21 ms·

Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. Their stance is it's easier to get rid of the perso

by cronix 5y ago

Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. Their stance is it's easier to get rid of the person being made fun of or limit who can see their videos rather than the 10k people harassing them. > According to Netzpolitik, the social media company instructed moderators to find users who are “susceptible to harassment or cyberbullying based on their physical or mental condition.” These creators would then be marked with a “Risk 4” designation, meaning their videos would only be available to view in the country where it was uploaded. Company documents obtained by Netzpolitik explain TikTok’s reasoning for the ban, pointing to the fact that “bullying has been proven to cause severe emotional and physical distress, especially in minors.” > TikTok also kept a separate list of “special users” who were considered to be “particularly vulnerable.” Many of the creators on this list, Netzpolitik discovered, made videos with the hashtags #fatwoman or #disabled, or had rainbow flags and other LGBTQ+ markers in their profile. TikTok moderators marked these creators with an “Auto R,” which meant that their videos, after hitting a certain amount of views, would be banned from TikTok’s algorithm of suggested videos that appear in every user’s “For You” feed. As a result, these creators’s videos would reach a much smaller audience than the average user. For many, dreams of going “TikTok viral” and gaining notability on the platform would be squashed by the policies. https://www.them.us/story/tiktok-suppressed-fat-queer-disabled-creators https://www.them.us/story/tiktok-suppressed-fat-queer-disabl... > Social video network TikTok apparently limited the reach of people with disabilities, including facial disfigurement and Down syndrome. According to Netzpolitik.org, which spoke with a source inside the company, the policy was supposed to protect users with a high risk of bullying. In practice, however, it apparently amounted to discrimination — and the problem was compounded by moderators who needed to make snap decisions about users’ physical and mental traits. https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/2/20991843/tiktok-bytedance-platform-disabled-autism-lgbt-fat-user-algorithm-reach-limit https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/2/20991843/tiktok-bytedance...

cma 5y ago
> TikTok apparently limited the reach of people with disabilities, including facial disfigurement and Down syndrome. Hollywood and Youtube Originals presumably do this too, based on proportion of actors with these issues compared to what you see out and about.
Tade0 5y ago
> Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. Their stance is it's easier to get rid of the person being made fun of or limit who can see their videos rather than the 10k people harassing them. The company I'm contracted to has a similar policy - instead of dealing with inappropriately behaving employees/contractors who have the company's logo/name somewhere in their social media profile they just disallow using the said logo and name - that includes CVs. To quote a certain really upbeat clam: awesome idea in theory
warning26 5y ago
On an abstract level, that sounds terrible, doesn't it? At the same time though, I feel like this seems like the "least bad" possible solution. If a subset of accounts are only going viral because people want to bully them, it seems reasonable to limit that content's reach.
- whoaisme 5y ago
  I agree. It is with that same subservient mentality that I insist my daughters stay inside the house and never go outside. After all, I imagine there are lots of degenerates that want to abuse them. It's reasonable to limit my children's possible exposure to such people. Victim blaming is such a reasonable policy. Lol
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  This really only makes sense if you ignore the fact that this is happening to a person. Being punished for being harassed sounds like some kind of hell.
- foldr 5y ago
  Surely not. The best solution is to ban the people harassing others based on their sexuality.
- cronix 5y ago
  Yes, it does sound terrible, on any level. Just get rid of minority viewpoints rather than enforce some sort of basic civility when discussing them? Just get rid of the harassed rather than the harassers? How will that iterate over time? That would be like firing the current women coming forward against Governor Cuomo and leaving the governor alone to continue his ways, to put it in a current headline context.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Do minorities have the right to force the majority to listen? That is the abstract question this policy is dancing around. Or, do you let the minority talk to the minority…
kshacker 5y ago
It is an anecdote but over the last 2 weeks, a few times (3-4) when I clicked on the top live videos, it is the live of a man too obese to even walk
n8cpdx 5y ago
This is an out of touch take from the TikTok=China=bad days of 2019/2020. I see queer creators on TikTok all the time. Quite frequently actually. This was the second video that showed up for me today, with 500k views (it is propaganda out of the White House, in collaboration with a popular queer creator): https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosCgTr/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosCgTr/ Only 50k views from an amateur creator, because TikTok hates queers: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoss9jL/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoss9jL/ 90k likes because TikTok hates fat people: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/ 100k: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoGfVKH/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoGfVKH/
- bartread 5y ago
  > 90k likes because TikTok hates fat people: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/ I dunno: this bad posture video is some BS. It seems to be teaching just a different bad posture. People might be liking it, and TikTok might not be discriminating against it (which at least is positive), but that is no indication that the content is of any quality.
  - n8cpdx 5y ago
    Its a joke/meme. On TikTok, you can see the original sound a video uses, and find all the videos that use that sound, including the original: https://www.tiktok.com/music/You-dont-have-a-double-chin-6811692237181750022 https://www.tiktok.com/music/You-dont-have-a-double-chin-681... This video illustrates the original intent of the joke: https://www.tiktok.com/@officialreggiecouz/video/6836817563427556613?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 https://www.tiktok.com/@officialreggiecouz/video/68368175634... With the fat people posting, the joke is that they actually do have 'double chin'.
  - modo_mario 5y ago
    >It seems to be teaching just a different bad posture. It's making fun of a different video using it's audio. The original audio source is linked above the video. A feature i kind of love.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Drew_ 5y ago
You're not going to include the excerpt where a TikTok representative stated this was a bad practice and that they don't do those these things anymore?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  I mean, that's about as credible as Facebook claiming to be turning over a new leaf on privacy, isn't it?
  - corobo 5y ago
    True or not it's still dishonest to exclude information that moots the point
    - stale2002 5y ago
      It doesn't really moot the point. If they did stuff as egregious as that, we can make inferences about the company, their goals, and other stuff that they could be doing.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - corobo 5y ago
        We can make those inferences with the additional information too, more informed inferences even
  - kixiQu 5y ago
    But I mean, we can all still find evidence of FB malfeasance, and I can find evidence of cool fat queer people showing up in my For You feed at the very least
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      The article says "limited the reach", not "banned them". There's not a great way for you or I to evaluate if that's still happening.
vernie 5y ago
It would appear that they've changed their strategy with these types of users to one of aggressive reply moderation as I'm regularly seeing content from all of the mentioned "high-risk" categories getting millions of likes and the comment sections are generally positive.
- didibus 5y ago
  I guess it's hard to know since TikTok has around 1 billion active users. They could be dramatically reducing the set of people who gets suggested such content, and yet that content could still be suggested to millions of people. Personally, I wouldn't find it strange that the recommender systems are tweaked to different countries and sensibilities as default at first, until it learns more from your own viewing patterns and refines itself.
slownews45 5y ago
I'm getting a lot of lesbian couples in my feed. And there are extremely obese folks dancing on tiktok. So I'm not sure what you mean by tiktok getting rid of folks who are the target of harassment. That said, I do think care should be taken to avoid exploiting folks on things like social media - and that's a bit too complex to discuss here.
SpaceManNabs 5y ago
This isn't really the case anymore. And I am someone that has been super critical of tiktok. In fact, the most recent viral tiktok reposted on twitter yesterday was that dude in the white house, and it was getting reposted to both praise and criticize how queer-positive it was.
johny_walks 5y ago
Oh no. No more drama from mentally unstable people with weird pronouns.
hhlbf 5y ago
>Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. As a user: nice.
mysterEFrank 5y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/style/tiktok-gay-homiesexuals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/style/tiktok-gay-homiesex... Tik Tok is the queerest video platform out there. At least 20% of the videos I get are queer.
- CamelCaseName 5y ago
  Anecdotally, I browse r/TikTokCringe (which, despite the name, is not exclusively cringe TikToks) and it sometimes feels like that number is much closer 50% or higher. It's nice to see the data supports my observation.
  - weakfish 5y ago
    That sounds highly biased.
aerosmile 5y ago
If you had an issue with Zuck calling early Facebook users "dumb f**ks," wait until you find out what's going on behind the closed Tik Tok doors. You have to remember - we're still in the honeymoon phase with Tik Tok and haven't learned to hate them yet. Once the media and all your friends start sharing hatred about Tik Tok, leaks are going to start coming out, and there will be all the other fun ways through which we discover the true nature of the beast. My money is on Tik Tok setting new standards for how evil a corporation can be. > The China thing is touchy but I want the west to beat them by being better, not by being dismissive and protectionist. You got used to the idea that the US has the ability to be better at anything we set our mind to. For our sake, I really hope that truism to continue to be true for a long time. But unless you believe in American Exceptionalism, there are no reasons why that should be guaranteed - or even likely. China is more supportive of growth-at-all-costs, their population is willing to work harder, and the idea that Americans are more innovative hasn't been true for quite a while - look at Nio, Xiaomi, Huawei, ByteDance, and countless other examples. A lot of cutting edge stuff is coming out of China these days, with the trend only accelerating. We might even start longing for days when we used to have a strong domestic competitor in the social media space. The same thing happened in Germany - back in 2008 when Facebook was tiny on a global scale, there was a German €100m company called StudiVZ that dominated the social networking in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland with about 10m active users. I don't have to tell you how that story ended - the company is no more and all those users are on FB/IG now. Germany and Austria also happen to now be the ground zero of the global Facebook hatred [1], and I bet you they wish they had shown their domestic company a bit more love back when this would have made a difference. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/86d1ce50-3799-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c544 https://www.ft.com/content/86d1ce50-3799-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c...
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  The thesis for America exceeding China in the near term future that I have heard is "Our Chinese will beat their Chinese." [1] 1 - https://alphastar.academy/us-team-wins-1st-place-at-international-math-olympiads/ https://alphastar.academy/us-team-wins-1st-place-at-internat...
  - 5y ago
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
I would have to disagree with you about the anti-queer slant. Maye it's what I've tuned the algorithm to, but I see far, far, far more queer and people of color on TikTok than any media form I have previously encountered.
- nielsbot 5y ago
  They can (and do?) definitely firewall US content from China content.
  - romwell 5y ago
    Is this a statement about geography, or language? Something tells me we don't have too many Chinese nationals living in China on hackernews either. Or on Reddit. Or Facebook. In fact, I saw the most content from China.. on TikTok. And since those were dance videos, I quickly skipped them. But I don't know if Chinese-speaking people in the US have the same experience.
    - nielsbot 5y ago
      Neither. Maybe I was unclear. I was responding to commenters saying "I often see uncensored LBGTQ+ content". I am assuming those posts are hidden from users in China. But it's just speculation!
  - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
    I'm not sure how this is terribly relevant. Content would be segregated based on country, geography and language alone.
  - xvector 5y ago
    It's legally mandated. China's version of TikTok is a separate app called Douyin. The rest of the world gets a less restricted version.
    - nielsbot 5y ago
dilap 5y ago
I'm not sure about the allegations, but this certainly does not match my experience -- I have seen an incredibly diverse set of people in my FYP feed. (I wish YouTube had content discovery like TikTok -- YouTube seems to always want to steer me to either something that's an exact clone of the last thing I watched, or something that's just dumb and super-popular. TikTok is amazing at ferreting out all kinds of veins of interest. It's great.)
- anonomousename 5y ago
  I don't know if TikTok has a better discovery algorithm - I think its just able to feed you with more videos in a set of time. A 1 minute average video time lets you recommend 10 times more videos than a platform with a 10 minute average video.
pantalaimon 5y ago
My for you page is full of dancing fat girls because I like those videos ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
yann2 5y ago
Ah yes the Fundamental Right to Reach. If you go by what Trump or Obama say its the most important thing. Not because they used it to generate Outcomes for everyone but because They are Good at using it to generate outcomes for themselves. Nature discovering "Reach" is how we end up stuck with an "Endocrine system". Flood the whole body/system with a signal and hope for the best. Thats great in producing a pheremone driven anthill. Its not how we end up with a Nervous system and the Human Brain. Understanding the difference between the 2 models is key to understanding where social media has actual value and where it does not.
t_akosuke 5y ago
Someone will always post this on top of any thread about TikTok and that someone must not have tried Tik Tok for very long. My feed is chok full of those that are supposed to be discriminated against, they have solid audiences, and there's great healthy communities around disabilities, LGBTQI+, race issues, politics...I rarely get a hot white babe doing a trendy dance and if i do she will probably have a prosthetic leg
- JimTheMan 5y ago
  Speaking of prosthetic legs. I feel I am a part of 'overcome a disability/incredible injury and persevere'-tok. I swear tiktok have created an otherwise neglected and uplifting genre. I wonder what the algo classifies it as..?
werber 5y ago
I’m not sure if those are current policies. I fit every tag you mention and find TikTok to be the most welcoming space on the social media scene. It could be a fluke, and I could be dumb but I feel and heard as an obese neurodivergent queer on TikTok.
TeeMassive 5y ago
> Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. Their stance is it's easier to get rid of the person being made fun of or limit who can see their videos rather than the 10k people harassing them. This is not unlike how the power that be in China do their business. Harmony at all costs, even if it means suppressing those who got screwed over.
- xvector 5y ago
  Pretty sick of people who haven't used TikTok spreading bullshit like this. TikTok might just be the queerest and most inclusive platform on the internet today. Maybe y'all should actually try it before spreading misinformation.
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    > TikTok might just be the queerest and most inclusive platform on the internet today. No, TikTok merely suggests what you are actively looking for. If you're creating a new account and don't look up other kind of content then you will see a lot less of it, especially in the "default" videos.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
madeofpalk 5y ago
This does not reflect my experience with using Tiktok. Tiktok very quickly determined i wanted queer content, and that's basically all I see now.
hellomyguys 5y ago
I've seen more people with Down Syndrome and facial disfigurements on TikTok than any other platform.
blablabla123 5y ago
> Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. I cannot think of any better metaphor than a virtual American highschool with regard to Facebook or TikTok. The platforms have little to do with what they claim to deliver. That would be connecting with friends and more engaging YouTube. Instead most of the time a user just scrolls through an endless feed. Even worse there is even some kind of actual addicting factor since they are there to replace other actually better working platforms.

by cronix 5y ago

cma 5y ago

> TikTok apparently limited the reach of people with disabilities, including facial disfigurement and Down syndrome. Hollywood and Youtube Originals presumably do this too, based on proportion of actors with these issues compared to what you see out and about.

Tade0 5y ago

> Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. Their stance is it's easier to get rid of the person being made fun of or limit who can see their videos rather than the 10k people harassing them. The company I'm contracted to has a similar policy - instead of dealing with inappropriately behaving employees/contractors who have the company's logo/name somewhere in their social media profile they just disallow using the said logo and name - that includes CVs. To quote a certain really upbeat clam: awesome idea in theory

warning26 5y ago

On an abstract level, that sounds terrible, doesn't it? At the same time though, I feel like this seems like the "least bad" possible solution. If a subset of accounts are only going viral because people want to bully them, it seems reasonable to limit that content's reach.

whoaisme 5y ago
I agree. It is with that same subservient mentality that I insist my daughters stay inside the house and never go outside. After all, I imagine there are lots of degenerates that want to abuse them. It's reasonable to limit my children's possible exposure to such people. Victim blaming is such a reasonable policy. Lol
micromacrofoot 5y ago
This really only makes sense if you ignore the fact that this is happening to a person. Being punished for being harassed sounds like some kind of hell.
foldr 5y ago
Surely not. The best solution is to ban the people harassing others based on their sexuality.
cronix 5y ago
Yes, it does sound terrible, on any level. Just get rid of minority viewpoints rather than enforce some sort of basic civility when discussing them? Just get rid of the harassed rather than the harassers? How will that iterate over time? That would be like firing the current women coming forward against Governor Cuomo and leaving the governor alone to continue his ways, to put it in a current headline context.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Do minorities have the right to force the majority to listen? That is the abstract question this policy is dancing around. Or, do you let the minority talk to the minority…

kshacker 5y ago

It is an anecdote but over the last 2 weeks, a few times (3-4) when I clicked on the top live videos, it is the live of a man too obese to even walk

n8cpdx 5y ago

This is an out of touch take from the TikTok=China=bad days of 2019/2020. I see queer creators on TikTok all the time. Quite frequently actually. This was the second video that showed up for me today, with 500k views (it is propaganda out of the White House, in collaboration with a popular queer creator): https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosCgTr/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosCgTr/ Only 50k views from an amateur creator, because TikTok hates queers: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoss9jL/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoss9jL/ 90k likes because TikTok hates fat people: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/ 100k: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoGfVKH/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdoGfVKH/

bartread 5y ago
> 90k likes because TikTok hates fat people: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdosn9PW/ I dunno: this bad posture video is some BS. It seems to be teaching just a different bad posture. People might be liking it, and TikTok might not be discriminating against it (which at least is positive), but that is no indication that the content is of any quality.
- n8cpdx 5y ago
  Its a joke/meme. On TikTok, you can see the original sound a video uses, and find all the videos that use that sound, including the original: https://www.tiktok.com/music/You-dont-have-a-double-chin-6811692237181750022 https://www.tiktok.com/music/You-dont-have-a-double-chin-681... This video illustrates the original intent of the joke: https://www.tiktok.com/@officialreggiecouz/video/6836817563427556613?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1 https://www.tiktok.com/@officialreggiecouz/video/68368175634... With the fat people posting, the joke is that they actually do have 'double chin'.
- modo_mario 5y ago
  >It seems to be teaching just a different bad posture. It's making fun of a different video using it's audio. The original audio source is linked above the video. A feature i kind of love.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Drew_ 5y ago

You're not going to include the excerpt where a TikTok representative stated this was a bad practice and that they don't do those these things anymore?

ceejayoz 5y ago
I mean, that's about as credible as Facebook claiming to be turning over a new leaf on privacy, isn't it?
- corobo 5y ago
  True or not it's still dishonest to exclude information that moots the point
  - stale2002 5y ago
    It doesn't really moot the point. If they did stuff as egregious as that, we can make inferences about the company, their goals, and other stuff that they could be doing.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - corobo 5y ago
      We can make those inferences with the additional information too, more informed inferences even
- kixiQu 5y ago
  But I mean, we can all still find evidence of FB malfeasance, and I can find evidence of cool fat queer people showing up in my For You feed at the very least
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    The article says "limited the reach", not "banned them". There's not a great way for you or I to evaluate if that's still happening.

vernie 5y ago

It would appear that they've changed their strategy with these types of users to one of aggressive reply moderation as I'm regularly seeing content from all of the mentioned "high-risk" categories getting millions of likes and the comment sections are generally positive.

didibus 5y ago
I guess it's hard to know since TikTok has around 1 billion active users. They could be dramatically reducing the set of people who gets suggested such content, and yet that content could still be suggested to millions of people. Personally, I wouldn't find it strange that the recommender systems are tweaked to different countries and sensibilities as default at first, until it learns more from your own viewing patterns and refines itself.

slownews45 5y ago

I'm getting a lot of lesbian couples in my feed. And there are extremely obese folks dancing on tiktok. So I'm not sure what you mean by tiktok getting rid of folks who are the target of harassment. That said, I do think care should be taken to avoid exploiting folks on things like social media - and that's a bit too complex to discuss here.

SpaceManNabs 5y ago

This isn't really the case anymore. And I am someone that has been super critical of tiktok. In fact, the most recent viral tiktok reposted on twitter yesterday was that dude in the white house, and it was getting reposted to both praise and criticize how queer-positive it was.

johny_walks 5y ago

Oh no. No more drama from mentally unstable people with weird pronouns.

hhlbf 5y ago

>Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. As a user: nice.

mysterEFrank 5y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/style/tiktok-gay-homiesexuals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/style/tiktok-gay-homiesex... Tik Tok is the queerest video platform out there. At least 20% of the videos I get are queer.

CamelCaseName 5y ago
Anecdotally, I browse r/TikTokCringe (which, despite the name, is not exclusively cringe TikToks) and it sometimes feels like that number is much closer 50% or higher. It's nice to see the data supports my observation.
- weakfish 5y ago
  That sounds highly biased.

aerosmile 5y ago

If you had an issue with Zuck calling early Facebook users "dumb f**ks," wait until you find out what's going on behind the closed Tik Tok doors. You have to remember - we're still in the honeymoon phase with Tik Tok and haven't learned to hate them yet. Once the media and all your friends start sharing hatred about Tik Tok, leaks are going to start coming out, and there will be all the other fun ways through which we discover the true nature of the beast. My money is on Tik Tok setting new standards for how evil a corporation can be. > The China thing is touchy but I want the west to beat them by being better, not by being dismissive and protectionist. You got used to the idea that the US has the ability to be better at anything we set our mind to. For our sake, I really hope that truism to continue to be true for a long time. But unless you believe in American Exceptionalism, there are no reasons why that should be guaranteed - or even likely. China is more supportive of growth-at-all-costs, their population is willing to work harder, and the idea that Americans are more innovative hasn't been true for quite a while - look at Nio, Xiaomi, Huawei, ByteDance, and countless other examples. A lot of cutting edge stuff is coming out of China these days, with the trend only accelerating. We might even start longing for days when we used to have a strong domestic competitor in the social media space. The same thing happened in Germany - back in 2008 when Facebook was tiny on a global scale, there was a German €100m company called StudiVZ that dominated the social networking in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland with about 10m active users. I don't have to tell you how that story ended - the company is no more and all those users are on FB/IG now. Germany and Austria also happen to now be the ground zero of the global Facebook hatred [1], and I bet you they wish they had shown their domestic company a bit more love back when this would have made a difference. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/86d1ce50-3799-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c544 https://www.ft.com/content/86d1ce50-3799-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c...

ALittleLight 5y ago
The thesis for America exceeding China in the near term future that I have heard is "Our Chinese will beat their Chinese." [1] 1 - https://alphastar.academy/us-team-wins-1st-place-at-international-math-olympiads/ https://alphastar.academy/us-team-wins-1st-place-at-internat...
- 5y ago

x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago

I would have to disagree with you about the anti-queer slant. Maye it's what I've tuned the algorithm to, but I see far, far, far more queer and people of color on TikTok than any media form I have previously encountered.

nielsbot 5y ago
They can (and do?) definitely firewall US content from China content.
- romwell 5y ago
  Is this a statement about geography, or language? Something tells me we don't have too many Chinese nationals living in China on hackernews either. Or on Reddit. Or Facebook. In fact, I saw the most content from China.. on TikTok. And since those were dance videos, I quickly skipped them. But I don't know if Chinese-speaking people in the US have the same experience.
  - nielsbot 5y ago
    Neither. Maybe I was unclear. I was responding to commenters saying "I often see uncensored LBGTQ+ content". I am assuming those posts are hidden from users in China. But it's just speculation!
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
  I'm not sure how this is terribly relevant. Content would be segregated based on country, geography and language alone.
- xvector 5y ago
  It's legally mandated. China's version of TikTok is a separate app called Douyin. The rest of the world gets a less restricted version.
  - nielsbot 5y ago

dilap 5y ago

I'm not sure about the allegations, but this certainly does not match my experience -- I have seen an incredibly diverse set of people in my FYP feed. (I wish YouTube had content discovery like TikTok -- YouTube seems to always want to steer me to either something that's an exact clone of the last thing I watched, or something that's just dumb and super-popular. TikTok is amazing at ferreting out all kinds of veins of interest. It's great.)

anonomousename 5y ago
I don't know if TikTok has a better discovery algorithm - I think its just able to feed you with more videos in a set of time. A 1 minute average video time lets you recommend 10 times more videos than a platform with a 10 minute average video.

pantalaimon 5y ago

My for you page is full of dancing fat girls because I like those videos ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yann2 5y ago

Ah yes the Fundamental Right to Reach. If you go by what Trump or Obama say its the most important thing. Not because they used it to generate Outcomes for everyone but because They are Good at using it to generate outcomes for themselves. Nature discovering "Reach" is how we end up stuck with an "Endocrine system". Flood the whole body/system with a signal and hope for the best. Thats great in producing a pheremone driven anthill. Its not how we end up with a Nervous system and the Human Brain. Understanding the difference between the 2 models is key to understanding where social media has actual value and where it does not.

t_akosuke 5y ago

Someone will always post this on top of any thread about TikTok and that someone must not have tried Tik Tok for very long. My feed is chok full of those that are supposed to be discriminated against, they have solid audiences, and there's great healthy communities around disabilities, LGBTQI+, race issues, politics...I rarely get a hot white babe doing a trendy dance and if i do she will probably have a prosthetic leg

JimTheMan 5y ago
Speaking of prosthetic legs. I feel I am a part of 'overcome a disability/incredible injury and persevere'-tok. I swear tiktok have created an otherwise neglected and uplifting genre. I wonder what the algo classifies it as..?

werber 5y ago

I’m not sure if those are current policies. I fit every tag you mention and find TikTok to be the most welcoming space on the social media scene. It could be a fluke, and I could be dumb but I feel and heard as an obese neurodivergent queer on TikTok.

TeeMassive 5y ago

xvector 5y ago
Pretty sick of people who haven't used TikTok spreading bullshit like this. TikTok might just be the queerest and most inclusive platform on the internet today. Maybe y'all should actually try it before spreading misinformation.
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  > TikTok might just be the queerest and most inclusive platform on the internet today. No, TikTok merely suggests what you are actively looking for. If you're creating a new account and don't look up other kind of content then you will see a lot less of it, especially in the "default" videos.

deleted 5y ago

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madeofpalk 5y ago

This does not reflect my experience with using Tiktok. Tiktok very quickly determined i wanted queer content, and that's basically all I see now.

hellomyguys 5y ago

I've seen more people with Down Syndrome and facial disfigurements on TikTok than any other platform.

blablabla123 5y ago

> Another thing Tik Tok does is get rid of people who are obese, queer, or otherwise the target of harassment. I cannot think of any better metaphor than a virtual American highschool with regard to Facebook or TikTok. The platforms have little to do with what they claim to deliver. That would be connecting with friends and more engaging YouTube. Instead most of the time a user just scrolls through an endless feed. Even worse there is even some kind of actual addicting factor since they are there to replace other actually better working platforms.