[HN Gopher] TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in U...
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TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK
Author : iamnotarobotman
Score : 159 points
Date : 2021-09-06 13:44 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| I feel like I'm going crazy. Hasn't TikTok been proven malicious
| in it's excessive user tracking and data theft? Why does everyone
| I know still use it? Outside of privacy concerns, doesn't the
| blackbox algorithm make anyone worry? We're building automated
| echochambers for an entire population. We're giving a Chinese
| company the ability to control the content consumption, and
| therefore beliefs and knowledge, of entire countries. The ever
| growing popularity of tiktok is, to me, extremely concerning.
| ajay-b wrote:
| I think the reason people use it is the reason why people still
| use dating apps. Choice is infinite. Every time you swipe, is a
| new person, a new video, a new hit of dopamine. An insatiable
| appetite for something new. It is also power. With the dating
| apps it's the power to dismiss someone with a swipe, no need to
| waste time looking at their profile. In TikTok there are no
| YouTube ads, and you can swipe quickly past videos that don't
| spike interest (dopamine).
| toshk wrote:
| kids use it
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| There was a man who tried to force TikTok out of the US or out
| of Chinese control...
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Let's be honest about it: the former president was trying to
| reward Larry Ellison for his support, that's all it was and
| that's why it didn't happen.
| jeromegv wrote:
| How is that different than Facebook? We have known for Facebook
| shady data policies for 10 years, and that has never prevented
| people from using it, why do you think suddenly people would
| care more when it comes to TikTok?
| jpomykala wrote:
| US government is simply more civilized and predictable.
| simiones wrote:
| People in many parts of the world will have the exact
| opposite impression. So far, Chinese domination looks like
| new roads, while US domination looks like coups and war. Of
| course, this reflects the current relative advantages of
| both and I have no illusions about the risks of being
| dominated by any imperialistic power.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| Which just blows my mind. At a total US development aid
| of $34 billion in 2019, China is the only country that
| even comes close. The US's giving in the last fifty years
| (including massive sums to China) has been unparalleled
| in recorded history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o
| f_development_aid_countr...
|
| Of course, that's just development aid. US blows away all
| other countries in humanitarian aid too:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/275597/largers-donor-
| cou...
| luckylion wrote:
| > US blows away all other countries in humanitarian aid
| too
|
| The problem is that they often do blow stuff away, quite
| literally. People aren't going to sing your praise for
| the new well you've dug after you've bombed their wedding
| and killed all their friends and family.
| elliebike wrote:
| ...really?
| [deleted]
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Let me pose a pair of questions that might make this
| easier to understand:
|
| -Is the US government currently involved in ethnic
| cleansing?
|
| -Is China currently involved in ethnic cleansing?
| refenestrator wrote:
| The US was killing more central asians than China every
| year of the last 20 years straight. Hopefully no longer
| true going forward.
|
| So, I guess it comes down to definitions and how you spin
| things. Personally, I'd say the country that killed more
| people was doing more bad stuff, but you can bracket
| things and explain why some 'count' more than others if
| you want.
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| > The US was killing more central asians than China every
| year of the last 20 years straight. Hopefully no longer
| true going forward.
|
| That's absolutely a fallacious comparison.
|
| 1. We don't have accurate data from China on the number
| imprisoned and killed by them, so no one can make
| absolutely comparisons like you did.
|
| 2. The Chinese do this to people living peacefully inside
| their borders. If the US started rounding up and killing
| ethnic minorities WW2 concentration camp style then you
| could make this comparison. The US was engaged in active
| conflict with a group that itself was detrimental to
| human (specifically, women's) rights and that engaged us
| first.
|
| I dont agree with a lot of what happened in the middle
| east, but you can't in good fairh stretch that as a
| comparison to fit your own narrative.
| refenestrator wrote:
| There's those qualifications and spin I was asking for.
|
| China is bringing economic development, secular
| institutions and women's rights, in a heavy handed way,
| whether the residents want it or not, with minimal regard
| for costs to those residents. It's the exact same thing
| as we've been doing, minus a fig leaf of democracy.
|
| In neither case is the word genocide or ethnic cleansing
| appropriate, body counts don't support it. But it's
| especially rich to level the accusation 5 seconds after
| our 20 year war ended.
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| Note the word "war". They killed us as well. Again, this
| is not comprable to the situation in China with the
| Uighur Muslims. Unless you're one of those running these
| camps, you don't have an accurate body count, so you
| don't know what word is or is not appropriate. Based on
| the perceived scale of the operation, genocide seems very
| much correct, but I have no more information than you.
|
| I don't understand how you can sit here and compare a war
| in the middle east to literal concentration camps. Stop
| performing mental gymnastics to fit your own narrative.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Because dead is dead. If you can't read, who cares what
| the declaration of war said.
|
| It's counterinsurgency in both cases, attempting to
| modernize a tribal Muslim society in hopes of improving
| security from terror attacks.
|
| You _are_ aware there were terror attacks in Urumqi?
|
| There are differences between their style and ours, the
| re-education camps vs the drone bombs. Maybe there's an
| argument about freedoms vs deaths. But Americans clearly
| do not actually give a shit about Muslim lives, it's just
| a political talking point. 300k dead in Yemen with our
| weapons doesn't even make the news, Afghanistan barely
| cracked the news for a decade, etc etc.
|
| How many Americans were baying at the moon to invade Iraq
| and now they're the world's greatest humanitarians about
| Xinjiang?
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _2. The Chinese do this to people living peacefully
| inside their borders. If the US started rounding up and
| killing ethnic minorities WW2 concentration camp style
| then you could make this comparison. The US was engaged
| in active conflict with a group that itself was
| detrimental to human (specifically, women 's) rights and
| that engaged us first._
|
| This kind of whitewashing is what allows us as Americans
| to ignore the mass scale death we inflict while pointing
| fingers at other kettles. You don't even have the cause
| of events correct - we invaded afghanistan first,
| _America_ were the aggressors. Do you think we invaded
| Afghanistan to preserve women 's rights? Do you know that
| American soldiers were told to turn a blind eye to the
| afghan national army raping little boys? You mention that
| we don't have accurate numbers about china's tyranny, but
| under Trump, we repealed the rule that the USG had to
| report drone strike casualties. I'm not surprised other
| countries don't see a functional difference between the
| US and China, after all only one of those countries has a
| solid track record of overturning democratically
| conducted elections because they didn't like the outcome.
| rakoo wrote:
| This is a very narrow view of the problem at hand. Let me
| show you another narrow view that illustrates why it's
| not enough:
|
| - How many governments has the US toppled in an
| undemocratic process ?
|
| - How many governments has China toppled in an
| undemocratic process ?
|
| We could go on and on about this, to make a clear opinion
| on the subject requires far more than a single question.
| bbvxxdrgjn wrote:
| Uh, yes. If you think the modern US government and Winnie
| the Pooh's wannabe Nazi empire are even in the same
| league, you are likely a CCP plant.
|
| The US has done a lot of incoherent, incompetent, and bad
| things.
|
| But the US won't disappear you if you say the wrong thing
| about Biden and isn't in the middle of literally rounding
| up an ethnic and religious minority and putting them in
| camps to cleanse their society of that ethnicity. Just as
| a start.
|
| So yes, really. Fucking idiots.
| crateless wrote:
| As they drop bombs on innocent people across the Middle
| East. smh
| ipaddr wrote:
| I think the majority of countries have dropped or shot
| bombs at somepoint in the last 100 years.
|
| Is that the only reason you do not think they are
| civilized? Any countries that have dropped bombs are not
| civilized?
| blitzar wrote:
| > I think the majority of countries have dropped or shot
| bombs at somepoint in the last 100 years.
|
| 195 countries in the world... Only have to find ~100
| countries that have bombed another country in the last
| century. Only thing I can see that is going to save that
| assumption is going to be ww2.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Without declared wars... I don't think majority of
| countries have done that ones... Unless they were
| imperialist ones...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ipaddr wrote:
| Facebook wants your data to sell higher priced targeted ads.
|
| Tiktok gives your data to China. I don't know what they are
| doing with it but they are not using it for better targetted
| ads. I guess when they request permission for my phone
| contacts, clipboard content, private photos at least I know
| they aren't using it for ads.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > Hasn't TikTok been proven malicious in it's excessive user
| tracking and data theft?
|
| Even if you use the website?
| lm28469 wrote:
| > We're giving a Chinese company the ability to control the
| content consumption, and therefore beliefs and knowledge, of
| entire countries.
|
| Note that non american feel the same way about google, netflix,
| amazon &co
| tomjen3 wrote:
| As a non american I don't feel the same way. Amazon, Google,
| etc just want to make money. TikTok is (like all companies in
| China) an extension of the Chinese state, a state that is
| currently engaging in genocide.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Amazon and Google are extensions of the USG when dealing
| with foreign nationals. You can assume that 100% of the
| relevant data is accessible to US agencies.
| ericls wrote:
| Nope
| blacktriangle wrote:
| And they should.
| 28433552 wrote:
| I feel that way about Google, Netflix, and Amazon. I'm an
| American...
| maverwa wrote:
| Just a single point, but as a non american, I can say that I
| do not feel "the same way" exactly. Its close, in that I
| think, the discussion in the EU on Huaweis network equipment
| in telco nets, is a little bit overheated and I'd like to see
| the same requirements to be enacted on, for example, CISCO,
| whos security track record is ... not that good?
|
| But I still think that 'chinese company owning a majority of
| internet video traffic' is WAY more scary than 'US company
| owning a majority of internet traffic'. Maybe thats just
| bias, maybe not.
|
| But yes, I think there should be more relevant non-US big IT
| players to add more variety. But for a lot of reasons, the
| EU, and especially germany, just does not cut it in regard of
| IT expertise anymore. I am not saying this from a perspective
| of "disappointed patriotism" or something like that. Its more
| about having more choice would make thinks more interessting.
|
| But on the other hand: more choice makes thinks like movie
| streaming less attractive. I do not want to have to sign with
| Netflix, Amazon, Disney, HBO, Apple TV AND Maxdome.
|
| I guess we still cannot have the cake, and eat it, too.
| blitzar wrote:
| > Maybe thats just bias, maybe not
|
| No maybe about it, it is.
| colesantiago wrote:
| who cares about china, isn't this not the same for US
| companies? why the constant obsession with china?
|
| this just complete fear mongering, let the kids play on it.
| finfinfin wrote:
| Because China is an authoritarian regime?
| RyEgswuCsn wrote:
| Do you think there can be good authoritarian regimes? Or is
| democracy the only way?
| mdoms wrote:
| Let's say there can be - is China one?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| If you admit that, the issue becomes actual reality, not
| authoritarianism per se, and the comparison between the
| US and China becomes very uncomfortable when democracy is
| no longer a crutch.
| [deleted]
| colesantiago wrote:
| So? TikTok is just an app, what is point?
| finfinfin wrote:
| The point is that a company that is controlled by an
| authoritarian regime has a vast influence on the US
| population.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Then you must have been fine with Trump trying to ban the
| app then?
|
| > The point is that a company that is controlled by an
| authoritarian regime
|
| Hard evidence for this claim? Is TikTok Inc, controlled
| by China?
| finfinfin wrote:
| > Then you must have been fine with Trump trying to ban
| the app then?
|
| That was an authoritarian action and I did not support
| it.
|
| China tightly controls all large businesses, including
| ByteDance. If you need hard evidence on how this
| relationship works - look it up, there is plenty of
| information online.
| refenestrator wrote:
| What do you call a nation that spends 800B on the military
| while their infrastructure rots, routinely sponsors coups
| all over their hemisphere and maintains an aggressive
| forward military posture all over the planet?
|
| A democracy.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| What do you think the word democracy means? None of that
| is incompatible with being a democracy.
|
| That's not a defense of those actions, but there's an
| incredibly bizarre trend these days to act as if words
| don't have any actual meaning beyond their mood
| affiliation. Just pick a word from a vaguely-related grab
| bag ("living wage", "misinformation", "democratic", white
| supremacy ") and hurl it blindly at the conversation and
| you get all the retweets you want.
| ipaddr wrote:
| A democracy is a form of government where citizens pick
| who is in charge.
|
| You can have pacifist government against war. You can
| have the opposite.
|
| Norway is a democracy but doesn't have an aggressive
| miliary posture. The US has the largest army and probably
| spends 800b on their military.
|
| Authoritarian government manage by suppressing their own
| people. This requires an aggressive military presence
| locally. All of the conditions above could be true as
| well for these types of governments.
| refenestrator wrote:
| There's polling numbers on all this. You can check
| popular approval of imperial wars in the US (it is low),
| or you can check Chinese approval of their government (it
| is high).
| ipaddr wrote:
| Approval of their government compared to what? What is
| the alternative? Chaos?
|
| In a democracy you have many parties and points of view
| which would naturally lead to lower popularity as it
| spreads over many ideas. Each takes turns and this system
| renews ideas.
| refenestrator wrote:
| You ever see that photo of the bund in Shanghai in 1990
| and then in 2010?
|
| Why is it so hard to believe people are happy with this?
| ipaddr wrote:
| The only photo I remember from China in 1990 is the
| Tiananmen square photo of the guy standing up to the
| tank.
|
| Did you see that photo in China?
| refenestrator wrote:
| Sorry, I thought you were trying to understand why
| Chinese people might be happy with their government after
| you add it all up. If it's just cold war arguments and
| demonization, I can't help you with that.
|
| Consider, even if you're that hardcore about it, 'know
| your enemy' has some value. They understand us but we
| don't understand them, and sometimes it's willful on our
| part. We'd rather tell ourselves a story.
| ipaddr wrote:
| They are either happy with society by extension the
| government or they are selfish for not thinking about
| others.
|
| I don't think happy with the government is a concept. The
| question becomes are you happy with society
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| Ah yes, the extremely reputable self-reporting from
| Chinese citizens, who absolutely have no fear for their
| safety should they say the wrong thing. Of course the
| Chinese love the CCP, they all say so!
| refenestrator wrote:
| Go talk to some Chinese people, then, do your own
| research.
|
| Just don't call them brainwashed while uncritically
| swallowing a story about how we're all free and they're
| all oppressed, no matter what they say about it.
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| Hmm maybe once China decides to get rid of it's Muslim
| concentration camps I'll take a visit and ask around.
| Until then, it's pretty clear to me which government is
| objectively worse.
| finfinfin wrote:
| This is not a competition, both countries can be in a
| dire state politically.
| mcclosdl wrote:
| We'll see how you feel when China takes over the world and
| your kids are only allowed to play video games 8pm-9pm on
| Friday, Saturday, and Sunday... unless you're Muslim in which
| case all of you can work in a labor camp with no rights or
| technology.
| colesantiago wrote:
| OK, but irrelevant.
|
| What has this got to do with TikTok?
| boltzmann_ wrote:
| Sadly, only HN users care about this kind of stuff
| skohan wrote:
| The obvious answer is that most people just want to watch funny
| and entertaining videos, and don't care about some
| externalities which don't even seem real to them.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _Hasn 't TikTok been proven malicious in it's excessive user
| tracking and data theft?_
|
| Unless you've read some new news I haven't, not any more than
| Google (YouTube) or Facebook have. Why is TikTok different?
| elliebike wrote:
| It's no different to most other social networks that commit
| mass abuse of user data and track everyone, everywhere.
|
| Being a US-based company doesn't make this any better, just
| look at Facebook.
|
| The only people who worry are people on HN. Most other people
| aren't aware of what's going on, or just don't care.
| ipaddr wrote:
| And the state department.
|
| Letting that on your phone is allowing your contacts, photos
| and text messages to be read.
|
| Same goes with facebook. But facebook will try to profit off
| of your data. Tiktok data goes to China. I don't know what
| they are doing with it..
| simiones wrote:
| > But facebook will try to profit off of your data. Tiktok
| data goes to China. I don't know what they are doing with
| it..
|
| FB data also goes to the US government. I don't know what
| they are doing with it..
| ipaddr wrote:
| The US government is monitoring traffic at all major
| points including undersea cables. The US reasons are
| complex ranging from terrorism to cyberwar faire to
| unknown reasons.
|
| One reason China does it to monitor and control their own
| people. Speaking out against China in the west will often
| put family in China at risk and any business interests.
| Monitoring journalist, tracking western movement,
| cyberwar faire, are all reasons.
| blitzar wrote:
| The US want to take all my money and put me in jail. I
| like my freedom.
|
| China want to blackmail me to do their bidding. I dont
| actually have much shame, so probably wont work so good.
|
| There are days where I think the lesser of two evils when
| it comes to invading my privacy might be the regime whos
| jurisdiction I am not, and likely never will be present
| in.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Not if you don't give itemizing l permission for it to
| access those things (and it works fine without)
|
| Where does it read text messages?
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| Being a US company specifically doesn't make it better, but
| being a Chinese company absolutely makes it worse.
|
| I wouldn't be nearly as worried if Tiktok were owned by Italy
| or Germany or France. But China, with it'a ongoing genocide
| of Muslims and totalitarian oppression, yeah that is worse
| than Netflix selling your data to advertisers.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| As a Frenchmen, Youtube is exactly the same:
|
| - algo is a black box, and uncalibrated youtube makes my eyes
| bleed;
|
| - own by the biggest spy on the planet, google, known for
| manipulating information, monopolistic behavior, participation
| in the worst gov programs (e.g: PRISM);
|
| - impose American censorship rules to the entire world, and
| makes creators do inane cuts to fit some terrible metrics
|
| Besides, the typical Tik Tok customer doesn't give a damn about
| those things. They didn't on facebook, insta, whatsapp, or
| whatever. They don't even know it's an issue, "have nothing to
| hide", don't care about privacy, power centralization, citizen
| spying and so on.
|
| So Tik Tok or something else doesn't matter.
| MathCodeLove wrote:
| I see where you're coming from, but Youtube isn't nearly as
| opaque as Tiktok. You can actually search for videos on
| youtube, typically content is longer and has a higher
| production quality which reduces probability of doom-
| scrolling. As someone else mentioned, TikTok is intentionally
| designed to be addictive and gamified, much more so that
| youtube or facebook.
|
| And, objectively speaking, the US government is far
| preferable to the CCP. The US has it's issues and has made
| mistakes in the past, the CCP is still putting Muslims in
| concentration camps and exercises regular authoritarian
| controll over it's citizens. Militarily, the US is allied
| with most EU powers (including France) and generally has good
| intentions for it's allies. China, on the other hand, finds
| itself on the outside of most alliances, and considering that
| even their own people are treated poorly, I can only imagine
| that their intentions for others are not positive.
|
| American tech companies take your data and sell it to
| advertisers, I don't like it, but they do. The US government
| only accesses it if they have a reason to do so and subpoena
| the specific information needed. The Chinese government? I
| have no doubt that they're collecting data for much more
| nefarious purposes. Intelligence indicates that they've been
| improving their military forces massively in the last several
| decades. It wouldn't be hard for them to subtly start
| slipping in propaganda into the tiktok feeds of countries
| they intend to invade, and then they'll have local-national
| support.
|
| I think it's easy to look at this and say objectively that
| it's worse. If Youtube or Facebook were owned by France or
| Germany I would hold the same belief that tiktok is worse.
| It's not fear of some mysterious "other", but fear of a
| proven enemy to freedom and human rights, China.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| > The US government only accesses it if they have a reason
| to do so and subpoena the specific information needed
|
| As Snowden revelations have shown, this is not the case.
|
| > It wouldn't be hard for them to subtly start slipping in
| propaganda into the tiktok feeds of countries they intend
| to invade
|
| Last time I checked, the USA were the number one warmonger
| in the world, sometimes by lying about WMD and going
| against the vote of the UN.
|
| I'm not defending China, I do think Tiktok is a
| dictatorship honeypot, but the USA is only good to the USA.
| A cancer is worst than diabetes, but I still don't think
| diabetes is a good thing.
|
| And google is only good to google.
|
| I'm in the good graces of neither, being in Europe, and
| consider both as services that will try to get as much of
| me as possible when I use them. And the minute our interest
| are not aligned with theirs, they will bite us.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Fun fact, if you are not a US citizen, you have no 4th
| amendment rights against seizure of your data. No judge
| or legal process necessary beyond a blanket executive
| order.
| indymike wrote:
| What? The courts have ruled many many times that the
| Constitution DOES apply to non-citizens(aside foreign
| combatants in wartime).
| [deleted]
| google234123 wrote:
| Only within the borders of the United States.
| [deleted]
| angelzen wrote:
| Nitpick: the USA is not good for the USA either.
| rakoo wrote:
| > the CCP is still putting Muslims in concentration camps
|
| I don't want to enter this debate because it detracts from
| the main point, but the US has been putting Latino people
| in concentration camps.
|
| As a fellow frenchman I can only agree with what was said
| before: TikTok is bad, but Youtube isn't much better.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| >I don't want to enter this debate because it detracts
| from the main point, but the US has been putting Latino
| people in concentration camps.
|
| This is a bad faith comparison
| blitzar wrote:
| They are afterall bad hombres, especially the children.
|
| Lets not forget the war time concentration camps in the
| US, or the torture camps, or the rendition programme, or
| gitmo.
|
| But yes, tiktok is trash. But it is the trash that the
| people love.
| tomp wrote:
| > Militarily, the US is allied with most EU powers
| (including France)
|
| Wouldn't this be an argument _for_ preferring TikTok over
| YouTube?
|
| There is literally nothing China can do to me as long as I
| stay firmly in the West. On the other hand, I could very
| well be sold out by Google to the US government, which
| could easily have me extradited from the EU.
| zepto wrote:
| > There is literally nothing China can do to me as long
| as I stay firmly in the West.
|
| If you use TikTok they can manipulate what you see.
| lugged wrote:
| Considering the US education system is already hell bent
| on turning out communists I don't really see how China
| could do anything worse.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean the trope of colleges turning people into leftist
| hippie communists is older than my parents.
|
| But K-12 in the US tries to hammer so much "so misleading
| it might as well be false" pro-America propaganda during
| exactly the age that kids are generally rebelling against
| anything authority tells them that's it's not all that
| surprising that during a major economic downturn that's
| only benefiting those with capital that people would
| start to have a distaste for the system that produced
| this mess.
| zepto wrote:
| > that's only benefiting those with capital
|
| The irony of this is telling. I have to assume you are
| unvaccinated, and unaware that you are being publicly
| critical of the government.
| Spivak wrote:
| There's something wild about being so liberal that people
| assume you're conservative. I'm very much vaccinated and
| also upset that our government left the out most
| vulnerable people with $1400 and a thumbs up, fucked over
| out healthcare workers, pushed people back to work rather
| than give any meaningful assistance and put everyone at
| risk, did basically nothing to control housing costs all
| while the stock market posted record returns for already
| wealthy capital holders.
| google234123 wrote:
| Once you get far left or right enough there's not much
| difference for those in the middle. Both sides want to
| destroy their way of life.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean if you want to foster anti-america content all you
| really need to do is leave TikTok alone. It's my
| generation's version of Tumblr only on a bigger scale.
| You don't really need manipulation when the user-base
| skews young, activist, and unironically anti-capitalist.
|
| Which I think is awesome personally but I get how some
| people will see all of that as huge red flags.
| zepto wrote:
| > You don't really need manipulation when the user-base
| skews young, activist, and unironically anti-capitalist.
|
| You don't think that is a result of manipulation?
| treeman79 wrote:
| Explaining these to the average person makes you seem like a
| conspiracy nut case. No of some of the same people will go on
| about the illuminati controlling everything. But you talk
| specific companies or policies and you get an eye roll.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > people will go on about the illuminati controlling
| everything
|
| But we do. :)
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Yep, but tiktok is chinese, youtube is american, so by
| definition tiktok bad, youtube good.
|
| All the "data gathering" mentioned in all the FUD around
| tiktok in recent years is done by google/facebook too, and
| noone mentiones it at all.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| > and therefore beliefs and knowledge, of entire countries
|
| As opposed to whomever controls Facebook/Google?
|
| The ship has sailed. And with upcoming decentralized web
| technologies that ship will cross the point of no return.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| From a non-us perspective it isn't really that different.
| Levitz wrote:
| It turns out most people are actually sheeple.
| Snd_ wrote:
| As a European: this is extremely funny. America has been doing
| this for years. Apparently only when it's not America doing
| these things it becomes a problem?
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| America is an ally, if not formally then the shared
| westernism. China is most definitely not.
| nicoburns wrote:
| America being an ally only really makes them more dangerous
| to me as an individual. If I were in trouble with the US
| government there is a high likelihood my own government
| would extradite me. There's very little chance of that with
| the Chinese government, and the chances are they wouldn't
| be interested in the first place*
|
| * Not that the US would be interested in me personally
| either. But they do take an interest in citizens from other
| countries.
| terracottage wrote:
| Kinda. Many Americans run around with a notion of some kind
| of noble entrepreneur who provides the bounty of endless
| choice in consumer goods, even if it's a corporation. The
| fact that many different brands come from the same factory
| tends to be overlooked. Americans are also unique in their
| tolerance for constant advertising where other cultures would
| consider it gauche and intrusive.
|
| TikTok is imo goddamn scary. It is explicitly set up to hook
| people with gamification techniques, showering likes on new
| users so they come back for more. Only the subject matter is
| often politics, activism and intertribal warfare.
| 28433552 wrote:
| Well, you could certainly see why the situation changes when
| the service is controlled by an adversarial government. At
| least the US services are only clandestinely influenced by
| the US government. TikTok is practically a Trojan horse
| sudosysgen wrote:
| US services operate with the full cooperation of Google and
| Amazon, and the ability to compel them however they want
| for foreigners otherwise.
| pilooch wrote:
| TikTok algorithm is like a tamgotchi with short memory. The
| echo chamber is actual much less than on other systems, or at
| least this is my actual understanding. I've been working on AI
| and ML for 20+y now, I'm always interested is testing the
| systems out there from the user side. Overall, I've been
| surprised by TikTok, as I did find it very enjoyable actually,
| and easily 'trainable'.
| bobobob420 wrote:
| Why does YouTube not change their algorithim. It is clearly
| sub tier to tik tok, they have the data and skill set to
| provide new and entertaining videos but the recommended feed
| has been so stale and stagnant for a few years, constantly
| pushing videos you've seen or ones you clearly don't want to
| watch. How much of tik tok's success do you think is their
| algorithim for recommending content. I heard from numerous
| people how addicting it is and how every video is different.
| Do you think the short videos give more instant gratification
| which has a Large effect? I use YouTube shorts and for the
| most part it is really entertaining
| blitzar wrote:
| I wonder about the 'other' viewers on youtube, the matching
| to 'you might also like' content is terrible. At best I get
| a lot of the same channel, or videos containing the same
| title, or worse still the celebrity garbage that is popular
| in the country at the time.
|
| The algo also doesnt seem to get the hint - it suggests a
| video over and over again, an no matter how many times I
| dont ever watch a video on X channel or on Y subject, it
| keeps on trying.
|
| While I am complaining, Netflix algo is getting worse too.
| Stop reccomending the movie I watched earlier in the week,
| I watched it. I clicked thumbs down on it. I dont want to
| waste another 90 minutes on it.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Yea, It may be as simple as the length. There's a vastly
| higher frequency of samples when every video is twenty
| seconds long.
|
| It's also clearly designed around a different experience, a
| constant consume-or-scroll feed as popularized by
| Instagram. YouTube shorts also has this, but regular
| YouTube clearly doesn't, given that there's just enough
| latency between video skips that it feels like the
| algorithm is "making mistakes" at a much lower number of
| skips.
| xnx wrote:
| Exactly right. More data beats better algorithms every
| time. Because YouTube is (foolishly IMO) trying to turn
| itself into television, they've pursued 10+ minute videos
| even when there's only ~30 seconds of content. Tiktok's
| success is well deserved.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| YouTube's algorithm used to be better, they neutered it at
| some point after all the articles about "YouTube
| Radicalization" dropped. Feels like it's heavily moderated
| or throttled on what can bubble up now, which probably
| results in less novel content and novel content is where
| TikTok excels.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| The depressing reality is that your average person on the
| street couldn't care less. I've tried bringing it up to friends
| and family in the least evangelical way I can, and the most
| common response is that they simply don't care about their
| privacy; to them the content on the platform is worth dealing
| with an app that's accused of malicious practices and "so what
| if some company in China gets my data, I'm not planning on
| going to China". Talking about things that are well known in
| the tech industry to people without that background has a nasty
| habit of making you look like a conspiracy theorist to Johnny
| Random.
| angelzen wrote:
| They may not be going to China, but China is coming over.
| swebs wrote:
| >Hasn't TikTok been proven malicious in it's excessive user
| tracking and data theft?
|
| Try watching this video on Youtube without giving Google your
| passport or credit card info. I found it impossible, even with
| youtube-dl.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIhmoyoOR1s
| 28433552 wrote:
| I stepped back from a group chat because the fellows in it
| swore by "Mental Health TikTok," where therapists give mental
| health advice. This is concerning to me.
|
| Beyond that, the data collection and the way it mixes young-
| but-of-age mildly sexual content with underage guys imitating
| them makes me stay far away. I enjoyed the handsome men in
| various states of undress but couldn't find a way to make the
| app _not_ veer into underage content, no matter how many times
| I told it what I liked. Disturbing.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > I stepped back from a group chat because the fellows in it
| swore by "Mental Health TikTok," where therapists give mental
| health advice. This is concerning to me
|
| What's concerning about this? I don't mean this rhetorically:
| I'm genuinely curious, as I've heard people say similar
| things recently.
|
| It seems to me that, like metabolic health, there's a pretty
| large body of basic mental health advice that's safe and
| salutary, and that doesn't displace heavy-duty mental
| Healthcare for those who need it (in the same way that
| healthy recipe tips don't displace insulin shots).
| 28433552 wrote:
| It was apparent in the group chat I was in that these guys
| were replacing heavy-duty mental healthcare with tips
| provided by unverified sources on TikTok. A chat where we
| went to vent about our frustrations turned into peer-to-
| peer mental health diagnosis informed by these TikTok
| doctors, telephoned through these regular, non-doctor
| participants.
|
| It struck me as the kind of thing that leads people to, for
| example, ingeste chloroquine phosphate [0] on the advice of
| a celebrity.
|
| [0]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/coronaviru
| s-cu...
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > It was apparent in the group chat I was in that these
| guys were replacing heavy-duty mental healthcare with
| tips provided by unverified sources on TikTok
|
| Gotcha, thanks for clarifying!
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| Mental health discussions and advice are traditionally
| given under strong privacy guarantees
| wutbrodo wrote:
| You've mixed together two-way (discussion) and one-way
| (advice) mental health communication. Your point only
| applies to discussion, and the tiktok example only
| involves advice.
|
| Concretely, what privacy concern do you see in watching a
| video with mental health tips? Do you think this privacy
| concern similarly extends to reading a Wikipedia article
| on (eg) CBT techniques?
|
| Or am I misunderstanding, and "Mental health tiktok"
| involves users describing their mental health issues in
| videos that they post, and a back-and-forth with those
| who are claiming to "treat" them?
| lawtalkinghuman wrote:
| I'd trust Wikimedia's privacy policy a hell of a lot more
| than I'd trust TikTok's.
|
| Also, the English Wikipedia article on cognitive
| behavioural therapy cites Cochrane reviews, psych
| textbooks and a whole volley of journal articles from
| prestigious journals like the Lancet and the Journal of
| the American Medical Association etc. describing clinical
| trial results, plus guidance from the UK's National
| Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence.
|
| Presumably, the TikTok version makes up for this by
| having a better dance routine.
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| It's 2 way. The tracking and profiling algorithms infer a
| lot by watching people. The viewers might not realize
| it's two way though
| wutbrodo wrote:
| That's an extremely expansive definition of "two-way", to
| the point of meaninglessness. If you were to bite this
| bullet, you'd also preclude the type of extremely basic
| work to get informed that any patient should be doing
| when engaging with the healthcare system (including for
| physical health). Basic research about your health
| problems doesn't even preclude putting full faith in your
| doctor and his recommendations; they're helpful in the
| general case for even understanding conversations with
| him. And this type of web search provides infinitely more
| "two-way" loss of privacy than signal from tiktok
| recommendations.
|
| This is worth elaborating on, since I know HN tends to
| have a bizarre fantasy conception of the medical system
| where patients arent supposed to understand anything
| that's happening. I have to wonder if the HNers
| contributing to this conception have ever engaged with
| the medical system, or if they have, I have to pity those
| that they're responsible for.
|
| There are plenty of doctors in my family, and I've been
| responsible for managing both chronic and severe acute
| health issues for family members. Every single one of the
| doctors I've been in contact with would be shocked by the
| notion that patients shouldn't be informing thenselves at
| a basic level. This goes quadruply for basic preventive
| measures like nutrition, exercise, or basic mental health
| practices: there's a reason that "an ounce of prevention
| is worth a pound of cure".
| gentleman11 wrote:
| I don't think you want mental health information going
| where it could be used against you.
|
| Eg,
|
| > Cheng believes the website that doxed him by publishing
| his personal information online was started by pro-
| Beijing supporters in Hong Kong.
|
| > "I feel fear," he admitted. His family, too, was scared
| and told him not to walk home alone anymore. But part of
| Cheng remains defiant as he considers the doxing website
| a component of a larger campaign to incite fear in
| protesters as mass demonstrations continue into their
| third month.
|
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/hong-
| kong...
|
| https://mashable.com/article/doj-accuses-zoom-employee-
| china...
| swiley wrote:
| Tok Tok is just YouTube but with the opaqueness turned up to
| 11. Most of the people who use YouTube without worry think Tik
| Tok is an improvement.
| DenisM wrote:
| Perhaps the fact that a Chinese company has grown so powerful
| will finally spur the Congress to a break up all digital
| oligarchs.
| wickoff wrote:
| As a person who is hopelessly addicted to refreshing feeds I
| can say that TikTok is the first app in 10 years that replaced
| reddit - my previous digital drug of choice. Their algo is just
| to good. People without rich and fulfilling lives don't stand a
| chance.
| [deleted]
| malwarebytess wrote:
| Nope, you're not going crazy. But the thing is every other
| social media company does the same thing. So railing against
| tiktok was ineffective because everyone already accepts this.
| And I was one of the people early on (even before the merger)
| talking about it.
|
| Even the "china controls it" part isn't persuasive because, I
| mean, what isn't china influencing these days? And TBH I don't
| give a shit if it's Chinese or American powers collecting my
| information, I don't want either of them doing it. And consider
| that these American corporations influence other nations in the
| same way China may influence America and they accept it -- of
| course Americans would accept it too.
|
| My word to people who hate TikTok's privacy invading tech and
| practices is to lobby to pass a sweeping privacy law or shut
| up, basically. But that would mean wrecking a huge part of the
| parasitic tech industry so it's not going to happen.
|
| Money > ethics.
| [deleted]
| crocodiletears wrote:
| Domestic companies like Facebook and Google are already doing
| all the censorship, manipulation, and tracking I'd expect from
| the Chinese. Why should I care at this point?
| aerosmile wrote:
| Pretty clear from several comments in this thread that Non-US
| citizens have a hard time distinguishing the risk-levels of a
| US-centric vs a China-centric world. Particularly insulting to
| see the French comments. Ever wondered what Europe would be
| looking like today if it was China and USSR that ended up
| defeating the Nazis?
| stiltzkin wrote:
| Seems many here are not TikTok users (and some never will) but
| besides algo TikTok video editing with music and app UX has made
| people so easy to jump on uploading and recording video from a
| smartphone, and making this toxic culture of attention from the
| young audience on making TikTok videos (just look for the cringe
| reactions of people recording TikTok users making videos).
| ridaj wrote:
| It's not a great metric by itself. There are two ways that
| "average watch time" can increase: users becoming more engaged,
| and less-engaged users dropping out of the app. It's a concern if
| it means that TikTok is becoming a youth-only app, for example.
| m12k wrote:
| TikTok seems emblematic of China's overall approach compared to
| the West - shows up late to the party, but studies all those
| hard-won lessons to copy and later surpass the most successful
| Western products. The free market is great at finding the
| superior product, but it's also messy and wasteful with all those
| failed attempts - why not just sit it out until a winner starts
| to emerge, then copy them? China seems to have perfected the art
| of the fast follower.
| simonh wrote:
| Tiktok is very much a product of the 'free market' segment in
| China. The government does have a minority ownership stake in
| it now, but that's very recent and they played no role in it's
| founding by Zhang Yiming, a programmer and serial app and
| online service founder.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Yeah, my understanding is that the recommendation engine was
| already developed for a news app popular in India, and that
| they grafted this onto Musical.ly (the acquisition which has
| now become TikTok).
|
| Also, they spent many, many millions on ads to get the app
| everywhere.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| no different than SV itself. How many Clubhouse clones did we
| have exactly, not to mention just about every established giant
| suddenly coming up with 'spaces' and 'stage channels'?
|
| That's always been the game, inside and outside of countries.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Exactly what malware do people install to get on "App Annie"
| panel? Is it the "Phone Guardian VPN: Safe Wifi" garbage I see in
| the Play Store? People really will install anything. Perhaps the
| conclusion should be changed to "Clueless dupes who install
| spyware also more likely to prefer TikTok".
| game_the0ry wrote:
| A couple of years ago, I noticed the youtube recommendations that
| would get were a lot less interesting, though still relevant to
| me somehow. At some point I started seeing a lot more
| "mainstream" content, especially after media companies figured
| out that they needed to have a youtube presence in order to stay
| relevant.
|
| So I wonder if the algorithm the switched to had something to do
| with them potentially losing attention from users.
|
| I can't speak to tik tok, never used it, never will.
| jpomykala wrote:
| I feel the same. Recommendations are as simple on youtube as
| "get top 10 videos in your country"
| finfinfin wrote:
| Every TikTok user I know tells me that the primary reason they
| use it is the algorithm. Apparently it's way ahead of YouTube.
| Anecdotally I am in the same boat as you--ended up removing the
| YouTube suggestion sidebar with an adblocker due to its
| increasingly poor quality.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| One anecdote that I heard about the TikTok algo is that it
| favors new creators with <5k subscribers and actively pushes
| that content to new users. This is opposed to how Youtube
| does it, where more established creators are pushed over news
| ones.
|
| I feel like this is what really helps TikTok always have
| fresh content. If you want to become a YouTuber, the path to
| having a good following can be years of grind. With TikTok,
| there is a good shot your first video might just propel you
| to stardom. Thus more people are inclined to create content
| for TikTok. It creates a feedback loop
| finfinfin wrote:
| This is interesting. I think this approach goes hand in
| hand with a much lower quality bar on TikTok. We have an
| expectation that YouTube videos have a certain production
| quality, so pushing new creators would often result in
| unmet expectations. On TikTok new creators can record a 15
| second dance and be instantly indistinguishable quality-
| wise from more experienced creators.
| ItsMonkk wrote:
| Or, as famously yelled by Ballmer: Developers! Developers!
| Developers!, where the developers are content creators.
|
| You can make really great content on YT and reach an
| audience. Creators like Tom Scott prove it's possible. But
| you have to hit a minimum production quality or the
| algorithm is going to discard you. Mostly this means that
| you still need a team of people to make it on YT. On TT,
| it's still totally fine to make bad production quality that
| has great informational content. So yes, YT has niche
| content, when considered against TV, but TT has one more
| factor of magnitude more niche content.
|
| For a bit of anecdotes of the people that I am following:
| About 30% come from YouTube/Other Internet Media and
| produce TikTok style content, about 20% are TT Stars, and
| 50% are these small creators that YT wouldn't even
| consider. This group, checking their followers, averages
| about 10k. On YT I don't subscribe to a single person below
| 100k followers.
|
| I have Category Theory TT accounts followed, but no
| Category Theory YT channels subscribed. Do CT have YT
| accounts? Possibly. But not once has YT shown me that
| content. This might be a problem with me, but TT resolves
| it through their natural flow, and as I am significantly
| more advanced than the average user, a problem with me is a
| problem for the platform.
|
| At this point the path is going to be to start on TT and
| only move to YT once you have established a following that
| can make it over the YT recommendation escape velocity.
|
| Developers! Developers! Developers!
| Ekaros wrote:
| I don't think channel going back 15 years is good example
| for new creators. I would expect them to keep somewhat
| relevant as they have been trough enough cycles to keep
| some audience always.
| city41 wrote:
| Anecdotally this seems correct to me. A friend of mine has
| had several viral TikTok videos hit millions of views, and
| he's only been on TikTok for a little while. He did no
| outside promotion. I think the only way a new YouTube video
| would do that is if it was absolutely earth shattering in
| some regard.
| m12k wrote:
| Veritasium did a video on this recently [1] where he talks
| about how YouTube saw falling engagement when only showing
| users their subscribed channels, so they started recommending
| more non-subscribed content a couple years ago (he talks about
| this around the 2-3 minute mark in the video).
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng
| lambdaba wrote:
| I wish someone at YouTube could explain, but the recommendation
| algo is nothing like what it used to be. Every refresh would
| bring a gem, now it's mostly the same videos, often from the
| same channel if I happened to watch a few in a row... Very odd.
| fumblebee wrote:
| I also feel this way. In the past I was completely satisfied
| with the recommended content.
|
| I now find it _over-calibrates_ to recommend based on
| recently watched videos, whether the same channel or the same
| style.
|
| For example, I watched a video the other day, something like
| "Boris Johnson pronouncing the word _____". Next thing I
| know, my recommendations are flooded with similar videos that
| I don't really want to spend my time on.
|
| This deters me from watching videos that come up that I'm
| mildly curious in watching, but don't really want to watch
| more of.
| schmorptron wrote:
| I noticed this as well. Good thing though, so I don't waste
| as much time on there.
| Ekaros wrote:
| It feels like I keep seeing same videos recommended over and
| over again. And it is not like Youtube does not know that I
| have watched majority of the length...
| 6510 wrote:
| It looks like it uses only a hand full of recently watched
| videos.
| crateless wrote:
| I feel like some AI has decided that this video is "good for
| you". I have some videos on my feed for weeks on end. Now some
| videos I have already seen are reappearing without the red bar
| to signify that I have already watched them.
|
| Something definitely stinks with the algo on YT currently. At
| least for me
| goohle wrote:
| IMHO, we should be able to select or tune algo on YT, FB,
| Goo, etc. to serve us content. One algo is not enough for
| everybody.
| shadycuz wrote:
| Same experience for me the last couple of weeks.
| behnamoh wrote:
| Well, who would have thought it would only take a short period of
| time until tt overtakes yt.
| tarkin2 wrote:
| This is a hit for US cultural dominance and influence.
|
| Americans and Brits, at least in average watch time, are now
| consuming media ultimately controlled by the Chinese government.
|
| And the previous election was influenced by a foreign government
| using American social media networks to influence, not to mention
| influencing the president-elect directly.
|
| Either America's own social networks are used against them or
| social networks controlled by other countries are gaining
| dominance.
|
| It seems nothing other than a decline in American influence in
| the world. And it comes from other countries outperforming the
| Americans.
|
| Whether America reacts to this or ignores it through the
| arrogance of the current greatest will define American power in
| the world for generations.
| simiones wrote:
| > And the previous election was heavily influenced by a foreign
| government using American social media networks to influence.
|
| Heavily influenced is a massive overstatement. Russia spent
| less money on US election influence than most individual mega-
| churches.
| tarkin2 wrote:
| You've found those figures from the transparent and
| independent Russian statistics department giving the figures
| in roubles?
| simiones wrote:
| From Wikipedia[0], quoting the Mueller report:
|
| > The Mueller report detailed that the IRA spent $100,000
| for over 3,500 Facebook advertisements, which included
| anti-Clinton and pro-Trump advertisements.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_report#Social_med
| ia_ca...
| angelzen wrote:
| That an outrageous 0.0015% of the estimated 6.8 billion
| price tag of the 2016 election. Damn Ruskies and their
| election interference [shakes fist at the sky].
|
| Fun fact, 100k is 0.4% of the price of the Mueller report
| itself, at 25M.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/election-2016s-price-
| tag-6-8-bi...
|
| https://time.com/5557693/mueller-report-cost
| ipaddr wrote:
| The cost to hack hilary's unauthorized personal email
| server could not have been that high.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Hillary didn't get hacked, it was one of the other people
| in her circle who got phished. John podesta I think?
|
| Anyways. Yeah, phished. Maybe it's super secret agents or
| maybe it was a teenager from 4chan.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Both happened. The spearfishing John Podestra gmail hack
| was separate.
|
| The Hilary personal email server used for government
| business that contained classified information that was
| illegal was hacked by Russian agents the fbi alledged.
| refenestrator wrote:
| FYI, putting in heavy partisan asides in comments hurts
| credibility with neutral readers.
|
| I think you're confusing the DNC and campaign server
| hacks with Hillary's personal server she used while at
| State. No indications her personal server was hacked:
| https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-clinton-
| arizona-ha...
| nova22033 wrote:
| _This is a bit of hit for US cultural dominance and influence._
|
| How so? Almost everything I watch on tiktok is made by American
| content creators..Is TikTok proper even available to Chinese
| residents?
| tarkin2 wrote:
| And is ultimately controlled by the Chinese government
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Nope, there's a different app for China, called Douyin I
| believe.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| 15 seconds is the attention span teachers are going to have to
| compete with and try to teach. YouTube wasn't mindless and short
| enough.
| ericls wrote:
| It's the new drug
| Firebrand wrote:
| I thought about starting my own TikTok page dedicated to
| programming so I recorded one about why I still prefer C++ over
| Rust. While I got decent views for the subject matter, I got
| roasted by 12-year-olds in the comments section. The top one
| implied the real reason I preferred C++ was because I'm a boomer,
| and it was apparently written by someone who likes to upload
| Roblox music videos. My page has since been made private.
|
| I can take toxic Reddit, HN, and even Twitter comments, and while
| I found the whole situation hilarious there's something
| frightening about opening my whole identity for hordes of
| anonymous people to judge. There's a power imbalance that doesn't
| seem to bother a subset of Gen Z or the general population who
| continue uploading content there.
| CapriciousCptl wrote:
| Note that this is watch time *per active user* lest anyone
| interprets the title as TikTok having more total active user-
| time.
| roody15 wrote:
| China's rise continues.
| [deleted]
| dirtyid wrote:
| Overton window friendly mainstream content shaped by PRC
| censorship is popular because no one likes running across
| divisive / distressing content that seems to be endgame of
| western attention merchant approach. Incidentally western
| platforms follow suit and starts cracking down on undesirables.
| Going to be interesting once TikTok rolls out massively
| profitable store fronts / shopping layer comparable to DouYin.
| Maybe tiktok philosphy will prove that serenity sells more than
| drama. Censored, curated speech is more marketable to
| unrestricted free speech.
| nova22033 wrote:
| _However, YouTube retains the top spot for overall time spent -
| not per user - as it has many more users overall._
|
| Burying the lede here BBC...
| blondin wrote:
| youtube is my main streaming platform, but i have come to
| understand the appeal of tiktok. most of the things that are
| inherent to the tiktok platform, i have to manually do while
| using youtube.
|
| a couple of examples are manually ignoring click-baits, overly
| long videos and explanations, multiple parts videos (some are
| genuine, but most are bad-intentioned), creators and channels i
| don't care about, etc.
| buryat wrote:
| TikTok will surpass both Youtube/Instagram in terms of videos
| watched, tiktok will also change the way we consume content and
| how we interact with it. They also came further in solving
| comments to videos unlike Youtube where comments section is a
| toxic wasteland.
| bane wrote:
| I can't wait for Google to make their own knock-off, do it in 4
| different ways, kill them all off, do it another 3 times at the
| same time, and then kill those off too.
|
| In the meanwhile they'll have permanently degraded some part of
| their core service offerings chasing this, maybe putting 10
| second videos in place of every street view shot in google maps,
| or making search favor short video content or some nonsense.
| DalasNoin wrote:
| The headline is a bit misleading
|
| in the article: "average time per user spent on the apps is
| higher for TikTok... However, YouTube retains the top spot for
| overall time spent - not per user - as it has many more users
| overall."
|
| The average TikTok user spents more time, which is still
| interesting. Maybe kids just have more time on their hands.
| ajkdhcb2 wrote:
| I've also spent an unholy amount of time on youtube but never
| installed the app. Why watch videos on my phone...
| fma wrote:
| Seems to be misunderstanding of TikTok and their algorithms. WSJ
| did an interesting experiment where they programmed a bot to do
| take interest in certain videos. the tldr is that it spirals till
| you get more concentrated, extreme in the type of content. i.e
| they searched for depressing videos and they get more and more
| depressing.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-algorithm-video-investig...
|
| Where Facebook has a weakpoint is that the content they server
| you is rather limited. It's a newsfeed of your friends, your
| friends friends (maybe) and the groups you've joined. Maybe
| they'll recommend something for you. But most of the time, it's
| stuff you've more or less opted into.
|
| TikTok on the other hand - has at its disposal videos made by
| anyone, at anytime in the history of its app. That's a lot of
| content. I can be on Facebook and be done scrolling in 15
| minutes. Same with Instagram, Twitter. TikTok, because it has
| essentially an infinite amount of assets it can serve...you're
| there forever, watching short snippets of videos to get a
| dopamine hit.
|
| Not comparable to other social media, IMHO...more dangerous,
| regardless of which country owns it.
| csours wrote:
| TikTok feels so incredibly fake. I know that a lot of that same
| fake content is available on YouTube, but on YouTube, I can
| subscribe to creators that do real things or offer substantial
| and interesting critiques. TikTok and Facebook video feel like
| broadcast TV - highly over-dramatized and over-hyped. Again, I
| know the same is available on YT, but I can also use it my way.
| malwarebytess wrote:
| It really isn't. I get _only_ normal people on my tiktok, but I
| also only follow normal people and tend to "not interested"
| all checkmarked accounts when they show up.
| trident5000 wrote:
| This is why Im actually disappointed by the headline. Affirms
| people would rather watch a mostly degenerate freak show and
| blatant materialism than maybe learn something or view
| something reasonable. And its mostly kids ingesting this. Can
| you tweak your account to view normal content on tiktok...sure
| maybe? But thats not what its known for or why its popular. Its
| to feed you the most extreme content possible and keep your
| eyes there.
| [deleted]
| sluggosaurus wrote:
| Fake, refined, optimized, or over-produced.. it's all the same
| thing really.
|
| With television, there are[were] a limited number of channels.
| Airtime was a scarce resource, and making a TV show cost money
| so the companies funding it wanted to make sure they got the
| best bang for their buck. So they had lots of experts tweaking
| every show to make sure it was _juuust_ right. Little if
| anything was truly off-the-cusp. Seemingly impromptu
| conversations on talk shows are scripted and rehearsed. Too
| much money on the line for anything more casual. When less
| money is on the line, fewer people are involved and everything
| can be a lot more casual. Public access television is cruder
| but feels more authentic. Low budget art films can experiment
| more than big budget movies. The production of MST3K was casual
| and crude when it was on public access, but became serious
| business when they moved to Comedy Central.
|
| A similar dynamic is in play on youtube. When a channel is just
| some rando uploading videos with little investment and little
| expectation of financial return, the content is generally
| cruder and quirkier. When a channel is run by a major
| corporation with lots of money on the line, lots of people
| involved in it, and high expectations for the reception, then
| everything is taken more seriously. Professional cameras,
| professional lighting, professional editing. It feels more like
| television because it _is_ more like television.
|
| This same overproduced aesthetic doesn't only come from
| corporations though; I think the dynamic is in play whenever
| the content producer has high expectations or aspirations. An
| individual creator working alone who has aspirations of
| becoming an "influencer" will put more effort into their
| content than somebody who has no expectations or aspirations
| for their content. Their content will become overproduced as a
| consequence of their lofty aspirations. Maybe tiktok inspires
| or nurtures these lofty aspirations more than youtube did in
| the early years.
| franciscop wrote:
| Note that this is "average time on app", which draws two
| potential pitfalls:
|
| * Youtube is consumed A LOT on the website, including some people
| using the mobile website (not the app) to keep it playing in the
| background (duh). This only compares average time on app.
|
| * It could also be totally skewed, if let's say 100M people spend
| 2h/day on average on Youtube, and 1k (a tiny amount) spend
| 2.5h/day on average on Tiktok, that'd be already good enough to
| say "average time per user spent on the apps is higher for
| TikTok".
|
| I haven't read the report, but wanted to point out these two
| warnings. As we say in Spanish, the easiest way to lie is with
| statistics. And of course any half-decent PR person will take any
| numbers and blow it up into a headline, so tread with caution.
|
| (Absolutely not wanting to discount on Tiktok, which has been
| growing at an incredible rate, just wanted to say that the
| wording on how exactly they are "winning" sounded a bit
| contrieved).
| ng12 wrote:
| Can someone explain to me what happened to Vine? I feel like it
| beat TikTok to the punch by ~8 years before it was bought and
| then unceremoniously killed by Twitter. Was that the first
| example of US innovation being suffocated by the big tech
| oligopoly?
| rockinghigh wrote:
| Vine started in 2013 and uploads were shut down in 2016; the
| same year TikTok launched.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I don't think Twitter could afford to lose money with Vines for
| very long.
|
| The CCP can afford to lose money with TikTok for a long time.
| Straight from the propaganda budget really.
| starik36 wrote:
| I have yet to see a single CCP propaganda video on TikTok.
| What exactly are you seeing?
| im-poor wrote:
| A CCP propaganda won't be a red flying with people chanting
| "China is great!" It will be something like "masks aren't
| effective" to increase the impact of COVID on America.
| [deleted]
| evanmoran wrote:
| They aren't showing propaganda videos, they are filtering
| out what makes them look bad and emphasizing what makes
| them look good.
|
| Update: here's a reference to leaked documents to this
| effect: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/te
| chnology/...
| whoevercares wrote:
| Can afford to lose money for a long time -- IIRC this is
| called "long term planning" ...
| sluggosaurus wrote:
| Mismanagement by @Jack.
| m348e912 wrote:
| Vine's an example of the beginning of great idea that wasn't
| taken to its full potential. There are significant key
| differences between vine and tiktok. There are three that come
| to mind.
|
| Tiktok expanded allowed uploaded video duration up to 3
| minutes. The For You Page algorithm (which drives the content
| you see in the feed) is scarily impressive in how it can match
| the viewer with content they would most want to see. Lastly,
| and probably most importantly (in my opinion) Tiktok fosters a
| home for a vast number of entertaining and informative content
| creators that give them an edge. Vine mostly went for
| entertainment in quick six second bursts.
| aqrre wrote:
| > Was that the first example of US innovation being suffocated
| by the big tech oligopoly?
|
| there's countless examples
| anshumankmr wrote:
| Something as massive as YouTube can be beaten. This feels like
| the circle of life, considering every empire that rises
| eventually falls too. Though I am not saying TikTok is the doom
| for YouTube since geo politics will play a significant role its
| future. And there are other metrics by which TikTok hasn't
| probably caught up with YouTube yet like the size of the user
| base, revenue etc.
|
| What seems odd is how TikTok is managing this. YouTube is popular
| among all demographics, the diversity of content is mind
| bogglingly high whereas (I presume) TikTok is popular among the
| crowd who are either going to highschool or in college. Its
| primary purpose is entertainment, so how did it beat YouTube
| exactly?
| zaik wrote:
| It would be nice to see YouTube beaten by a more open platform
| like PeerTube. TikTok is just another proprietary app run by a
| for-profit company.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| It would be nice but unless some massive VC backs it to
| market it and help it scale, or content creators become aware
| about it and jump ship, it won't make a big dent.
| simonh wrote:
| I think they're just different markets. YT is doing fine,
| revenue is up 30% YOY and all their viewer and channel growth
| numbers are very healthy.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| YT has some knock-off of Stories but I have never used it.
| But unfortunately a lot of creators I watch (even some guys
| who explain very involved technical stuff) make videos for it
| now and label it #shorts which is annoying since I usually
| watch YouTube on my laptop or iPad.
| toshk wrote:
| To be fair, Youtube VS TikTok is mostly the wrong comparison.
|
| Tiktok is mostly competing with the Insta/Facebook I need
| distraction so I'll let myself be numbed with external impulses
| as fast as I can get. Most similar was the story feature in
| Instagram, often also videos, although nobody every compared
| viewing them with Youtube.
|
| Although Youtube also has it's scroll/impulsive it's not a
| direct competition. Although you could argue any form of time
| consumption (online) is competition.
| anshumankmr wrote:
| I would not go as far as saying the comparison is wrong. From
| what I have read about the platform, it is a video sharing
| platform where teenagers can also insert currently trending
| music and share the content. There is also a home feed that
| works automatically by finding the best video suggested by an
| algorithm. So based on that description, it is fair to
| compare it to YouTube.
|
| I agree YouTube /Instagram/Snapchat stories feature is closer
| to the experience of TikTok.
|
| Though I making a guess since I have only read about it and
| seen some screenshots.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Tiktok videos are on average a few seconds to a maximum of
| 3 minutes (which is rare to see anything over a minute). A
| youtube video is 5-10 minutes on average. Comparing apples
| and oranges only works if are talking about a fruit salad.
| neither_color wrote:
| I think they're very different platforms serving completely
| different content. I see tiktok as instagram/twitter/snapchat's
| competition rather than youtube's. If you go back several years
| on youtube(like 10 years back) you'll find a lot more casual
| low-res videos of people being goofy/interesting without any
| agenda to build a following. Nowadays youtubers are all "Hey
| guys thanks for clicking on my clickbait title don't forget to
| smash that like button and subscribe I know you're here because
| of the title but I'm going to do a long intro about something
| else because I really need this to be 10 minutes long." To be
| fair many of these are great
| documentary/educational/infotainment/explainer series on
| Youtube that I won't find anywhere else. Wendover or Real
| Engineering are more well-known examples but there's a long-
| tail of niche history and economics accounts I like to follow
| that formats like tiktok won't serve anytime soon.
| xnx wrote:
| The amount of commenting by people who have (proudly?) never
| used Tiktok in this thread is staggering.
| okamiueru wrote:
| Don't they serve very different demographics and/or interests?
|
| I've been assuming TikTok is the equivalent of "what is
| trending today", where "what" is something related to dance
| moves, or other stuff I don't find very interesting. (Or, it's
| not that I find dance moves uninteresting, it's just that it's
| not something I'd want to spend time consuming). Are my
| assumptions wrong, and there is genuinely interesting, and more
| in depth content on TikTok?
|
| Also, the whole thought of a video platform devoted to
| teenagers filming themselves dance ... is... well, to be
| honest, a bit creepy. But I suppose this is a concern for just
| a part of the content if my assumptions are wrong.
|
| Ps: Just to clear, I'm not saying there isn't creative things
| or something to learn or expand some kind of understanding
| through TikTok. Just that, surely, there isn't much overlap
| between YouTube and a platform limited to 15 second video
| clips? Especially one, that for someone who has never used it,
| seems mostly limited to teenagers filming themselves dance?
| anshumankmr wrote:
| I have never installed TikTok or watched any content on it. I
| assume it is a spiritual successor to Vine.
| ItsMonkk wrote:
| While dance content is the most popular, the system that
| recommends videos allows a factor of magnitude more niches
| than other platforms. In no way is TT limited to dance.
| Within the first day I stopped seeing dance content. If you
| want to post stuff that would do well here, it would do well
| on TikTok.
| iratewizard wrote:
| Thanks to the gross incompetence of Susan Wojcicki and Google
| abandoning their old motto, "don't be evil".
| tester756 wrote:
| "abandoning"?
|
| it's still there.
| nkotov wrote:
| I believe it. Nowadays, I watch perhaps 1-2 videos a day on
| Youtube. The addictive endless scrolling of content on Tiktok
| means I'm spending on average an hour a day.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Sounds like it is time to add TikTok to you blocklist and get
| back an hour a day. Add the following to whatever
| filter/blocklist you use and rejoice in all that regained
| freedom: # TikTok abtest-va-
| tiktok.byteoversea.com api16-core-c-alisg.tiktokv.com
| api16-core-c-useast1a.tiktokv.com api16-core-c-
| useast2a.tiktokv.com api16-core-va.tiktokv.com
| api16-normal-c-alisg.tiktokv.com api16-normal-c-
| useast1a.tiktokv.com api16-normal-c-useast2a.tiktokv.com
| api16-va.tiktokv.com api19-core-c-useast1a.tiktokv.com
| api19-core-c-useast2a.tiktokv.com api19-core-
| va.tiktokv.com api19-normal-c-useast1a.tiktokv.com
| api19-normal-c-useast2a.tiktokv.com api19-va.tiktokv.com
| api21-core-c-alisg.tiktokv.com
| api21-h2-eagle.tiktokv.com api21-h2.tiktokv.com
| api21-normal-c-alisg.tiktokv.com api21-va.tiktokv.com
| api22-core-c-alisg.tiktokv.com
| api22-core-c-useast1a.tiktokv.com
| api22-core-c-useast2a.tiktokv.com
| api22-normal-c-alisg.tiktokv.com
| api22-normal-c-useast1a.tiktokv.com
| api22-normal-c-useast2a.tiktokv.com
| api30-h2-eagle.tiktokv.com
| api30-h2.tiktokv.com
| api-h2-eagle.tiktokv.com
| api-h2.tiktokv.com
| api-t2.tiktokv.com
| api.tiktokv.com
| api-va.tiktokv.com
| dm16-alisg.tiktokv.com
| dm16-useast1a.tiktokv.com
| frontier-va.tiktokv.com
| gecko16-normal-c-useast1a.tiktokv.com
| i.byteoversea.com
| ichannel.musical.ly
| ichannel-va.tiktokv.com
| imapi-16.tiktokv.com
| imapi-mu.isnssdk.com
| im-va.tiktokv.com
| log16-normal-c-useast1a.tiktokv.com
| log.byteoversea.com
| log-va.tiktokv.com
| mon.tiktokv.com
| mon-va.tiktokv.com
| muscdn.com
| musical.ly
| p16-tiktokcdn-com.akamaized.net
| p16-tiktok-sg.ibyteimg.com
| p16-tiktok-va.ibyteimg.com
| pull-cmaf-f16-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-cmaf-f16.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-cmaf-f5.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-f5-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-f5.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-flv-f11-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-flv-f11.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-flv-f1-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-flv-f1.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-flv-l11.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-flv-l1.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-f11-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-f11.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-f1-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-f1.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-f5-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-f5.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-l11.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-l1.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-q5.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-hls-w5.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-q5.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-rtmp-f11-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-rtmp-f11.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-rtmp-f1-ab.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-rtmp-f1.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-rtmp-l11.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-rtmp-l1.tiktokcdn.com
| pull-w5.tiktokcdn.com
| tiktokcdn.com
| tiktokcdn.com.c.worldfcdn.com
| tiktokcdn.com.wsdvs.com
| tiktokcdn.liveplay.myqcloud.com
| tiktok.com
| tiktok.com.c.footprint.net
| tiktokv.com
| webcast16-normal-c-useast1a.tiktokv.com
| xlog-va.tiktokv.com
| # /TikTok
|
| If your filter/blocker supports partial DNS matching or regexp
| matching that list can be shortened radically:
| # TikTok (\.|^)tiktok\.com$ (\.|^)tiktokcdn\.com$
| (\.|^)tiktokv\.com$ muscdn.com
| musical.ly
| # /TikTok
| [deleted]
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Yea, the Youtube algorithm is the "pick me girl" of algorithms.
|
| I watched one video by a creator I already follow about their
| solar panel installation and water-catcher garden irrigation.
|
| What do I get in my recommendations? Dozens and dozens of videos
| from completely random channels about solar panel installation
| and gardening.
|
| I very rarely find new creators on YouTube, who produce
| consistent high quality content. I follow a handful of channels
| and even from them I lookat 20-40% of their videos.
|
| TikTok on the other hand I swore I'd never use. Then came Covid19
| and lockdowns. I reached the end of HN, Reddit and Youtube, so I
| installed it.
|
| The Algorthm is fucking amazing. Dunno how they do it, but 80-90%
| of stuff it shows me I end up watching (it is 10secs to 3 mins so
| the investment isn't that huge =) ).
|
| I've ended up following, among others, an opthalmologist who does
| sketches about hospital stuff, to mechanics who show the most f'd
| up cars they get to service, to farrier and sheep shearing videos
| to a guy who does comedy about weird animal facts.
|
| I'd never actually go search anything like that on purpose, but I
| actually kinda found out I enjoy looking at. It's a good way to
| space out for 30 minutes and relax. Most TikTok videos get to the
| point before a stereotypical YouTuber has gone through their
| intro and sponsor segments :)
| jcun4128 wrote:
| > farrier
|
| There is something weirdly mesmerizing about that. watching
| them scrape away the stuff from the hoof like it's butter...
| tempest_ wrote:
| It is pretty obvious why it is better though.
|
| It is getting more input and it is getting faster input so it
| can course correct quicker and more aggressively.
|
| The youtube algorithm wants to optimize for time on the site,
| and the creators try and have 10 minute videos it seems.
|
| In that time you can consume 60 tiktok videos at 10s each and
| skipping the ones you dont want and watching the ones you do.
|
| Since 10s is such a small investment they can throw random
| videos at you and it is pretty low cost.
| JoshTko wrote:
| TikTok has two advantages - first, an order more user data to
| refine it's feed algorithm and second a format that lowers the
| bar for content creation which allows for super niche content to
| be viable. The combination enables a feed that resonates.
| ourcat wrote:
| Their recommendation algorithm is reportedly the envy of many
| other platforms. I heard that was pretty much what was being
| bid for at the time offers started floating around.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| TikTok always gets a zero or 1 on each video, whereas FB only
| get interactions for a minority of units. This makes it a
| _lot_ easier to train better models.
| axpy906 wrote:
| Wonder what comparisons are possible for YT as MySpace and TikTok
| as Facebook? Seems like history is playing itself out again.
| ourcat wrote:
| "YouTube still leads TikTok in overall time spent..."
|
| What's the longest length video that TikTok supports? (I don't
| use it)
| umeshunni wrote:
| 15 minutes
| yunusabd wrote:
| Latest info I could find was 5 minutes max [1], where did you
| see 15?
|
| [1] https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktoks-testing-
| even-l...
| ourcat wrote:
| Wow. Thank you. I had no idea about that. I had assumed it
| would be much, much shorter.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| That's _very_ new, though. Even 3 minute videos haven 't
| been around for more than a few months.
| ourcat wrote:
| Ah I see.
|
| I remember when YouTube had quite a short cap on length
| years ago (10-15 minutes iirc), which is why I started
| using vimeo at the time.
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