If my SO starts exhibiting behaviour indicative of new psychological / physical pathology, we deal with it, together.
We, I, don't do nothing. That's what's commonly referred to as enabling.
I had a partner who smoked and continually encouraged them to quit. It took years. Pathological behaviors are hard to break.
As is the generally accepted method of writing comments around here.
Absence of further explanation is invitation of discuss. So here we are.
That's absolute nonsense. There's no reason for OP to disclose that information in relation to the post they made. They were just posting a personal experience, not looking for anyone's advice.
That doesn't sound like an argument anyone would intentionally make.
If someone your SO invited in to your home repeatedly resulted in your SO crying, would you continue to watch this happen time and again, or would you encourage change?
You expand your knowledge and experience to influence in beneficial directions.
Small perturbations can result in dramatic change over time.
In fact, it's so unlikely, considering the vastly greater scrutiny they're under, that I'm beginning to suspect it's more to do with geopolitics then any actual aspect of the social media platform.
And it doesn't help that nearly every comment debates geopolitics whenever one of these articles is posted. Wanting Beijing to buy more soybeans, be less obstinate about the WTO, vote against Russia in the security council, etc..., is fine, but I'm getting tired of everything being dragged into this browbeating contest.
In fact, the world would be a better place.
Insta is hosted in the US controlled by Western firms, not privy to the CCP and that's it.
It's in China's interest, and others, to destabilize the populations of it's enemies. Traditionally this could be through propaganda, but a potentially more powerful force could be to make the population depressed, angry, confused, and distracted. This impacts the real world in your day to day, the communities you live in, and the quality/intentions of elected officials.
Now this could easily be accomplished even with the best intentions from the company creating the software. So how nefarious or not this actually is, or how much manipulation the Chinese government is applying here is totally debatable.
I'm not arguing for one side of that or the other. My point is data is super powerful, is often tied to apps and devices you don't realize, and can be used to motivate action at large scale, so the holder of the data really does matter.
That said, US companies and others outside China also have tons of data and use it for their own profit and potentially to spread propaganda and destabilizing information. In the US, however, the chance of malintent being the driving force is less probable and, as far as I can see, tend more to be influential actors or groups. In these cases, the software company and regulators are more likely to to moderate or suppress this because it can be bad for business. When it's a geopolitical foe who is or simply can cause issues this way, the intentions and lack of regulation are far more problematic.
Perhaps you don't have access to anything they want, but perhaps you're a stepping stone to something they do want.
There is a better strategy to counter foreign threats than blaming others for doing what you have been doing for decades, it makes you look like a fool
I found it got weird quite quickly without any conscious input on my part. Animal cruelty, conspiracy stuff and things that YouTube has never suggested.
I always remove objectionable videos I accidentally watch from my Watch History to prevent the algorithm from using it as a basis for recommending me stuff.
But then I watch one innocuous video outside of my core interests—say, washing machine repair how-to, or a clip of an old sitcom, and then my feed gets infected with Jordan Peterson or other weird shit and I'm like ah, this is what everyone's talking about! And I have to go prune my watch history until they vanish. It's bizarre.
Though, if you get out of the YT algorithm, for eg. in incognito mode, I've seen very poor recommendations as well. Like viral bait videos. But not like Tiktok.
https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/where-conspira...
This is not a problem specific to TikTok, fixing this issue is just a matter of improving the moderation systems, and at this point it's just noise, however the celebrities like Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan, they both come from YouTube/Instagram, so maybe the source of that kind of content originates from the same place? go figure
Is it enough to ban YouTube of Facebook? of course not, why is it for TikTok?
The strategy need to improve or change
The amount of misinformation and disturbing videos I've seen was astonishing.
"Trash culture" is a natural human phenomenon of which no culture has a monopoly on.
One does not stop and quit their alcohol addiction by drinking a different brand of alcohol. So the only solution is to delete your account and these apps.
Very simple, and it has always been possible [0]. So what is your excuse?
It is a completely different story though if I think of myself at 16. Teenage years were tough enough without anyone having social media. To be one of the outcast without social media is inconceivable. This is a total failure by adults to have put kids in this position.
The craziest thing to me is that we don't just put the same limits on children on Tiktok that they do in China. It is as if children were getting free, unlimited cookies sent to them in the mail and we do nothing because "cookies taste good". "What do you want me to do? Kids love cookies!"
I try to tell my kids all the time (paraphrasing myself): the best cookies are the ones you earn. The worst ones are the ones you acquire easily.
Riding up a mountain so you can ride down it, ripping around the trails and getting air, coming out the bottom still lightheaded with excitement is incredible. The way up can be hell, sometimes you wonder what you were thinking, but at the end of it all you want more! That’s what the brain needs.
Video games and infiniscrolling on the other hand… Some of the same reward pathways are hit, but there’s no substance there. Just a bag of free cookies that makes you ill.
Edit: I love video games, I’m definitely not saying they’re ruining children or anything. But I mean, video games after a day of getting stuff done and having nothing left on your plate is going to feel like a great reward. Waking up and playing until you feel like a human slug, anxiety ridden about all the stuff you didn’t accomplish… That’s a problem. Not because video games specifically, either.
Moral panic has always sold newspapers.
I'm not saying you're wrong but I think this perspective has helped me see things a bit differently.
But I've always been uncomfortable with the opposite extreme position, the implicit reaction to the moral panic. The argument where TV, movies, games, social media, it's not possible for them to have any real effect on their viewers psychologically, regardless of content, even when they're exposed to dozens of hours a week in some extreme cases.
That strains my credulity. There's been a lot of research done which suggests it is true; it has an impact. For example, exposure to violent media doesn't appear to cause violence by inducing insensitivity to horror and the disgust, as once hypothesized. But it does seem to cause anxiety about being the victim of violence. The more violent TV news and violent movies you watch, the more you overestimate your chances of being horribly murdered one day. But you know, maybe it does just make us violent. The mass shooter phenomenon is, arguably, a media-propagated thing. Copycats upon copycats, inspired solely through media exposure.
Similarly, sexualized material does not turn people sex-crazed, it makes them sex-negative and apprehensive about their own body image. As a general rule, the more porn you watch, the fewer sex partners you have. There has been a massive change in the sexual behaviour of young adults over the last couple decades -- they have literally half as much sex as we did in my generation. Could it possibly have something to do with the media boys watch?
Hard agree. The example that won't leave my mind is product placement: As a marketing concept it revolves around the idea that consumers seeing your product more than others means your product will come to their mind first and therefore purchase it more. It's why so many characters use brand name goods on TV. Companies spend good money on this - they wouldn't do that if they didn't think it worked. And if seeing our favorite character enjoy Coke makes us more likely to be Coke, why wouldn't be influenced by other things? Who says you have to 'sell' a physical product for this to work?
TV, for instance, has pretty clearly been a net negative due to its impact on the social fabric and people’s, especially children’s, minds. The fact social media is even worse doesn’t change that.
I don't think this is clear. What kind of effects do you think TV has had on the social fabric?
The average content on social media (at least if you let yourself be led by algorithms) is easily as bad as the worst content on cable TV. Some of it is worse than almost anything on TV in a very specific way: it’s utterly mindless. I’m continuously shocked by the mindlessness of what trends on YouTube for instance. It lacks even basic plot or structure, just endless repetitive spectacle or people faking excited reactions while doing the most banal things. It barely qualifies as filler yet people eat it up.
Then of course you have the political and cultural trash. Right, left, up, down, but no matter what it is it must be dumb and extreme and inflammatory. The most successful stuff in this category either serves to inflame hatred toward someone else or feed narcissism in the target audience.
Absolute trash, it seems, is what maximizes engagement. I don’t like what it says about humanity.
Great art works to break people out of that sleep—that includes pop music and TV and whatever else.
The kind of garbage that gets elevated by these algorithms does the opposite—it buries peoples minds and numbs their senses. There’s a lot of money to be made off of people who are continuously preoccupied rather than present and feeling.
Unfortunately even that has changed now that everyone uses streaming services and plays always-online games.
Conversely, my partner has tried to use different apps, mechanisms, and so on to limit screentime, all with limited success. Social media usage is seriously addictive and compulsive. The number of times people just open their phone and compulsively check instagram is wild..
I think the limiting piece for people is the social aspects, and feeling of missing out. Or that they feel its the main way to connect with friends.
Think the bigger challenge for anyone who quits these sites is what to fill the time we spend scrolling with? We’ve all spent many years conditioned to simply open these apps to fill any time or moment of boredom, with low effort. Ive had to take up a number of interests, mostly physical, to keep busy and happy.
But yeah, try learning to be bored.
They proudly declare on a social media website.
Use them on a computer when you decide you need to do something on them, not when they (ping) and beckon you to come consume content.
A fair point.
But while you won't be "saving the world," you will be getting you away from such toxic cesspools.
Unless you like toxic cesspools. In which case, please do carry on. Good luck.
Not to mention that putting the responsibility on individuals to solve systemic problems disproportionately impacts marginalized and underrepresented groups.
They are not trying to be 'free speech' just 'fun'.
Aside from it's addictive qualities, I find Insta and FB far more toxic.
That said, TT cannot exist as it can be controlled (and is in some ways) by CCP. No reason they can't sell of Western operations (or just do a split, all shareholders get 1 share in new entity), like a big business 'Fork', and everyone can be happy.
This sounds to me like a misguided attempt to "warn" and "educate" in the worst way possible.
How about "Commercial Media Feeds Everyone a Diet of Darkness"?
TikTok can at least show you videos of dogs and educational content. Cable news can only sell you fear and reinforce your biases to optimize their earnings. Adult children who have parents who have been consumed by cable news know this all too well.
A well made 1.5-3 minute video on TikTok can be very educational. It seems that a lot of people are invested in this bizarre idea that TikTok is a kind of Manchurian Candidate app that brain washes tweens with dance videos, when the reality is that a lot of the more established media is much more corrosive and carefully constructed to manufacture consent.
At least as much as short videos someone recorded on their phone
>TikTok (is) >also a form of commercial media that drives the alienation and polarization of everyone (consuming it)
Works both ways. I'm not defending cable news, or any form of mainstream media. I'm not sure why you think TikTok deserves being defended. It's been shown to harvest very worrying bits of its users' private lives and send it to servers under the tutelage of a totalitarian State.
You can upload any video. It doesn't need to be recorded on a phone.
> Works both ways.
No. I've witnessed firsthand loved ones losing their grasp of reality by consuming cable news non-stop, all day. TikTok doesn't even come close.
The "won't somebody please think of the children!!!" moral panic around social media annoys me. Hysterias about shadowy outside agencies infiltrating and subverting society usually annoy me in general, whether they are about Jews polluting the minds of good Germans, communists taking over Hollywood, the CIA being behind every revolution, shadowy Russians interfering in America's elections, or nefarious Chinese hurting American children by giving them access to information.
Such theories often have some grain of truth to them. Obviously, there are lots of different groups out there running actual influence and subversion campaigns. But I think that such campaigns are typically nowhere near as centralized or as effective as the subversion theorists claim. The subversion theorists frame things in a way that discounts the agency of the supposed targets of the subversion, and I think this reveals what many of them actually think about those targets. It is an authoritarian mindset. "I, who am obviously a good guy, should protect these pawns from having their minds by subverted by this other power over there. Only I, not those other guys, should have the power to control the minds of the worthless plebs."
Actually it isn't about the number of posts that you can view per day. It is about the number of items that can be on a page before you have to click the next page button.
Heroin is illegal. I don't see why infinite scroll shouldn't also be illegal.
Im not trying to be a smartass here, but imagine (hypothetically) that I implemented page viewer for Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. Also I implemented possibility to go between pages by touch sliding or by scrolling using mouse wheel. For you is this different enough from infinite scrolling or no?
Hahaha. So, this turned out to be the number of items of content you should be limited to in order to keep life, the universe and everything maximally stable.
The alternatives: Asia, the Middle East, Africa