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You've gotta love the PR bullshit of it all. Someone intentionally chose to write the headline as: > TikTok: An update on recent content and account questions
by slimsag 7y ago
You've gotta love the PR bullshit of it all. Someone intentionally chose to write the headline as:
> TikTok: An update on recent content and account questions
And not something more honest like:
> TikTok: An apology about a content moderation mishap
This is done to imply they did nothing wrong at the first glance, and then concede they did something wrong but will do better later on in the article.
It is also convenient that they first draw attention to the author of the video being associated with:
> (1) Terrorism or terrorist imagery, (2) Child exploitation, (3) Spam or similar malicious content.
And then immediately after concede that the video was removed because they messed up:
> Due to a human moderation error, the viral video from November 23 was removed. [...] it should not have been removed.
If companies want to know why they can't regain trust and aren't given the benefit of the doubt, it's because they cannot be honest in situations like this. PR in the 21st century is about communicating how you have in fact messed up because you are humans, not trying to gloss over it and distract from it like some corporate overlord.
- draw_down 7y agoYes, it’s PR.
- skybrian 7y agoI think you do need to give a lot of context for people who just followed a random link from somewhere? But maybe there's a better way to do it.
- manicdee 7y agoThere is a better way to do it: you leave the incorrect reason out and focus on the mistake, and perhaps consider stating what you are doing to avoid making this mistake or others like it in the future.
- jasondclinton 7y agoYou forgot to mention that they dumped it on the evening before a US holiday. This is a classic PR strategy to stay out of the headlines.
- andrewflnr 7y agoNews outlets should have a special feature after each holiday for the headlines dumped right before said holiday in an attempt to escape notice. Not only do they get coverage, but the deceptiveness of the timing is highlighted. I can see this being a good fit for news/entertainment like Stephen Colbert.
- reaperducer 7y agoIt's not just holidays, it's every Friday. It's called "taking out the trash." And since most broadcast newsrooms are on skeleton crews after 5pm on Friday, the bad news usually doesn't get reported until Sunday, if at all.
- andrewflnr 7y agoGood point. We should probably do it every Monday too.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ummonk 7y agoThey made the statement today because the video was taken down (and reinstated) this morning.
- Angostura 7y agoYou forgot that they posted the news the same day that it happened was fixed. Should they have delayed the fix until after the weekend to avoid the bad optics?
- fxleach 7y agoWell it did happen yesterday so...
- ninth_ant 7y agoI don’t think this certainty about this being “PR bullshit” is warranted at all, and feels a bit like knee-jerk cynicism. The actions as described in the press release seem to me both plausible and reasonable. Banning multiaccounts for severe infractions makes sense, and it also makes sense that this account could have been caught up in that. As for the video takedown... you may underestimate the consistency of human moderators. They are often under intense time pressures and mistakes are made all the time. There is also the potential for individual moderators to apply their own bias to the report outside of company policy. With a 50 mins reversal of the takedown, that seems plausible. If they are not outright lying, it does seem like the title is accurate and not at all misleading. It does sound like a moderation mishap.
- ioerstets 7y agoIf I recall, the video was not taken down. Her account was still active so people could see the video, but her access to the account was blocked for a month. It’s ironic because TikTok was getting a lot of flak in the news recently because they were too slow to remove actual terrorist propaganda. So they probably went overboard and it resulted in this situation. Damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
- Thorrez 7y ago>but her access to the account was blocked for a month. Do you mean she actually experienced 1 month of blockage, or that they planned to block her for a month but actually didn't. The article says she was only blocked for 2-3 days (Nov 25 until now).
- laughinghan 7y agoThe press release specifically states that the video was taken down: "November 27, 2019 @ 7:06am ET – Due to a human moderation error, the viral video from November 23 was removed."
- baybal2 7y agoWant to add to this. Tiktok blatantly violates Google's device ID policy, and actually admits it in writing. > We share your device ID with measurement companies so that we can link your activity on the Platform with your activity on other websites; My contact at google said a year ago when I asked if they know about Alibaba's device ID abuse for advertising targeting, it's their policy to not to touch Chinese companies' device ID abuse.
- adriantam 7y agoNo. You missed the point. TikTok is a Chinese company. They still need to do business in China. They can't give an impression that the Party was wrong.
- CountSessine 7y agoThat doesn’t make me feel any better about TikTok
- ovi256 7y agoThen you should understand that they operate with harder constraints than making every random Joe feel better about themselves.
- Xelbair 7y agoAnd why would customer care about that? seriously, why?
- dividedbyzero 7y agoBecause this sort of thing should inform the expectations that customer holds of the business, of what they can entrust the business with and what better to take elsewhere, how to expect them to act now and in the future. Like, businesses are not actually black boxes in the same way that not all actors in any realistic marketplace ever have perfect knowledge. Useful abstractions, but only up to a point. You got any inside-ish info? Use it to your advantage if you can. If you know they are subject to that kind of pressure, would you launch your "We stand with the Uighurs" campaign there? Maybe yes, maybe no, but you should consider that carefully. Or maybe you wouldn't want them to gather data on you at all, if you are, say, involved with the Hong Kong resistance or whatever. And maybe, knowing this, you would want to take your data and attention elsewhere just on principle. Given what we know today, would you trust Facebook to not do any secret shady business with your data? Wouldn't you make that part of a decision where one outcome might give them a lot more data on you? That's why such info is very much of relevance to customers. That's why they try so hard to control the spin on things like that, because it's harmful if their background gets too much attention.
- dang 7y agoIf someone wants to suggest a better title that's both accurate and neutral, we can change it.
- 11thEarlOfMar 7y ago'TikTok Concedes Error In Removing Viral Video'
- slimsag 7y agoI agree this would be better.
- dang 7y agoI hear you, but we try hard to use representative language from the article [1] rather than making something new up. For example, to say "concedes" is already crossing into editorializing. On the other hand, bland corporate press release titles on mea culpa posts are misleading [2], which means that the site guidelines call for changing them: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." [3] The solution is to search for the point where the article actually says what it's about—it has to eventually, or there's no culpa in the mea culpa. I looked through the article and think I found it, so have put that in the title above. I should have thought of this earlier, since it's one of our standard tactics. 1. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22representative%20language%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... 2. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20press%20release&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoYou are truly an inspiration for what online moderation can be. Thank you.
- medecau 7y ago
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago"PR bullshit"? They said they made a mistake, apologized and reinstated the account -- what more do you want them to do? Compare with, say, this pathetic excuse of a non-apology apology from Stack Overflow: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334248/an-update-to-our-community-and-an-apology https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/334248/an-update-to...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- smohare 7y agoStop trolling.
- laughinghan 7y agoI downvoted you because I don't think this is constructive. If you think they're trolling, flag their comment.
- sterileopinions 7y ago>You've gotta love the PR bullshit of it all. You have no supporting statements or evidence backing up this claim.
- noobermin 7y agoI submit that you're reading a little too deep into this statement and their actions. Hanlon's razor and all that.
- iagooar 7y ago> If companies want to know why they can't regain trust and aren't given the benefit of the doubt, it's because they cannot be honest in situations like this. PR in the 21st century is about communicating how you have in fact messed up because you are humans, not trying to gloss over it and distract from it like some corporate overlord. So you think that companies cannot make mistakes?
- Angostura 7y agoI thought the whole thing looked like a reasonable account of the factors that lead to a human error, myself.
- Bendingo 7y ago> about a content moderation mishap The video was offline for 50 minutes: hardly a big deal, or even a moderate deal. I think there's a lot of people (in the West) who are happy to criticise anything Chinese, for the slightest possible reason.
- ddalex 7y agoIn case you haven't noticed, there is a trade war going on, and this is the propaganda front.