Instagram overtakes TikTok as most downloaded app
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I'd say Instagram's algorithm is a few steps behind TikTok when it comes to really nailing what kind of things I want to watch, but Instagram has the added advantage of being somewhere I keep track of friends and family, so I get a much more "personal" feed of people I'm close to.
Both are time vacuums if I'm not careful though. If I have either app on my phone, I routinely fall into the trap of the infinite scroll. Instagram has definitely done a better job of keeping me scrolling longer than it used to. Best (for me) to just keep them off my devices and check in every so often when I want to catch up a bit.
YouTube's little "shorts" feed on the other hand though, that is the wild west, never know what you're gonna be shown.
India's been Instagram's (and Meta in general) largest market for years now and 75% of Indians on the Internet use IG [0], and every month an additional million users in India seem to join based on MAU stats.
[0] - https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/instagram-users-by-country
Congress puts forward many bills that have no shot at passing. The goal of something like this is to force Bytedance to sell its US operation to a US company, rather than deal with regulatory uncertainty. Hasn't worked yet.
Texas bans Tiktok on government wifi and wired networks.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/17/tiktok-ban-m...
Is this a real statement? As in, ESL possibly?
Someone blustering/threatening to do something is just a bunch of hot air. Enacting legislation and putting into action so that it becomes illegal would be attempting it.
It would only be an attempt, as we've seen how well banning through legislation works with things like Prohibition, War on Drugs, etc. Are they going to force all US ISPs to block it? Are they going to ban it from the stores? Are they going to prevent US users from accessing VPNs from outside US territories? Let's face it, people are addicted to TikTok, and they will find a way to get their fix.
Chhapri is now used to represent the Hindi subculture similar to Pullingo, same way Punjabi and Haryanvi speakers use "Jatt" now.
It's a cool example of dialectic change due to slang.
Edit: though now that I think about it, someone like Elvish Yadav wouldn't own up to being Chhapri but his Pullingo equivalent would
Exactly. I'm surprised that tiktok has been able to maintain its top spot for so long.
The biggest headscratcher is why india didn't ban facebook, instagram, youtube, etc along with tiktok. My hope was india would build up their own tech giants. Instead india just handed their social media environment to zuckerburg. What's the long term plan there? Give zuckerburg's properties ( facebook, instagram, whatsapp, etc ) monopoly over india? Are there any competent leaders in india? I simply don't get it.
Has India almost went to war with the US in the last 5 years? No.
Has India almost went to war with China in the last 5 years? Yes.
That's why.
Before 2020, Chinese firms were trying to expand into India as their ideal target market. In retaliation for Galwan, they got kicked out.
> would build up their own tech giants
Why?
How many global software giants can you name from Israel, Japan, or South Korea (let alone the entire EU)?
The biggest reason that countries like Israel were able to rapidly develop was because of the soft power of being so integrated in the American tech industry.
IP driven industries like ICT, Pharmaecuticals, Semiconductors, and Finance represent 33% of Indian exports [0] but 10% of China's [1], and India's entire R&D capacity was built by western private sector companies like IBM, GE, TI, Intel, Nvidia, Apple, etc.
Kicking them out is economic and research suicide for India.
> I'm surprised that tiktok has been able to maintain its top spot for so long
Because every other country uses it because it's so popular.
[Is it just me or has HN gotten dumber recently?]
[0] - https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/countries/104/export-basket
[1] - https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/countries/43/export-basket
No. The US threatened nuclear war with india in the last 30 years though.
https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/looking-back-the-1998-nuclea...
> That's why.
If that was the case, then india would have stopped trade with china. China is still one of india's top trading partners. And one of its biggest investors.
> they got kicked out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_trading_partne...
> Why?
Why ban tiktok? It's a national security issue. And india has the talent, population and resources to do so.
> How many global software giants can you name from Israel, Japan, or South Korea (let alone the entire EU)?
Surely you are smart enough to see the difference between israel, japan or south korea and india? I'm also a big proponent of the EU banning american tech and building up their own tech. The EU built up airbus, why can't they do the same for facebook, microsoft, etc?
> The biggest reason that countries like Israel were able to rapidly develop was because of the soft power of being so integrated in the American tech industry.
What does israel have to do with india? Are you saying india should be a vassal to the US like israel, japan and south korea are? You surely must be joking. India should be a regional power like china, russia and hopefully the EU. It shouldn't be anything like israel, korea or japan. Given its size and history, don't you think india should set its sights a little bit higher?
That's my theory anyway. I remember when Instagram Reels was just awful and all the suggestions sucked, now it's actually good.
Surprising outcome, but very similar to what happened with Snapchat. Everyone used Snapchat and suddenly Instagram added Stories and over time people just used Instagram again when Instagram polished Stories enough.
Hmm, I guess Meta is unstoppable in the social media space.
Many countries ban them because of that relationship and this hindered their ability to grow before Meta could go after them.
Which itself was a copycat of Vine.
The active user seems like the metric that would matter vs downloads.
I tried installing TikTok on a blank developer phone, and the content was vastly different from what I was used to. Absolutely appalling content, the worst that humanity has to offer.
But my own feed is nothing but serious and mature content.
The question is rather how those algorithms can have a negative influence on people's perception of reality.
Who decides what is bad content? Sociologists? Should we suppress it, to save democracy? Or does that kind of censorship lead to fascism?
I've had similar experiences with new TikTok installs. One thing I've noticed is that I get lower quality content with new installs using mobile network shared IP addresses, while better content with residential IP addresses.
Those cookies persist even after you delete the app, even if you completely disable and sign out of iCloud, and even after you restore your iCloud back on another iPhone/iPad.
There is no way to see or delete that data, except by using those apps, if they offer you an option to delete it, and so there's no way to be sure if that's all the data they store.
tiktok shows my videos to ~500 people instantly, then stops. instagram shows it to ~10 then stops.
presumably both are measuring view to like ratio or something. tiktok is 2%, ig is 0%. i assume that’s too low and why they stop showing it.
I get so much more political content even though I don't like it at IG than at Tiktok, but granted everyone gets a different experience.
Or maybe you like one "political" post (a non-partisan joke for example) and then you get flooded.
But if you like one cat post you don't get flooded with cat posts for example.
Tiktok seems to be more random and IG more obvious.
a common joke on tiktok is to tell someone to post the same video on reels cause they know the comments are much more toxic