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As a Frenchmen, Youtube is exactly the same: - algo is a black box, and uncalibrated youtube makes my eyes bleed; - own by the biggest spy on the planet, goog

As a Frenchmen, Youtube is exactly the same: - algo is a black box, and uncalibrated youtube makes my eyes bleed; - own by the biggest spy on the planet, google, known for manipulating information, monopolistic behavior, participation in the worst gov programs (e.g: PRISM); - impose American censorship rules to the entire world, and makes creators do inane cuts to fit some terrible metrics Besides, the typical Tik Tok customer doesn't give a damn about those things. They didn't on facebook, insta, whatsapp, or whatever. They don't even know it's an issue, "have nothing to hide", don't care about privacy, power centralization, citizen spying and so on. So Tik Tok or something else doesn't matter.

treeman79 5y ago
Explaining these to the average person makes you seem like a conspiracy nut case. No of some of the same people will go on about the illuminati controlling everything. But you talk specific companies or policies and you get an eye roll.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > people will go on about the illuminati controlling everything But we do. :)
MathCodeLove 5y ago
I see where you're coming from, but Youtube isn't nearly as opaque as Tiktok. You can actually search for videos on youtube, typically content is longer and has a higher production quality which reduces probability of doom-scrolling. As someone else mentioned, TikTok is intentionally designed to be addictive and gamified, much more so that youtube or facebook. And, objectively speaking, the US government is far preferable to the CCP. The US has it's issues and has made mistakes in the past, the CCP is still putting Muslims in concentration camps and exercises regular authoritarian controll over it's citizens. Militarily, the US is allied with most EU powers (including France) and generally has good intentions for it's allies. China, on the other hand, finds itself on the outside of most alliances, and considering that even their own people are treated poorly, I can only imagine that their intentions for others are not positive. American tech companies take your data and sell it to advertisers, I don't like it, but they do. The US government only accesses it if they have a reason to do so and subpoena the specific information needed. The Chinese government? I have no doubt that they're collecting data for much more nefarious purposes. Intelligence indicates that they've been improving their military forces massively in the last several decades. It wouldn't be hard for them to subtly start slipping in propaganda into the tiktok feeds of countries they intend to invade, and then they'll have local-national support. I think it's easy to look at this and say objectively that it's worse. If Youtube or Facebook were owned by France or Germany I would hold the same belief that tiktok is worse. It's not fear of some mysterious "other", but fear of a proven enemy to freedom and human rights, China.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  > The US government only accesses it if they have a reason to do so and subpoena the specific information needed As Snowden revelations have shown, this is not the case. > It wouldn't be hard for them to subtly start slipping in propaganda into the tiktok feeds of countries they intend to invade Last time I checked, the USA were the number one warmonger in the world, sometimes by lying about WMD and going against the vote of the UN. I'm not defending China, I do think Tiktok is a dictatorship honeypot, but the USA is only good to the USA. A cancer is worst than diabetes, but I still don't think diabetes is a good thing. And google is only good to google. I'm in the good graces of neither, being in Europe, and consider both as services that will try to get as much of me as possible when I use them. And the minute our interest are not aligned with theirs, they will bite us.
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    Fun fact, if you are not a US citizen, you have no 4th amendment rights against seizure of your data. No judge or legal process necessary beyond a blanket executive order.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - indymike 5y ago
      What? The courts have ruled many many times that the Constitution DOES apply to non-citizens(aside foreign combatants in wartime).
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - google234123 5y ago
        Only within the borders of the United States.
  - angelzen 5y ago
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Yep, but tiktok is chinese, youtube is american, so by definition tiktok bad, youtube good. All the "data gathering" mentioned in all the FUD around tiktok in recent years is done by google/facebook too, and noone mentiones it at all.

treeman79 5y ago

Explaining these to the average person makes you seem like a conspiracy nut case. No of some of the same people will go on about the illuminati controlling everything. But you talk specific companies or policies and you get an eye roll.

throwaway210222 5y ago
> people will go on about the illuminati controlling everything But we do. :)

MathCodeLove 5y ago

I see where you're coming from, but Youtube isn't nearly as opaque as Tiktok. You can actually search for videos on youtube, typically content is longer and has a higher production quality which reduces probability of doom-scrolling. As someone else mentioned, TikTok is intentionally designed to be addictive and gamified, much more so that youtube or facebook. And, objectively speaking, the US government is far preferable to the CCP. The US has it's issues and has made mistakes in the past, the CCP is still putting Muslims in concentration camps and exercises regular authoritarian controll over it's citizens. Militarily, the US is allied with most EU powers (including France) and generally has good intentions for it's allies. China, on the other hand, finds itself on the outside of most alliances, and considering that even their own people are treated poorly, I can only imagine that their intentions for others are not positive. American tech companies take your data and sell it to advertisers, I don't like it, but they do. The US government only accesses it if they have a reason to do so and subpoena the specific information needed. The Chinese government? I have no doubt that they're collecting data for much more nefarious purposes. Intelligence indicates that they've been improving their military forces massively in the last several decades. It wouldn't be hard for them to subtly start slipping in propaganda into the tiktok feeds of countries they intend to invade, and then they'll have local-national support. I think it's easy to look at this and say objectively that it's worse. If Youtube or Facebook were owned by France or Germany I would hold the same belief that tiktok is worse. It's not fear of some mysterious "other", but fear of a proven enemy to freedom and human rights, China.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
> The US government only accesses it if they have a reason to do so and subpoena the specific information needed As Snowden revelations have shown, this is not the case. > It wouldn't be hard for them to subtly start slipping in propaganda into the tiktok feeds of countries they intend to invade Last time I checked, the USA were the number one warmonger in the world, sometimes by lying about WMD and going against the vote of the UN. I'm not defending China, I do think Tiktok is a dictatorship honeypot, but the USA is only good to the USA. A cancer is worst than diabetes, but I still don't think diabetes is a good thing. And google is only good to google. I'm in the good graces of neither, being in Europe, and consider both as services that will try to get as much of me as possible when I use them. And the minute our interest are not aligned with theirs, they will bite us.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  Fun fact, if you are not a US citizen, you have no 4th amendment rights against seizure of your data. No judge or legal process necessary beyond a blanket executive order.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - indymike 5y ago
    What? The courts have ruled many many times that the Constitution DOES apply to non-citizens(aside foreign combatants in wartime).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - google234123 5y ago
      Only within the borders of the United States.
- angelzen 5y ago

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

Yep, but tiktok is chinese, youtube is american, so by definition tiktok bad, youtube good. All the "data gathering" mentioned in all the FUD around tiktok in recent years is done by google/facebook too, and noone mentiones it at all.