5 ms·

It tells more about what kind of content you are liking and watching than anything else. Mine is filled with skaters, mom-daughter dumb jokes, silly lesbian/tr

It tells more about what kind of content you are liking and watching than anything else. Mine is filled with skaters, mom-daughter dumb jokes, silly lesbian/transgenders sheniningans. There's sometimes weird things like a priest telling stupid jokes alone in his church and that korean guy doing asmr of burning bread in the oven. On facebook I saw the death of participants in the events that happened on the 6th but that was in a journalist/news/media analyses group. I see a lot of good vibes content on Tik-tok but that's what I am looking for on the platform. No doubt I could soon end up on indian train deaths if I wanted. Just like that time on Youtube when I saw that out of nowhere, I was looking for something totally unrelated to trains or india though.

pacamara619 6y ago
> It tells more about what kind of content you are liking and watching than anything else. This sounds very much like victim-blaming, I don't think it's appropriate to side with TikTok on this.
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  No, it doesn't. Victim blaming is when you blame a rape victim for wearing the wrong clothes. The analogy here - in receiving gruesome content - would be the parent going around town asking for the place where rapers meet and upon finding them literally ask them to actually commit the assault.
  - rcstank 6y ago
    What about when you see the content on first install?
    - johnchristopher 6y ago
      Then it's a problem (for the sake of the argument I consider "the content" to be either illegal or borderline psycho). And for the record I consider a lot of tiktok pranks to be borderline psycho (eg gaslighting your SO for giggles about divorce, abortion, etc.).
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It's not victim blaming. It's widely known that the "magic" of TikTok is that it carefully scans your interactions with content as you consume it, and seamlessly adapts your stream to what it believes you'd like to see. Algorithmic suggestions taken up to 11, and generally as close to mind reading as we've came as a species.
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    It seamlessly adapts your stream to what it believes will increase “engagement“. That's a different thing to “what it believes you'd like to see”.
    - filleduchaos 6y ago
      Have you ever used TikTok?
    - throwaway2245 6y ago
      TikTok has seemed to present me with shock/outrage content in the name of engagement less than any other social media - far less. I almost always see content that is only fun. That has made it much better for long-term engagement and positive for my mental health, rather than other social media's short-term outrage engagement that is wholly negative.
      - wizzwizz4 6y ago
        That means the TikTok algorithm designers are half-way competent.
        throwaway2245 6y ago
        I intended this in contrast to your point above. It could mean the algorithm designers have decided that optimising for fun is more effective at increasing engagement than optimising for shock value and conflict. But, this is a different choice than other social media designers have made. It seems like there is some more wholesome motivation.
tsbinz 6y ago
The content your parent comment refers to was (partly) what I saw when I installed it and scrolled through the default suggestions before it had the chance to learn anything about me. Sure there was a lot of harmless and just silly stuff, but the amount of animal abuse like https://twitter.com/noellesdesigns/status/1224439468272209927 https://twitter.com/noellesdesigns/status/122443946827220992... that scrolled by made me stop using the app.
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  The OP did say they used it daily for six months though, that really ought to be enough interactions for the app to personalise to the users choice.
arcturus17 6y ago
Would you trust the algorithms to tailor most content appropriately for a kid?
neilsense 6y ago
People say things like this in an attempt at shaming the original poster but one thing not considered is the location of the person using TikTok. I live in a big city and most of the feed is highly sexualised, highly political, or highly prank-related. My friend that lives in a small town about 100 miles away has to essentially send me fun tiktok videos and, no matter how many likes I do of those videos, the base diet of sexual, political, or prank-related videos are always there.
- dsrees 6y ago
  Not a tiktok user, but I know instagram also fills your explore feed with the content that your friends like. So even if you're tailoring your likes to appropriate posts, your friends may not be.
  - rchaud 6y ago
    That may just be the initial period after a user has signed up and hasn't engaged with enough content for IG to show anything under "Discover". They may use friends' preferences as a placeholder. I know for a fact that what's on my Discover feed (surrealist art, UX/UI stuff, Newfie dog videos) is unique to me.
- dilap 6y ago
  I don't think likes are actually a big signal, it's mostly based on watch time in my experience.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> one thing not considered is the location of the person using TikTok. I run into this daily. I'm in the military and so my internet connection at work is mingled with a thousand other military people. Ok, it is accurate to say we are predominantly male and younger, but every time I see an ad does it have to an an anime character? Some of us recently gathered to watch the DC riot footage on youtube. The footage started with a non-skippable ad for some pervy anime game. Try holding a strait face in front of the general as a busty cartoon character in a negligee is bouncing up and down on a ten-foot screen.
refurb 6y ago
I think OP’s point is that there is plenty of questionable media on Tik-Tok. Your point about what they like is irrelevant to that point.
- system16 6y ago
  There is just as much questionable media on YouTube. The difference is TikTok's algorithm works a lot harder to show you more of the content it thinks you will spend more time viewing, even if you are not actively searching for it. So if OP is seeing "loads" of sexualized content, it's because they spent enough time watching sexualized content before swiping for TikTok to think that's what they want to see, and ensure they see more of it.
  - gxnxcxcx 6y ago
    > So if OP is seeing "loads" of sexualized content, it's because they spent enough time watching sexualized content before swiping for TikTok to think that's what they want to see, and ensure they see more of it. Even if the picture you are painting of the previous poster is accurate, being horny once in a while is by no means justification for an endless stream of sexualized content. That's not a neutral quality of the system, but a deliberate feedback loop establishing an addictive behavior. We already know the shortcomings of the human condition and should ask for less footguns, not more.
doctorfoo 6y ago
I got a few animal abuse videos in an hour or so of swiping. It shows you these random videos in case you are interested. A few of these was enough to uninstall. I tried again some months later, and after awhile the recommendations get a little better, but there is still the occasional piece of awful content that gets thrown in there. In all cases I swiped past as quickly as possible.
emddudley 6y ago
I don't think it tells you anything about what the commenter likes. When I created a TikTok account it showed me nothing that interested me. I marked videos as "not interesting" for half an hour before giving up.
Jd 6y ago
Mine is full of fitness instructors showing of their fitness challenges,dancers showing of their synchronized dance routines, and oddball humour. I had a moment where some BLM stuff trended but on the whole it seemed to show both sides (albeit a bit the extreme versions of both sides).
tjpnz 6y ago
I've heard people describe a situation in ML (could be hill climbing) where an optimising algorithm will get stuck in a valley. At that point it will try various things in order to get unstuck, often involving a good dose of randomness. What's to say this didn't happen to op or that you really won't start seeing recommendations for Indian train death videos?
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  > What's to say this didn't happen to op or that you really won't start seeing recommendations for Indian train death videos? We can never be sure of anything. What if HN start pushing train death videos on the front page and the admin can't tweak the algo because a glitch in the stack prevent them from accessing the backend ?
Ceezy 6y ago
If the content is harmful it's harmful...

pacamara619 6y ago

> It tells more about what kind of content you are liking and watching than anything else. This sounds very much like victim-blaming, I don't think it's appropriate to side with TikTok on this.

johnchristopher 6y ago
No, it doesn't. Victim blaming is when you blame a rape victim for wearing the wrong clothes. The analogy here - in receiving gruesome content - would be the parent going around town asking for the place where rapers meet and upon finding them literally ask them to actually commit the assault.
- rcstank 6y ago
  What about when you see the content on first install?
  - johnchristopher 6y ago
    Then it's a problem (for the sake of the argument I consider "the content" to be either illegal or borderline psycho). And for the record I consider a lot of tiktok pranks to be borderline psycho (eg gaslighting your SO for giggles about divorce, abortion, etc.).
TeMPOraL 6y ago
It's not victim blaming. It's widely known that the "magic" of TikTok is that it carefully scans your interactions with content as you consume it, and seamlessly adapts your stream to what it believes you'd like to see. Algorithmic suggestions taken up to 11, and generally as close to mind reading as we've came as a species.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  It seamlessly adapts your stream to what it believes will increase “engagement“. That's a different thing to “what it believes you'd like to see”.
  - filleduchaos 6y ago
    Have you ever used TikTok?
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    TikTok has seemed to present me with shock/outrage content in the name of engagement less than any other social media - far less. I almost always see content that is only fun. That has made it much better for long-term engagement and positive for my mental health, rather than other social media's short-term outrage engagement that is wholly negative.
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      That means the TikTok algorithm designers are half-way competent.
      - throwaway2245 6y ago
        I intended this in contrast to your point above. It could mean the algorithm designers have decided that optimising for fun is more effective at increasing engagement than optimising for shock value and conflict. But, this is a different choice than other social media designers have made. It seems like there is some more wholesome motivation.

tsbinz 6y ago

The content your parent comment refers to was (partly) what I saw when I installed it and scrolled through the default suggestions before it had the chance to learn anything about me. Sure there was a lot of harmless and just silly stuff, but the amount of animal abuse like https://twitter.com/noellesdesigns/status/1224439468272209927 https://twitter.com/noellesdesigns/status/122443946827220992... that scrolled by made me stop using the app.

SiempreViernes 6y ago
The OP did say they used it daily for six months though, that really ought to be enough interactions for the app to personalise to the users choice.

arcturus17 6y ago

Would you trust the algorithms to tailor most content appropriately for a kid?

neilsense 6y ago

People say things like this in an attempt at shaming the original poster but one thing not considered is the location of the person using TikTok. I live in a big city and most of the feed is highly sexualised, highly political, or highly prank-related. My friend that lives in a small town about 100 miles away has to essentially send me fun tiktok videos and, no matter how many likes I do of those videos, the base diet of sexual, political, or prank-related videos are always there.

dsrees 6y ago
Not a tiktok user, but I know instagram also fills your explore feed with the content that your friends like. So even if you're tailoring your likes to appropriate posts, your friends may not be.
- rchaud 6y ago
  That may just be the initial period after a user has signed up and hasn't engaged with enough content for IG to show anything under "Discover". They may use friends' preferences as a placeholder. I know for a fact that what's on my Discover feed (surrealist art, UX/UI stuff, Newfie dog videos) is unique to me.
dilap 6y ago
I don't think likes are actually a big signal, it's mostly based on watch time in my experience.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> one thing not considered is the location of the person using TikTok. I run into this daily. I'm in the military and so my internet connection at work is mingled with a thousand other military people. Ok, it is accurate to say we are predominantly male and younger, but every time I see an ad does it have to an an anime character? Some of us recently gathered to watch the DC riot footage on youtube. The footage started with a non-skippable ad for some pervy anime game. Try holding a strait face in front of the general as a busty cartoon character in a negligee is bouncing up and down on a ten-foot screen.

refurb 6y ago

I think OP’s point is that there is plenty of questionable media on Tik-Tok. Your point about what they like is irrelevant to that point.

system16 6y ago
There is just as much questionable media on YouTube. The difference is TikTok's algorithm works a lot harder to show you more of the content it thinks you will spend more time viewing, even if you are not actively searching for it. So if OP is seeing "loads" of sexualized content, it's because they spent enough time watching sexualized content before swiping for TikTok to think that's what they want to see, and ensure they see more of it.
- gxnxcxcx 6y ago
  > So if OP is seeing "loads" of sexualized content, it's because they spent enough time watching sexualized content before swiping for TikTok to think that's what they want to see, and ensure they see more of it. Even if the picture you are painting of the previous poster is accurate, being horny once in a while is by no means justification for an endless stream of sexualized content. That's not a neutral quality of the system, but a deliberate feedback loop establishing an addictive behavior. We already know the shortcomings of the human condition and should ask for less footguns, not more.

doctorfoo 6y ago

I got a few animal abuse videos in an hour or so of swiping. It shows you these random videos in case you are interested. A few of these was enough to uninstall. I tried again some months later, and after awhile the recommendations get a little better, but there is still the occasional piece of awful content that gets thrown in there. In all cases I swiped past as quickly as possible.

emddudley 6y ago

I don't think it tells you anything about what the commenter likes. When I created a TikTok account it showed me nothing that interested me. I marked videos as "not interesting" for half an hour before giving up.

Jd 6y ago

Mine is full of fitness instructors showing of their fitness challenges,dancers showing of their synchronized dance routines, and oddball humour. I had a moment where some BLM stuff trended but on the whole it seemed to show both sides (albeit a bit the extreme versions of both sides).

tjpnz 6y ago

I've heard people describe a situation in ML (could be hill climbing) where an optimising algorithm will get stuck in a valley. At that point it will try various things in order to get unstuck, often involving a good dose of randomness. What's to say this didn't happen to op or that you really won't start seeing recommendations for Indian train death videos?

johnchristopher 6y ago
> What's to say this didn't happen to op or that you really won't start seeing recommendations for Indian train death videos? We can never be sure of anything. What if HN start pushing train death videos on the front page and the admin can't tweak the algo because a glitch in the stack prevent them from accessing the backend ?

Ceezy 6y ago

If the content is harmful it's harmful...