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Comment by SeanAnderson | Hacker News Reader

This'll be a pretty interesting psychological experiment. Tomorrow a whole lot of addicted people are going to be experiencing withdrawals at the same time. I have to assume nothing major will come of it, but still, there's not too many instances of this occurring in society, right?

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Most people will just use Instagram Reels or YouTube shorts. They’re identical.

Just like C, C++ and C#

Of course. If C goes away what you do. Code in C++ or quit programming.

“Quit programming” is excellent advice regardless of the language.

If C went away, we would have to switch to ++ or #

YT sure. However, there are a lot of anger towards IG from TT users and creators.

I do think this is one possible outcome. I didn't use TikTok (nor do I use reels or shorts), so I don't really feel educated enough to be as confident as you.

I was browsing r/TikTok and the comments there certainly don't seem to imply that everyone is eager/interested in going to reels/shorts. I hardly even see those platforms mentioned in https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTok/comments/1i4p6s0/rip/ but it could just be sampling bias since I'm reading Reddit comments rather than looking for discussions on YouTube/Instagram.

Still, it takes time to habituate to a new app's UI and culture. Even if people are willing and able to shift to a new platform I think there will be a lot of shared frustration in the short term.

Reddit is the ultimate fanatic echo chamber. I wouldn’t trust any opinion bubbling up there to be representative of any large group.

Yeah agree completely.

Opinions on Reddit and HN are almost always from the 5% most engaged, most online of any subgroup. These are not regular people. Is every software developer you know represented by the opinions that get upvoted on HN? Thankfully, no. Similarly the kind of people posting to /r/tiktok aren’t your regular TikTok user by a long shot.

They’re going to need their next fix from somewhere so they’ll move pretty quickly… they may complain for a bit but a junkie needs their drugs regardless of the source and quality

To borrow a Tiktok meme... tell me you don't use Tiktok without telling me you don't use Tiktok. This seems like such a surface-level comment from somebody with no familiarity with the platform. People love Tiktok. People on Tiktok hate Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts, for many reasons. Examples:

- IG Reels are limited to 90 seconds compared to 3 or 10 minutes on TT;

- Youtube Shorts can now be up to 3 minutes but that's relatively new (October 2024 IIRC);

- Tiktok moentization is better than these other two platforms, both in terms of ad revenue but more importantly, the Tiktok Shop;

- The comments on Tiktok are truly a league above IG or YT. The latter two are just full of random drivel and vitriol;

- The recommendation algorithm for scrolling on TT is miles ahead of either platform;

- Tiktok is the only platform where people went there for short-form videos. They're native to the platform whereas they were bolted on to both IG and YT as an afterthought, a real "me too" Tiktok response. And they don't quite fit. The user experience on Tiktok is so much better than IG or YT.

- A huge chunk of Reels and Shorts content is simply reposted Tiktoks.

Sundar and Mark may think they'll simply gain Tiktok's user base. I honestly don't see that happening. I'm sure there'll be an uptick in YT and IG but now 170M MAU worth.

Also:

- you can't watch at 2x on reels

- you can't pause a video while watching on reels

- you can't seek in a video either, you just have to watch the whole thing over

- reels interrupts your experience with awful ads every 2-3 swipes

- YT shorts probably has awful ads too, I haven't tried it

The time limit is probably going to be the biggest issue for YT and reels, but the ergonomics of both are so awful that I can't use them for more than a few minutes. I could scroll TikTok until the little video about scrolling too long came up (an hour I think).

- You can pause a video. Not the best UX, but you need to HOLD your finger, just like you do for Stories

- You can seek in a video too. Again, awful UX, the line is super small, but you can. Depends how large the video is, I believe.

> To borrow a Tiktok meme... tell me you don't use Tiktok without telling me you don't use Tiktok.

Like so much else on Tiktok, this originated elsewhere. In this case, Twitter.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tell-me-without-telling-me

That's the one thing I dislike about the ban: that it helps zuckergram

that's likely the largest reason it went through. If you think US social networking companies weren't pushing the ban for financial reasons, you're just being silly.

404 did an article on it: https://www.404media.co/a-tiktok-ban-is-a-gift-to-meta-and-i...

You think Zuckerberg paid off the Supreme Court? You’ve got to be joking.

Even Trump, who we know Zuckerberg had donated to, claims he will try to “bring back TikTok”.

This case was argued and won on the basis of national data security.

Of course I read that and know the arguments, I'm not an idiot.

But I see through it because once again, I'm not an idiot.

When far more sensitive social media apps like Grindr were sold to Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd, nobody went crazy because it didn't threaten FAANG.

There's many swiping and dating apps owned by chinese firms. You also have chinese capital firms being the primary investor in cloud and photo sharing apps. Plenty of sensitive stuff going through the spindly fingers of the shifty orientals without a peep - for like decades.

There's even Chinese finance apps like WeBull that hold things as sensitive as American's retirement accounts. Apparently also not a problem.

People have Wyze doorbell cameras and TCL smartTVs and Eufy security cameras. They have TP-Link routers and Hisense computer monitors. Chinese cameras, WiFi, and microphones are everywhere in the modern home.

But once something came around that was a plausible competitive threat to FAANG then all these reasons just materialize and get applied to that thing specifically.

I mean seriously. Give me a break.

We like to look back 100 years ago at protectionism and racism and tell ourselves that we were dumber back then and wouldn't fall for it now.

And yet, here we are.

My read on the situation is that this is the beginning of clamping down on _all_ (or most) of this. Also important to note the difference between racism and national security. The notion isn't "wacky chinese people ooh so mysterious so sneky", it's that the government isn't the US's ally and has (valid) reasons to want to reduce the US's grip on the global stage.

It's not (just) that it poses an economic threat to one of the biggest US companies (which as you said, I'm sure plays a big part in why it's suddenly relevant), but that it allows a government-influenced foreign media channel to influence policy indirectly by means of mass dissemination.

As for why now and not before, it's because of how apparent the possible effects are now that there's a very direct and widely spread channel that can pump OUT information, which is vastly more effective and obvious than passive surveillance through cameras or other hardware. (Also cybersecurity people have been calling out this sort of stuff for hardware since time immemorial)

My main gripe is actually a neoliberal sympathy (something I usually don't have).

The framework is progress moves fastest with a global leveling and elimination of friction between markets.

Fundamentally I see this as American companies using government cheat codes instead of sharpening their game, just like with the Chinese electric cars 100% tax.

It stems from my critique of neoliberalism, the failure to invest in foundational societal systems that give an affordance to such positioning: education, mass transit, health care, maternity leave, preschool funding, scholastic enrichment, the stuff that most of Asia is great at we're lousy at.

Chinese people aren't like genetically superior, they just spent the past 50 years investing in their people instead of taking things away and fighting stupid wars.

And these are the chickens coming home to roost just like they did for Hungary, the UK, and Spain.

We've been fucking up for decades and racism isn't going to fix it.

> As for why now and not before, it's because of how apparent the possible effects are now that there's a very direct and widely spread channel that can pump OUT information, which is vastly more effective and obvious than passive surveillance through cameras or other hardware.

This. TT's US popularity plus its fully algorithmic approach to content selection makes it potentially one of the most effective mass influence systems ever. People are easily influenced - especially young people - and the root of that being in China is a clear risk to US sovereignty.

I mean, look at what Xi and his allies would like to see happening in the US, and look at what's happening in the US today. Coincidence?

At least one Supreme Court justice is well known to be corrupt. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

> Most people will just use Instagram Reels or YouTube shorts. They’re identical

You’re being downvoted. But you’re correct. The vocal minority inflames about this are mostly ideologically offended, based on the calls and letters I’m hearing both blue and red electeds receive.

You're a biased party because you've canvased for the bill and I think it's good to call your stake in the matter out.

If it were this simple then Rep Ro Khanna wouldn't still be posting about TikTok. As far as what happens, as with everything else, we'll see. There's a million variables and Hacker ``Social Media was tantamount to the Fall of Man'' News is not the place I'm expecting particularly fruitful, unbiased analysis.

> You're a biased party because you've canvased for the bill

Eh, I canvassed for privacy bills and that was a total disaster. I believe in the TikTok ban, but I’m not passionate about it.

> then Rep Ro Khanna wouldn't still be posting about TikTok

If I were advising Ro I would absolutely insist he tweet about it. Particularly off cycle. Anyone in Silicon Valley or a district with rich libertarians, for that matter.

Ro Khanna doesn't represent the majority of rich libertarian types who would be in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, and Saratoga. The rest of Silicon Valley tends to be suburban, upper class tech workers with large immigrant populations who are only moderately likely to have libertarian views.

> rest of Silicon Valley tends to be suburban, upper class tech workers with large immigrant populations who are only moderately likely to have libertarian views

And very likely to not be paying attention to him right now to the degree they’ll remember anything come election. Not for tangential issues. Donors, on the other hand, can give now.

Or RedNote

They are identical in the same way that my Hacker News and Facebook are identical. They are both places where people post stuff and comment on stuff but the community in each is very different.

If Hacker News were to shut down for just the US users and people were told to go continue the conversation on Facebook do you think that it would feel the same?

Part of what makes TikTok and Hacker News great is the interaction with people all over the world. What's going to happen to the diaspora? Are they going to all end up in one place?

Again, if Hacker News kicked out all of the Americans living on US soil then would the rest of the users follow the Americans onto Facebook to continue the conversation?

Hacker news is the only online space I participate in regularly. But I also wonder if my life might be better if I cut it out too.

100%. I used to love meetups in sf via meetup back in the day, really genuine people wanting to learn new things at the time. When that platform collapsed, it basically wasn’t replaced at all.

Same thing could be said of the academic side of Twitter. It’s now fragmented across Twitter, Bluesky, mastodon, and the level is discussion is very diminished

It depends on what content you watch on TikTok. Many comedy content creators on TikTok have identical, mirrored copies of their content on Instagram (an example is Leenda Dong, who has been very popular on both TikTok and Instagram).

This was also tested in practice in India, when the country banned TikTok in 2020. Rest of World published a report in 2023 with the conclusion that most users simply switched to Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts without much complaint, just as the previous commenter predicted: https://restofworld.org/2023/america-india-tiktok-ban/

Strangely, Meta doesn't allow Reels longer than 3 minutes (90 seconds prior to a couple days ago). Why they don't match TikTok exactly is beyond me.

I agree. It's mind-boggling their reluctance to be a TikTok alternative, especially with knowing about the ban so far in advance

I do say they should have even relaunched IGTV again lol.

They were faster to clone Twitter with Threads.

>They were faster to clone Twitter with Threads.

Wasn't that because they hired a lot of ex-Twitter employees with an obvious ax to grind ha ha?

That isn't just Facebook. It's literally everyone. This is an entrepreneur site. Why are there no one trying to replicate the algorithm? Seriously? If there is one thing a free society and free enterprise should do, it should be copy the things that make sense and that work the best, objectively, as experienced by the customers.

Yeah yeah. Cattle customers. Bla bla bla.

I must be missing something blatantly obvious or there is some conspiracy here?

People are already calling 911 about it.

https://old.reddit.com/r/TikTok/comments/1i4puyg/pov_tiktok_...

Trump will bring it back in a couple days, it won't be gone long enough to have a large effect.

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