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Comment by giancarlostoro | Hacker News Reader

From what I've seen in r/TikTok (curiosity has kept me going back to seeing how users are reacting everyday) they really hate Meta. They're so upset, they don't trust that the current administration wont taint the algorithm of TikTok as well. It's really wild to see the varying views.

With that in mind, I would not be surprised if the top TikTok users will not take the free money. I mean its free money. If it actually works is another story though. Meta has been trying to force growth in new social media apps several times now, and its not really working, social media apps are basically generational.

I feel bad for them I grew up on the internet, in my day it was MySpace and a few other sites, I can only imagine the outrage I would have felt if they knocked off one of my social communities I frequented as a teen.

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I think a lot of those offered would understand how people on TikTok would turn on them for selling out. They're not stupid, quite the opposite. I detest how the political landscape of the internet has evolved to such an extent that it now influences our decisions about posting or not posting content online.

Meta is asking for exclusivity.

It is important for influencers to diversify across platforms so I don't think this is a good deal.

It must've really pissed off Zuckerberg when for the first few months every popular reel had the TikTok logo and soundbite at the end.

I assume any one person's decision would rest on some kind of risk perception that TikTok becomes/remains non-viable for the given period of exclusivity.

Yes, which is why I am advocating for diversification.

If your livelihood depends on a single company, you exist at their pleasure.

This has been an unending source of frustration for me when I have followed someone on any of the algorithmic platforms vs. self-publishing.

So often many will invariably end up letting the place where they predominant publish to dictate what and how they produce whatever it is they output. (I was fighting hard not to say the word "content"...)

Which I despise but also understand: you do what anyone with a job does to keep the money flowing until someone in the relationship decides to end the arrangement.

(Now that I think about it, self-publishing is hardly immune to that. It just means perhaps the creator's motives could be more varied and fluid?)

It’s hard for me to see influencers of today as organic users of the past.

Many modern users start their journey as a business though the content may appear innocent or authentic.

> It’s hard for me to see influencers of today as organic users of the past.

They're not, and never have been. Nor are they innocent - they're corrupting and destroying the platforms they're on. And, for all the talk on authenticity, they're the direct opposite of it.

I remain bewildered by the continued social acceptance of this work. We're talking about people who openly accept and refer to themselves using the term "influencer" - a word that's directly synonymous to "manipulator". How much more in-your-face do they have to be about telegraphing malicious intent?

Addictive brainrot is a powerful force. Like cigarettes. You could put a skull and crossbones on the packaging and call them "Marlboro Tumors" and people would still line up to buy them. Social Media consumers know what they are doing is bad--they can't stop because they are addicted.

Maybe. But perhaps unlike cigarettes today, the entire Internet is structurally conspiring against people.

I keep comparing[0] advertising[1] to a cancer on society, and that analogy applies to influencing in particular too. Thing is, a lot of those influencers, aka. "content creators", actually do create good content on a regular basis[2]. Yes, this is kind of what makes this advertising vector effective in the first place, but it gets harder to make people think about how they're being manipulated when they can rightfully say they watch it out of genuine interest and get real value out of it.

Which is why I bring up the cancer analogy. Many cancers induce the body to route more blood towards them, which also benefits the healthy cells in the vicinity. From the point of view of such cells, the tumor is great - it blesses them with plenty. But of course we know, that benefit is short-term and localized - eventually, it leads to premature death.

I see the work of influencers to be like this. They pull in money and use it to produce exciting content, making the platforms thrive - or at least it seems so, for a while. In reality, they're slowly but surely burning the platform out (and over longer timescales, also public consciousness).

[0] - http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html

[1] - Well, particular subset of sales, marketing and advertising. AFAIK there's no good term that describes it; the closest one I found over the years is "marketing communications".

[2] - Especially if we consider entertaining content as good, too. Which, honestly, I think we should - humans need and value entertainment.

I hope you're right but every year, people are more zombified by their phones than the year before. There is no evident end in sight. No candle burning out.

I highly doubt that is the case, most smokers didn't think it was bad for you years ago.

I think they knew; the dangers of smoking were well-known more than three decades ago (I still remember learning about them as a kid, maybe 7-8 years old, and getting super worried about my dad; my attempts to reprimand his behavior were not well received...). Thing is, many (most?) people have various habits/addictions which they realize are unhealthy long-term, but at any given moment, those worries are hard to act on while being easy to put aside. "I'll need to stop smoking before it kills me." "I should probably drink less coffee." "I should start exercising regularly." "Next week, I'm taking a break off stims." Etc. Thoughts that pop up every day, yet years go by and no change happens.

I suppose "I should spend less time on my smartphone", "I spend way too much time watching Instagram reels", etc. are now part of this group, too.

If they're already getting money from selling their attention and being constantly surveilled, it will take a much larger temptation to move to a different hypnosis platform.

It's not "free money". Posting exclusively on Meta's apps means missing out on the biggest portion of their audience. For a very lucrative channel they could be giving up much more than they gain.

Taint the algorithm away from what exactly?

The TikTok algorithm is generally seen, by its users, as being really good. Once you've spent some time there and your For You Page really gets going, it really feels like it's For You. And the algorithm there doesn't seem to penalize people doing original reporting, current events explainers, science content and educational content, musical performances, tutorials, etc., alongside typical social media stuff like viral challenges and pet videos or whatever. The general "vibe" is that TikTok feels more "authentic," while Reels is mostly manufactured content (dance videos, AI slop, "funny" compilations, lots and lots of ads) and YouTube Shorts is where comedy skits and reuploads of TikTok content go to die.

Away from genuinely interesting, personalized recommendations, to be replaced with depressing rage-bait algorithm of sites like Twitter.

I made the switch to YouTube shorts when tiktok went down and my experience is largely the same, if anything I'm seeing more educational material on electronics and programming which I enjoy. No ragebait yet unlike TikTok. No idea about instagram reels though.

Meta's algorithm on IG has gone so far down the toilet over the years. Before I deleted my account last year, I'd have to scroll through 5-7 sponsored posts before I'd actually see something from someone I actually follow. Nevermind the amount of regular old ads that were inserted into my feed.

> From what I've seen in r/TikTok (curiosity has kept me going back to seeing how users are reacting everyday) they really hate Meta. They're so upset, they don't trust that the current administration wont taint the algorithm of TikTok as well. It's really wild to see the varying views.

"I don't like people in government dictating what I see online. My stand against it will be to create an account for an online service run by a company based in the People's Republic of China."

EDIT:

Downvote all you want, that's what they're doing.

> not be surprised if the top TikTok users will not take the free money

This is a double negative. It means you would be surprised if they take the free money.

Judging by the following text I think you mean you _would_ be surprised.

> This is a double negative.

Not necessarily--one can be unsurprised at both the decision to take or not to take money, the two aren't mutually exclusive. I'm not surprised if it's not cloudy outside on a given day, but that doesn't mean I am surprised if it is. I'm just not surprised by general day-to-day changes in weather.

The default surprising behavior here is to refuse $300k just to post on a different social media site; given the context of /r/TikTok, the parent comment not surprised that they don't take the money.

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