But what else do you call it when (if) TikTok makes it 5% more likely you see efficient factories and farm workers in China, and 5% more likely you see the tide pod challenge or whatever dumb self destructive behavior in the US? Such a thing is almost impossible to prove or disprove, yet it would be shocking if the CCP wasn't doing this, considering they do exactly this to their own population.
Twitter and Instagram Reels is far worse at surfacing destructive trends, it seems like a misstep for the CCP to try and push TikTok in this way when our own homemade companies are more than capable of doing it themselves. Between TikTok and IG, only one of them has a "STEM" feed; and it's unclear why its the CCP trying to push more US kids into STEM.
It's very simple: Chinese — including but not limited to the CCP — value education, especially in science and technology.
Things make a more sense if people stop looking for nefarious reasons behind everything and stop looking at China as some sort of world-devouring boogeyman.
I'm Chinese.
If they don't care for this kind of content, they simply won't see it. It's the same the other way around.
And nothing else? Show me the data.
The problem is that it feels like they just show users what they want, that there are no thumbs on the scale, but then they hide the scale! There is no transparency.
Thumbs are for boomers. Either you watch it, or you keep scrolling. Of course the scale is hidden, it only messes up the UX, basically like exposed wiring
> And nothing else? Show me the data.
Well then do your own research and see if it's any different from my empirical evidence. Why play a guessing game?
> There is no transparency.
There never is for a product.
>There is no transparency.
Hey Google! What is Project Texas?
What is it saying, then? Are you saying TikTok is doing Good Stuff (aka propaganda) for the US government and other western governments? Because that sounds an awful lot like doing what those governments would want TikTok to do, and the opposite of what TikTok gets accused of doing.
That's probably one of the reasons why tiktok is being criticised so heavily; that's where they want everyone looking right now, anything that detracts from that is problematic.
The fact that almost all other social media outlets are wall to wall algorithmically pushed hysteria on this topic should perhaps give you a clue. Even here, where political threads are usually promptly removed, the topic is left open for people to pour in the most insanely inflammatory rhetoric you've ever seen. There are multiple posts in this thread alone openly advocating genocide.