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Reddit CEO: TikTok Is ‘Fundamentally Parasitic’

68 points by ykm 7y ago

dingdongding 7y ago
How different is the tracking that TikTok does compared to what Facebook and Google does? Except may be TikTok might be shipping this data off to the Chinese?
- bravoetch 7y ago
  It's not meaningfully different. It's not even different from literally every other successful business built on ads. They're all collecting data, and the ad industry is their customer - not the people making the content.
  - crashbunny 7y ago
    Is it different to reddit's app?
- mschuster91 7y ago
  Exactly this is the point. It's one thing to allow companies in your own country/influence sphere (NATO/western world) to build massive data piles about your citizens, but an entirely different thing to allow a national enemy (or at the very least, competitor) such as China to do the same. Given that there are many young soldiers, policemen, politicians or employees in security-critical environments it's not far fetched that a social media app such as tiktok which has cam/mic access is able to serve as a remote controlled bug for its owners. For what it's worth, ordinary tracking of location data is already an interesting data pile - a bunch of phones that for half a year only appear on a US military base and then suddenly appear somewhere remote in Afghanistan? Most likely they're deployed soldiers. Then look at what they post and suddenly you have names, ranks, specializations... and as said, all of that is possible with ordinary tracking, the dangers of an actual bug are magnitudes larger.
  - mwilliaams 7y ago
    This app specifically is getting mobile phones banned in sensitive military areas/buildings.
  - angryasian 7y ago
    You mean like Facebook that was involved with Cambridge Analytica and still today allows hostile nations to interfere in our elections
- isatty 7y ago
  > might be most definitely
seibelj 7y ago
> ”Maybe I’m going to regret this, but I can’t even get to that level of thinking with them,” Huffman said. “Because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone.” That’s rich coming from the guy who turned Reddit into the Dark Lord of Dark Patterns. Can’t use Reddit web on mobile anymore without 50 nags to install the app, and sometimes it simply won’t load a page until you do. Guarantee they track every last thing you do, every subreddit you visit. Hypocrisy in the extreme.
- pilif 7y ago
  tracking and privacy violations are only a problem when other people are doing it. "We're protecting your data" means "we make sure nobody but us gets to profit from your data". That's not just true for Reddit and TikTok but for every tech company these days.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- llarsson 7y ago
  In the Transparency Report, links spez posted were all using the "old" reddit. Seems that not everyone loves new Reddit. Even at Reddit.
- whymauri 7y ago
  >That’s rich coming from the guy who turned Reddit into the Dark Lord of Dark Patterns. God bless old.reddit.com (which I use on mobile, as well).
whoisjuan 7y ago
Personally, I found TikTok to be a funny, light-hearted app, but there's definitely an overaggressive approach when it comes to pushing content and re-engaging users. Besides what he is saying, the app and platform are designed to spread content fast, with quick feedback loops of brand re-engagement through other platforms. If you use Reddit you will notice that content coming from TikTok gets shared constantly and it's designed in a way that drives indirect traffic back to them. There are even a handful of subreddits just dedicated to TikTok videos like r/TikTokCringe which got so popular that it is not for "cringe" anymore. Not only the videos have a TikTok watermark, but also when they end they have a prominent display of the creator username (which presumably drives people who found the content funny to search for them). This makes me think that he is actually upset about the fact that TikTok thrives on Reddit and there's nothing they can do about it. Just look at TikTok itself. Have you seen their user experience when it comes to sharing content? It's a super highly optimized sharing experience that even remembers your preferred sharing channels, plus it has a significant number of features for soft sharing like downloading as a live photo or gif. I mean there's zero friction between TikTok and posting a gif to Reddit or any other platform because they make it incredibly easy. This seems diametrically opposed to Reddit's sharing experience which is constantly tinkered to create a walled-garden (for example in iOS they disabled the ability to share videos directly into messages because this effectively made visiting Reddit unnecessary.) The other super crazy part about TikTok is how their algorithm presumably works. It's really an incredible engineering accomplishment but one that is definitely transgressing the "creepy" line. They really analyze absolutely everything about your content in order to classify it and rank it. This article gives a good explanation: https://veed.io/grow/reverse-engineering-how-tiktok-algorithm-works/ https://veed.io/grow/reverse-engineering-how-tiktok-algorith...
paxys 7y ago
While it may be true, saying that in front of Silicon Valley investors, while sitting next to a Facebook executive, is pretty rich.
theferalrobot 7y ago
I'll take TikToks 'parasitic' over Reddits toxic negativity any day of the week. Go look at the front page of Reddit, then look at what's trending on Tiktok... From my humble perspective tiktok is a pretty positive place. Reddit on the other hand seems to have been overrun with political fighting and cynicism about literally everything. It may not be popular among the tech crowd but for where I am in my life that is far more important to me than what permissions an app needs.
- quantummkv 7y ago
  The front page of Reddit is pure toxicity, sure. But Reddit gives me the ability to curate my feed. I can curate the subreddits that I want and switch to that custom field, keeping all that toxicity away while still getting the depth reddit provides for niche communities.
- kick 7y ago
  TikTok banned pro-LGBT content (until they were called out on it?), TikTok bans a bunch of things in countries that aren't illegal there (or in any civilized country, for that matter), TikTok bans criticism of certain political figures in some regions, so forth. Positive, but at what price? I don't like reddit, either, to be fair.
  - paxys 7y ago
    Reddit gives random moderators (who are often affiliated with companies or governments, without disclosure) the power to do all this and lots more.
    - defterGoose 7y ago
      Yeah, but it also gives any user the ability to start their own sub if they want.
      - a012 7y ago
        Doesn't Supermoderators can hijack and own user's sub, too?
russellbeattie 7y ago
Heh. This sounds like a business person that doesn't understand their competition, so they self-righteously trashed them as a way of avoiding the question. I mean, I sure as hell don't know the reason for TikTok's success, but I'm not the CEO of reddit. TikTok has a billion+ users, despite it's crappy reputation as surveillance-ware, so there must be something to learn from them.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  > I sure as hell don't know the reason for TikTok's success I do. Simple service that came up with a massive user base to keep it propped up and focused around funny, cute, or stupid Vine replacement clips, then US kids flocked to it. Annoyingly; my favorite tiktok and comment about it were found on Reddit When I went to college to study TV and stuff, nobody, and I mean nobody, had any inkling that this was the future of entertainment. https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f3syl1/duck_throws_it_back/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f3syl1/duck_throws_i...
  - chairmanwow1 7y ago
    Tiktok first blew up in China, but currently biggest in India.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  Apropos competitors: Does anybody know reddit's stance on pinterest? Pinterest has become valuable with more or less the idea of 'reddit for pictures'. Why has reddit not made a move into pictures by themselves, apart from starting a picture hosting service?
- m-p-3 7y ago
  I think it simply succeeded because of the void left by Vine's shutdown and because it doesn't belong to Facebook like Instagram.
- bassman9000 7y ago
  TikTok has a billion+ users, despite it's crappy reputation as surveillance-ware, so there must be something to learn from them. How to do surveillance. Which is exactly the point he was trying to make. Good for TikTok is good for the CCP. And it can be terrific at its job.
wintorez 7y ago
The pot calling the kettle...
shaan1 7y ago
if tiktok is parasitic, whats reddit then ?
- tus88 7y ago
  Sewage treatment plant. That doesn't work.
- jcims 7y ago
  antagonistic
pts_ 7y ago
Geezus the day Reddit userbase becomes the same as TikTok is the day I'm fully migrating here.
- hajhatten 7y ago
  There's room for a competitor. Digg v4 2.0!
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    I always forget Digg was a thing. https://phaven-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/52825/YR1rBBeMFYU9vWtZnPvefOrPQxk/medium_0633covdc.gif https://phaven-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/...
samstave 7y ago
Reddit is now banning folks for upvoting content! Im on mobile, but there is a screenshot of huffman promising for life to not delete content by users. Reddit is a propaganda tool 100% now. (There is another post by him saying as so, they removed both)
- hu3 7y ago
  You're not wrong: https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-policy/ https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-policy/ and https://old.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/f9fox2/reddit_is_now_banning_people_who_upvote_content/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/f9fox2/reddit_...
pnako 7y ago
TikTok: get in trouble if you criticize the Chinese president Reddit: get in trouble if you praise the American president
- foogazi 7y ago
  in China TikTok will get in trouble with the government if the president of China is criticized Do you think Reddit gets in trouble with the US government if the president of the US is praised?
betoharres 7y ago
don't worry guys, I'm creating the new reddit. It's called fuckkit
suby 7y ago
Not that I disagree, but for some context, this is coming from the man who said "We know all of your interests. Not only just your interests you are willing to declare publicly on Facebook - we know your dark secrets, we know everything" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCnZqrJE24&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCnZqrJE24&feature=emb_titl...
rexreed 7y ago
Hello pot, here's kettle. Silicon Valley tech is really gonna eat itself
mesaframe 7y ago
Look at the irony. This discussion is taking place at Hacker News. Most wholesome place all over the internet.
throwaway122378 7y ago
“I’m confident that Reddit could sway elections. We wouldn’t do it, of course. And I don’t know how many times we could get away with it. But, if we really wanted to, I’m sure Reddit could have swayed at least this election, this once.” -Reddit CEO
threatofrain 7y ago
> “Because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone.” > “I actively tell people, ‘Don’t install that spyware on your phone,'” he later added. Does that mean Reddit doesn't track users? Or just that TikTok is extra good at it?

68 points by ykm 7y ago

How different is the tracking that TikTok does compared to what Facebook and Google does? Except may be TikTok might be shipping this data off to the Chinese?

bravoetch 7y ago
It's not meaningfully different. It's not even different from literally every other successful business built on ads. They're all collecting data, and the ad industry is their customer - not the people making the content.
- crashbunny 7y ago
  Is it different to reddit's app?
mschuster91 7y ago
Exactly this is the point. It's one thing to allow companies in your own country/influence sphere (NATO/western world) to build massive data piles about your citizens, but an entirely different thing to allow a national enemy (or at the very least, competitor) such as China to do the same. Given that there are many young soldiers, policemen, politicians or employees in security-critical environments it's not far fetched that a social media app such as tiktok which has cam/mic access is able to serve as a remote controlled bug for its owners. For what it's worth, ordinary tracking of location data is already an interesting data pile - a bunch of phones that for half a year only appear on a US military base and then suddenly appear somewhere remote in Afghanistan? Most likely they're deployed soldiers. Then look at what they post and suddenly you have names, ranks, specializations... and as said, all of that is possible with ordinary tracking, the dangers of an actual bug are magnitudes larger.
- mwilliaams 7y ago
  This app specifically is getting mobile phones banned in sensitive military areas/buildings.
- angryasian 7y ago
  You mean like Facebook that was involved with Cambridge Analytica and still today allows hostile nations to interfere in our elections
isatty 7y ago
> might be most definitely

seibelj 7y ago

> ”Maybe I’m going to regret this, but I can’t even get to that level of thinking with them,” Huffman said. “Because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone.” That’s rich coming from the guy who turned Reddit into the Dark Lord of Dark Patterns. Can’t use Reddit web on mobile anymore without 50 nags to install the app, and sometimes it simply won’t load a page until you do. Guarantee they track every last thing you do, every subreddit you visit. Hypocrisy in the extreme.

pilif 7y ago
tracking and privacy violations are only a problem when other people are doing it. "We're protecting your data" means "we make sure nobody but us gets to profit from your data". That's not just true for Reddit and TikTok but for every tech company these days.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
llarsson 7y ago
In the Transparency Report, links spez posted were all using the "old" reddit. Seems that not everyone loves new Reddit. Even at Reddit.
whymauri 7y ago
>That’s rich coming from the guy who turned Reddit into the Dark Lord of Dark Patterns. God bless old.reddit.com (which I use on mobile, as well).

whoisjuan 7y ago

Personally, I found TikTok to be a funny, light-hearted app, but there's definitely an overaggressive approach when it comes to pushing content and re-engaging users. Besides what he is saying, the app and platform are designed to spread content fast, with quick feedback loops of brand re-engagement through other platforms. If you use Reddit you will notice that content coming from TikTok gets shared constantly and it's designed in a way that drives indirect traffic back to them. There are even a handful of subreddits just dedicated to TikTok videos like r/TikTokCringe which got so popular that it is not for "cringe" anymore. Not only the videos have a TikTok watermark, but also when they end they have a prominent display of the creator username (which presumably drives people who found the content funny to search for them). This makes me think that he is actually upset about the fact that TikTok thrives on Reddit and there's nothing they can do about it. Just look at TikTok itself. Have you seen their user experience when it comes to sharing content? It's a super highly optimized sharing experience that even remembers your preferred sharing channels, plus it has a significant number of features for soft sharing like downloading as a live photo or gif. I mean there's zero friction between TikTok and posting a gif to Reddit or any other platform because they make it incredibly easy. This seems diametrically opposed to Reddit's sharing experience which is constantly tinkered to create a walled-garden (for example in iOS they disabled the ability to share videos directly into messages because this effectively made visiting Reddit unnecessary.) The other super crazy part about TikTok is how their algorithm presumably works. It's really an incredible engineering accomplishment but one that is definitely transgressing the "creepy" line. They really analyze absolutely everything about your content in order to classify it and rank it. This article gives a good explanation: https://veed.io/grow/reverse-engineering-how-tiktok-algorithm-works/ https://veed.io/grow/reverse-engineering-how-tiktok-algorith...

paxys 7y ago

While it may be true, saying that in front of Silicon Valley investors, while sitting next to a Facebook executive, is pretty rich.

theferalrobot 7y ago

I'll take TikToks 'parasitic' over Reddits toxic negativity any day of the week. Go look at the front page of Reddit, then look at what's trending on Tiktok... From my humble perspective tiktok is a pretty positive place. Reddit on the other hand seems to have been overrun with political fighting and cynicism about literally everything. It may not be popular among the tech crowd but for where I am in my life that is far more important to me than what permissions an app needs.

quantummkv 7y ago
The front page of Reddit is pure toxicity, sure. But Reddit gives me the ability to curate my feed. I can curate the subreddits that I want and switch to that custom field, keeping all that toxicity away while still getting the depth reddit provides for niche communities.
kick 7y ago
TikTok banned pro-LGBT content (until they were called out on it?), TikTok bans a bunch of things in countries that aren't illegal there (or in any civilized country, for that matter), TikTok bans criticism of certain political figures in some regions, so forth. Positive, but at what price? I don't like reddit, either, to be fair.
- paxys 7y ago
  Reddit gives random moderators (who are often affiliated with companies or governments, without disclosure) the power to do all this and lots more.
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    Yeah, but it also gives any user the ability to start their own sub if they want.
    - a012 7y ago
      Doesn't Supermoderators can hijack and own user's sub, too?

russellbeattie 7y ago

Heh. This sounds like a business person that doesn't understand their competition, so they self-righteously trashed them as a way of avoiding the question. I mean, I sure as hell don't know the reason for TikTok's success, but I'm not the CEO of reddit. TikTok has a billion+ users, despite it's crappy reputation as surveillance-ware, so there must be something to learn from them.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
> I sure as hell don't know the reason for TikTok's success I do. Simple service that came up with a massive user base to keep it propped up and focused around funny, cute, or stupid Vine replacement clips, then US kids flocked to it. Annoyingly; my favorite tiktok and comment about it were found on Reddit When I went to college to study TV and stuff, nobody, and I mean nobody, had any inkling that this was the future of entertainment. https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f3syl1/duck_throws_it_back/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f3syl1/duck_throws_i...
- chairmanwow1 7y ago
  Tiktok first blew up in China, but currently biggest in India.
toohotatopic 7y ago
Apropos competitors: Does anybody know reddit's stance on pinterest? Pinterest has become valuable with more or less the idea of 'reddit for pictures'. Why has reddit not made a move into pictures by themselves, apart from starting a picture hosting service?
m-p-3 7y ago
I think it simply succeeded because of the void left by Vine's shutdown and because it doesn't belong to Facebook like Instagram.
bassman9000 7y ago
TikTok has a billion+ users, despite it's crappy reputation as surveillance-ware, so there must be something to learn from them. How to do surveillance. Which is exactly the point he was trying to make. Good for TikTok is good for the CCP. And it can be terrific at its job.

wintorez 7y ago

The pot calling the kettle...

shaan1 7y ago

if tiktok is parasitic, whats reddit then ?

tus88 7y ago
Sewage treatment plant. That doesn't work.
jcims 7y ago
antagonistic

pts_ 7y ago

Geezus the day Reddit userbase becomes the same as TikTok is the day I'm fully migrating here.

hajhatten 7y ago
There's room for a competitor. Digg v4 2.0!
- dehrmann 7y ago
  I always forget Digg was a thing. https://phaven-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/52825/YR1rBBeMFYU9vWtZnPvefOrPQxk/medium_0633covdc.gif https://phaven-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/...

samstave 7y ago

Reddit is now banning folks for upvoting content! Im on mobile, but there is a screenshot of huffman promising for life to not delete content by users. Reddit is a propaganda tool 100% now. (There is another post by him saying as so, they removed both)

hu3 7y ago
You're not wrong: https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-policy/ https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-policy/ and https://old.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/f9fox2/reddit_is_now_banning_people_who_upvote_content/ https://old.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/f9fox2/reddit_...

pnako 7y ago

TikTok: get in trouble if you criticize the Chinese president Reddit: get in trouble if you praise the American president

foogazi 7y ago
in China TikTok will get in trouble with the government if the president of China is criticized Do you think Reddit gets in trouble with the US government if the president of the US is praised?

betoharres 7y ago

don't worry guys, I'm creating the new reddit. It's called fuckkit

suby 7y ago

Not that I disagree, but for some context, this is coming from the man who said "We know all of your interests. Not only just your interests you are willing to declare publicly on Facebook - we know your dark secrets, we know everything" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCnZqrJE24&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCnZqrJE24&feature=emb_titl...

rexreed 7y ago

Hello pot, here's kettle. Silicon Valley tech is really gonna eat itself

mesaframe 7y ago

Look at the irony. This discussion is taking place at Hacker News. Most wholesome place all over the internet.

throwaway122378 7y ago

“I’m confident that Reddit could sway elections. We wouldn’t do it, of course. And I don’t know how many times we could get away with it. But, if we really wanted to, I’m sure Reddit could have swayed at least this election, this once.” -Reddit CEO

threatofrain 7y ago

> “Because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone.” > “I actively tell people, ‘Don’t install that spyware on your phone,'” he later added. Does that mean Reddit doesn't track users? Or just that TikTok is extra good at it?