Les OrchardMar 14, 2024

I've been a TikTok user for about 5 years. I've seen things change a lot on there. But, also, I know what I've seen is related to how their algorithm's model of my interests has changed. Their algorithm isn't a magic oracle, but I do think they've managed to implement something interesting.

Your mileage will vary. But, when I see folks dismiss the service as "that place where the kids do their little dances", those folks are telling me they have no idea what's going on with TikTok. (That, or maybe they're just faving every dancing kid they see?)

I haven't seen a teen dance on there in probably 3-4 years. I see cats & crows & critters, queer jokes, drag acts, nerd fandom stuff, political commentary, general life-in-america commentary, current news, ADHD & autism content - all stuff I'm interested in care about and it's all served up more reliably than on any other communications channel.

The main thing TikTok themselves seem to inject are incessant attempts to make me directly buy something - which, I mean, seems more honest than weird advertising.

I do have to work hard to keep the tinfoil hat from settling on my head, though. Maybe I'm soaking in "Chinese propaganda" so thick I don't perceive it? But it seems really suspect that my government's been able to turn on a dime so fast with this thing of all things.

My real tinfoil-hat notion brewing is that all "China" (or insert random adversary here) has to do to destabilize America is just let us talk about how fucked up shit is - they don't really have to nudge us at all.

Show threadJames BennettMar 14, 2024

@lmorchard I think it’s risky to assume any one person’s experience of it is representative since it’s algorithmic and responds by showing you more of the kinds of things you interact with.

That’s very similar to the way YouTube’s recommendations can send someone down a rabbit hole. And seems to have that effect on some people — a while back a host of a podcast I listen to mentioned she realized the TikTok feedback loop was doing that to her with creepy tradwife stuff, for example. And if we criticize YouTube for that even though plenty of people have positive experiences of it, I think we can criticize TikTok for it too.

In general though I think the TikTok divestment is just the US catching up to policies similar to what a lot of the world (including the EU) already have adopted against “foreign” (historically all US) tech companies, where they want some level of local control/leverage over them.

Show threadLes Orchard

@ubernostrum

where they want some level of local control/leverage over them.

Yeah, that's the bit I'm really trying not to be all tinfoil-hat about but seem very plausible. It's not the data, it's the deficiency in jurisdiction

But also yeah, I definitely wouldn't say TikTok should be above criticism for what it's actually doing in terms of serving up content

Mar 14, 2024 at 8:14pmWeb
Show threadJames BennettMar 14, 2024
@lmorchard Basically every big country/bloc these days does some form of “put some personnel/assets you care about inside our borders where we can get to them”. Justifications vary — EU justifies it on privacy and “data can’t flow from here to your country” — but the end result is the same.