7 ms·

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

by 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]
PhasmaFelis 5y ago
No one said that there are no queer people on TikTok, or that they get no exposure. They said that TikTok artificially limits their exposure in several ways, especially outside their home country. That's probably not a big deal if they're in the US, but potentially a very big deal elsewhere.
- stackedinserter 5y ago
  Maybe most people aren't interested in queer content, so it doesn't get viral. It may be there, but most people immediately scroll it up.
  - fortran77 5y ago
    Exactly. I'm a gay man, but most of the content I watch on social media platforms isn't "gay" content.
  - PhasmaFelis 5y ago
    That has nothing to do with TikTok explicitly limiting the suggestion rates of certain video categories.
drzaiusapelord 5y ago
50k is really amateur numbers. 50k people have probably already read you comment. Charli Damelio's last post was her eating a bag of Takis for 20 seconds and it got 15 MILLION views. We're just not seeing those numbers in marginalized communities on tiktok but we do see queer creators with top-tier numbers on youtube, facebook, insta, etc. Where's the trans Charli or the obese Charli or the anti-capitalist Charli? Secondly, you're cherry picking examples. First you can't see how much more exposure these people would have had. Secondly, you're probably not in a country where these people would be invisible to you. Cherry-picking model minorities isn't helping your case at all. I'm not seeing anything too upsetting to the status quo here or to anything that might threaten tiktok economically. Those voices certainly aren't going to be heard as much. This is like cherry picking popular books, movies, and posters in China and saying, "So where's all the censorship then?" Survivorship bias is at work here, you're only really seeing the survivors. Its incredible that tiktok literally has admitted to this: https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/50444/1/tiktok-admits-to-censoring-lgbtq-hashtags-gay-lesbian-transgender https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/50444/1/ti... Yet somehow the popular HN response is alt-right denial and dismissal of anything that remotely sounds "SJW" to them. Literally after The Intercept and Netzpolitik broke these stories to the public. Its not even in the realm of "wow are they doing this?" As much as it is in the realm of "How much of this are they doing and how much do we not know?" “TikTok users posting videos with these hashtags are given the impression their posts are just as searchable as posts by other users, but in fact they aren’t,” the report said. “In practice, most of these hashtags are categorised in TikTok’s code in the same way that terrorist groups, illicit substances, and swear words are treated on the platform.” Its incredible to me that the oppression could not be more obvious, yet bigoted attitudes guarantee that some people will refuse to believe even what tiktok says. The fact that this company is grouping terrorists with queer and disabled people is completely and utterly inexcusable. Also encouraging vaccinations isn't "propaganda" but sane and safe health policy.
- broknbottle 5y ago
  You are cherry picking influencers to try and argue your point.. How do you know Charli Damelio isn’t queer? Maybe the reason you don’t see a certain demographic doing big numbers on a platform is because the users on said platform are not interested? I find it odd that you immediately jump to the conclusion that it must be oppression because everybody doesn’t find what you think they should find interesting. I’d rather watch somebody eat a bag of chips than listen to them talk about their sexual preferences.. I could care less what somebody finds attractive or who/what they are dating.
argonaut 5y ago
You really cannot make a claim about TikTok's content distribution based on your own feed. TikTok's feed is extremely hyper-targeted for each individual.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  Isn't that the point? You can't say that tiktok "gets rid of people" in those demographics when Tiktok's algo creates all these micro communities where they flourish. I've never seen more diversity and representation on social media than on Tiktok.
  - spijdar 5y ago
    Sure, it "gets rid of people" by isolating them into bubbles and makes sure people who don't want to see it, well, won't see it. Is it "representation" if it's only seen by people who want to see it? I think it's a big question, and one that applies to most social media, even if TikTok is one of the most extreme examples. Is it ethically/morally/socially good to de facto isolate niche groups of like-minded people into closed spaces? It feels bad to me, but I've also considered that people are "hard wired" for much smaller groups. Maybe the best way to deal with the scale of social media is to condense it down to small, isolated communities, although I personally prefer to actively choose them myself, rather than being herded by an algorithm into some unlabeled cluster with similar viewing habits.
    - Banana699 5y ago
      >Is it "representation" if it's only seen by people who want to see it? Why is that objectionable? It's not like people don't know about queer or trans people and tiktok is shielding them from knowing, people know and just aren't interested. Forcing people to watch things they aren't interested in only makes them resentful and fed up with them, instead of simply uninterested. Interest can't be demanded.
      - spijdar 5y ago
        I don't think it's objectionable, I just think it's relevant to the discussion. I think most people use the word "representation" to mean a topic or idea being seen/floated within a larger audience, e.g. "representation" is having <x> actor in a Hollywood blockbuster (for the purpose of, say, exposing more people to a positive image of <x>). This doesn't seem like representation to me. That said, if the goal of representation is just to provide more media/content for people who like <x>, then yes, this is representation. That's not how I think of the word, but words don't have concrete meanings in the real world.

by n8cpdx 5y ago

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]

PhasmaFelis 5y ago

No one said that there are no queer people on TikTok, or that they get no exposure. They said that TikTok artificially limits their exposure in several ways, especially outside their home country. That's probably not a big deal if they're in the US, but potentially a very big deal elsewhere.

stackedinserter 5y ago
Maybe most people aren't interested in queer content, so it doesn't get viral. It may be there, but most people immediately scroll it up.
- fortran77 5y ago
  Exactly. I'm a gay man, but most of the content I watch on social media platforms isn't "gay" content.
- PhasmaFelis 5y ago
  That has nothing to do with TikTok explicitly limiting the suggestion rates of certain video categories.

drzaiusapelord 5y ago

50k is really amateur numbers. 50k people have probably already read you comment. Charli Damelio's last post was her eating a bag of Takis for 20 seconds and it got 15 MILLION views. We're just not seeing those numbers in marginalized communities on tiktok but we do see queer creators with top-tier numbers on youtube, facebook, insta, etc. Where's the trans Charli or the obese Charli or the anti-capitalist Charli? Secondly, you're cherry picking examples. First you can't see how much more exposure these people would have had. Secondly, you're probably not in a country where these people would be invisible to you. Cherry-picking model minorities isn't helping your case at all. I'm not seeing anything too upsetting to the status quo here or to anything that might threaten tiktok economically. Those voices certainly aren't going to be heard as much. This is like cherry picking popular books, movies, and posters in China and saying, "So where's all the censorship then?" Survivorship bias is at work here, you're only really seeing the survivors. Its incredible that tiktok literally has admitted to this: https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/50444/1/tiktok-admits-to-censoring-lgbtq-hashtags-gay-lesbian-transgender https://www.dazeddigital.com/science-tech/article/50444/1/ti... Yet somehow the popular HN response is alt-right denial and dismissal of anything that remotely sounds "SJW" to them. Literally after The Intercept and Netzpolitik broke these stories to the public. Its not even in the realm of "wow are they doing this?" As much as it is in the realm of "How much of this are they doing and how much do we not know?" “TikTok users posting videos with these hashtags are given the impression their posts are just as searchable as posts by other users, but in fact they aren’t,” the report said. “In practice, most of these hashtags are categorised in TikTok’s code in the same way that terrorist groups, illicit substances, and swear words are treated on the platform.” Its incredible to me that the oppression could not be more obvious, yet bigoted attitudes guarantee that some people will refuse to believe even what tiktok says. The fact that this company is grouping terrorists with queer and disabled people is completely and utterly inexcusable. Also encouraging vaccinations isn't "propaganda" but sane and safe health policy.

broknbottle 5y ago
You are cherry picking influencers to try and argue your point.. How do you know Charli Damelio isn’t queer? Maybe the reason you don’t see a certain demographic doing big numbers on a platform is because the users on said platform are not interested? I find it odd that you immediately jump to the conclusion that it must be oppression because everybody doesn’t find what you think they should find interesting. I’d rather watch somebody eat a bag of chips than listen to them talk about their sexual preferences.. I could care less what somebody finds attractive or who/what they are dating.

argonaut 5y ago

You really cannot make a claim about TikTok's content distribution based on your own feed. TikTok's feed is extremely hyper-targeted for each individual.

madeofpalk 5y ago
Isn't that the point? You can't say that tiktok "gets rid of people" in those demographics when Tiktok's algo creates all these micro communities where they flourish. I've never seen more diversity and representation on social media than on Tiktok.
- spijdar 5y ago
  Sure, it "gets rid of people" by isolating them into bubbles and makes sure people who don't want to see it, well, won't see it. Is it "representation" if it's only seen by people who want to see it? I think it's a big question, and one that applies to most social media, even if TikTok is one of the most extreme examples. Is it ethically/morally/socially good to de facto isolate niche groups of like-minded people into closed spaces? It feels bad to me, but I've also considered that people are "hard wired" for much smaller groups. Maybe the best way to deal with the scale of social media is to condense it down to small, isolated communities, although I personally prefer to actively choose them myself, rather than being herded by an algorithm into some unlabeled cluster with similar viewing habits.
  - Banana699 5y ago
    >Is it "representation" if it's only seen by people who want to see it? Why is that objectionable? It's not like people don't know about queer or trans people and tiktok is shielding them from knowing, people know and just aren't interested. Forcing people to watch things they aren't interested in only makes them resentful and fed up with them, instead of simply uninterested. Interest can't be demanded.
    - spijdar 5y ago
      I don't think it's objectionable, I just think it's relevant to the discussion. I think most people use the word "representation" to mean a topic or idea being seen/floated within a larger audience, e.g. "representation" is having <x> actor in a Hollywood blockbuster (for the purpose of, say, exposing more people to a positive image of <x>). This doesn't seem like representation to me. That said, if the goal of representation is just to provide more media/content for people who like <x>, then yes, this is representation. That's not how I think of the word, but words don't have concrete meanings in the real world.