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I'm with the rest of the commenters here in being puzzled about why TikTok is being singled out here with respect to the other social media apps. It's like comp

I'm with the rest of the commenters here in being puzzled about why TikTok is being singled out here with respect to the other social media apps. It's like comparing whiskey, vodka, and tequila in terms of health risks. You can't single out one as particularly pernicious when they do about the same thing.

CharlesW 4y ago
TikTok is a completely different experience than any form of social media that's come before. It's like comparing weed with heroin.
- enos_feedler 4y ago
  More like 60s weed vs 2020s weed
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    Also a good analogy. My guess is that most of the people commenting that it's "no different than Facebook" must not have used either extensively. They are completely different experiences.
initplus 4y ago
All social media apps have the same goal: soak up as much of your attention as possible to get you to look at ads. But it's a difference of degrees, TikTok is simply so much more successful at soaking up peoples attention than competing platforms. TikTok is seriously affecting peoples quality of life en-masse in a way that social media has never achieved before. Any social media person will tell you how insane the numbers are on TikTok compared to their competitors.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  Facebook was equally as effective when it launched. People were spending all day on Facebook, then spending all day on Farmville, then spending all day on Instagram. People got tired of it. People move on to new things.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  > TikTok is seriously affecting peoples quality of life en-masse in a way that social media has never achieved before. What evidence do you have that its effect is worse than other platforms? Perhaps its scale is worse, but is the actual effect on the individual that much worse than it is with Instagram?
  - tjr225 4y ago
    Two wrongs don’t make a right.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      But this is one wrong done by many different groups, not two wrongs.
      - tjr225 4y ago
        If I do a wrong and another person does the same wrong, it’s still two wrongs. We shouldn’t be defending TikTok because some other company did the same thing. This should be obvious to anyone.
  - initplus 4y ago
    I mean obviously TikTok keeps their data close so we only have anecdotes. But anecdotally for myself and anyone I know who has used TikTok, the app is just so much more addicting than any other social media has been before. I'm not a social media newcomer, I have used social media nearly all my life. I have used instagram in the past.But never before have I felt the same addiction/compulsion that exists with TikTok. I don't think this is that unusual an experience, have you tried using the app yourself?
    - jfengel 4y ago
      I haven't tried the app, and I appreciate your comments. From what I've heard it has the hallmarks of a fad: inexplicably engaging, and then dropped by the time it becomes popular enough that I've heard of it. Do you think that is likely here, or does this have something genuinely novel and more enduring?
echelon 4y ago
1. TikTok appears to be the optimum in social media platform evolution for the foreseeable future. The other platforms don't even come close. TikTok presents a perfect stream of user interests - no "friends" that bare little interest graph similarity. It's all delivered in a video funnel (great for ads) and A/B tests are so natural they're part of the platform itself. Highly optimized dopamine-triggering doom scrolling perfectly tailored to the viewer. 2. Some people are worried about the CCP exerting control to learn about sensitive leaders and their families [1] or to persuade populations at scale [2]. The app has been shown to capture all keyboard input [3], clipboard contents [4], and record much more than it needs to function. Furthermore, all US-based social media is blocked in China, and there's an argument for reciprocity. The topic of Facebook being used to gather international intelligence for the US is not typically mentioned in the same conversations. [1] opinion; https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-tiktok-its-all-fun-and-games-until-beijing-wants-your-info-china-ccp-national-security-app-store-apple-google-information-data-11658347613 https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-tiktok-its-all-fun-and-games... [2] https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2022/07/09/the-all-conquering-quaver https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2022/07/09/th... [3] https://www.notebookcheck.net/TikTok-is-monitoring-all-keyboard-inputs-and-taps-on-iOS.641707.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/TikTok-is-monitoring-all-keybo... [4] https://threatpost.com/tiktok-to-stop-clipboard-snooping-after-apple-privacy-feature-exposes-behavior/156945/ https://threatpost.com/tiktok-to-stop-clipboard-snooping-aft...
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > TikTok appears to be the optimum in social media platform evolution for the foreseeable future. Could have been Vine, but we allow leaders in an industry to buy out insurgent, innovative competition and shut them down. > Furthermore, all US-based social media is blocked in China, and there's an argument for reciprocity. Reciprocity would be walling off sections of our social networks that could be bound to Chinese censorship laws. We get a special TikTok that isn't bound by Chinese censorship, if we want to be in China we must give them a special Facebook that is.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    > We get a special TikTok that isn't bound by Chinese censorship Content negative to China gets removed all the time while content negative to the US stays up. So I would assume there is still censorship.
justapassenger 4y ago
Facebook, IG, Snapchat and other old social apps already had their fair share of dirt thrown at them. TikTok didn’t, and lots of people think that they are just a cool app for teenagers to record their dancing. So it’s more about telling people who already know that alcohol is bad, that White Claw is also bad.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  Not really. TikTok has had tons of bad press from day one, even if it was just the sense of ick that it's just for kids and skeevy people watching young people dancing. And there's been criticism for years that it's a covert tool China is using to manipulate our youths. We need to think of the children!
  - ficklepickle 4y ago
    They do seem to have a policy of asymmetric warfare, for example turning a blind eye to the export of fentanyl. It's not exactly far fetched. See the book "Unrestricted Warfare" by 2 PLA colonels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
    - anonporridge 4y ago
      I doubt they merely turn a blind eye. China's mass production and export of fentanyl strikes me as a literal modern Opium War.
      - Eupraxias 4y ago
        Is it really possible for anyone to doubt that it is anything but this?
        anonporridge 4y ago
        Sure. Lots of people will refuse to even entertain the thought, because if true, it means that we're already at war and our people are being killed, and most western people are too mentally weak to take on the burden of accepting that bitter reality.
anonporridge 4y ago
A better analogy. It's like comparing alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. Historically, we socially glorified alcohol and tobacco while heavily criminalizing marijuana in order to be sneakily racist. The problem is not what TikTok is doing to people. The problem is that we don't control it and China does. This is a sneaky thing those who manufacture consent do. They are very thorough in calling out the bad of the thing that exists outside their control and profit structure, but then accuse you of whataboutism when you try to compare and contrast with the status quo they are implicitly supporting in their criticism.
- martin_a 4y ago
  > The problem is that we don't control it and China does. So, if TikTok was a US-based company (like Meta) fucking up peoples' minds (like Meta) it would be fine? Sounds a bit racist, if not everybody is allowed to destroy lives.
  - anonporridge 4y ago
    It would be less bad, yes, because American elites could more easily co-opt and control it to their support own agendas, like they are doing with Meta and Twitter and have done with all traditional media. I have heard it said that in China, the TikTok algorithm heavily favors content supporting and glorifying science and engineering, in an attempt to encourage their youths to go into those fields, while here, they prioritize vanity like dancing and bodybuilding.
    - philliphaydon 4y ago
      Im in Taiwan, I downloaded tiktok, and basically in between a bunch of Taiwan content, was bombarded with propaganda videos about how covid started in the US and it’s all the US fault, and how amazing China is… So I don’t doubt they push content that keeps us dumb while they try to use their own platform for good inside China.
berjin 4y ago
If YouTube and Facebook are like vodka then TikTok is crack. LinkedIn is like a used bottle everyone wants to piss in but nobody wants to drink from.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  Not really. The Youtube rabbit hole is just as addictive and damaging as TikTok. Possible more so.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > TikTok is crack. If you mean lots of propaganda meant to bolster racist sentiments. Crack Babies: The Epidemic That Wasn't https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27coca.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27coca.html
fezfight 4y ago
If it helps bring one down, I say focus on it. Bring down one social media platform, itll shine a light on the rest.
Eupraxias 4y ago
The idea is that if religion is like an opium for the masses, and if Facebook is more like morphine, TikTok is like poorly made fentanyl.

CharlesW 4y ago

TikTok is a completely different experience than any form of social media that's come before. It's like comparing weed with heroin.

enos_feedler 4y ago
More like 60s weed vs 2020s weed
- CharlesW 4y ago
  Also a good analogy. My guess is that most of the people commenting that it's "no different than Facebook" must not have used either extensively. They are completely different experiences.

initplus 4y ago

All social media apps have the same goal: soak up as much of your attention as possible to get you to look at ads. But it's a difference of degrees, TikTok is simply so much more successful at soaking up peoples attention than competing platforms. TikTok is seriously affecting peoples quality of life en-masse in a way that social media has never achieved before. Any social media person will tell you how insane the numbers are on TikTok compared to their competitors.

GauntletWizard 4y ago
Facebook was equally as effective when it launched. People were spending all day on Facebook, then spending all day on Farmville, then spending all day on Instagram. People got tired of it. People move on to new things.
anonporridge 4y ago
> TikTok is seriously affecting peoples quality of life en-masse in a way that social media has never achieved before. What evidence do you have that its effect is worse than other platforms? Perhaps its scale is worse, but is the actual effect on the individual that much worse than it is with Instagram?
- tjr225 4y ago
  Two wrongs don’t make a right.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    But this is one wrong done by many different groups, not two wrongs.
    - tjr225 4y ago
      If I do a wrong and another person does the same wrong, it’s still two wrongs. We shouldn’t be defending TikTok because some other company did the same thing. This should be obvious to anyone.
- initplus 4y ago
  I mean obviously TikTok keeps their data close so we only have anecdotes. But anecdotally for myself and anyone I know who has used TikTok, the app is just so much more addicting than any other social media has been before. I'm not a social media newcomer, I have used social media nearly all my life. I have used instagram in the past.But never before have I felt the same addiction/compulsion that exists with TikTok. I don't think this is that unusual an experience, have you tried using the app yourself?
  - jfengel 4y ago
    I haven't tried the app, and I appreciate your comments. From what I've heard it has the hallmarks of a fad: inexplicably engaging, and then dropped by the time it becomes popular enough that I've heard of it. Do you think that is likely here, or does this have something genuinely novel and more enduring?

echelon 4y ago

1. TikTok appears to be the optimum in social media platform evolution for the foreseeable future. The other platforms don't even come close. TikTok presents a perfect stream of user interests - no "friends" that bare little interest graph similarity. It's all delivered in a video funnel (great for ads) and A/B tests are so natural they're part of the platform itself. Highly optimized dopamine-triggering doom scrolling perfectly tailored to the viewer. 2. Some people are worried about the CCP exerting control to learn about sensitive leaders and their families [1] or to persuade populations at scale [2]. The app has been shown to capture all keyboard input [3], clipboard contents [4], and record much more than it needs to function. Furthermore, all US-based social media is blocked in China, and there's an argument for reciprocity. The topic of Facebook being used to gather international intelligence for the US is not typically mentioned in the same conversations. [1] opinion; https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-tiktok-its-all-fun-and-games-until-beijing-wants-your-info-china-ccp-national-security-app-store-apple-google-information-data-11658347613 https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-tiktok-its-all-fun-and-games... [2] https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2022/07/09/the-all-conquering-quaver https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2022/07/09/th... [3] https://www.notebookcheck.net/TikTok-is-monitoring-all-keyboard-inputs-and-taps-on-iOS.641707.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/TikTok-is-monitoring-all-keybo... [4] https://threatpost.com/tiktok-to-stop-clipboard-snooping-after-apple-privacy-feature-exposes-behavior/156945/ https://threatpost.com/tiktok-to-stop-clipboard-snooping-aft...

pessimizer 4y ago
> TikTok appears to be the optimum in social media platform evolution for the foreseeable future. Could have been Vine, but we allow leaders in an industry to buy out insurgent, innovative competition and shut them down. > Furthermore, all US-based social media is blocked in China, and there's an argument for reciprocity. Reciprocity would be walling off sections of our social networks that could be bound to Chinese censorship laws. We get a special TikTok that isn't bound by Chinese censorship, if we want to be in China we must give them a special Facebook that is.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  > We get a special TikTok that isn't bound by Chinese censorship Content negative to China gets removed all the time while content negative to the US stays up. So I would assume there is still censorship.

justapassenger 4y ago

Facebook, IG, Snapchat and other old social apps already had their fair share of dirt thrown at them. TikTok didn’t, and lots of people think that they are just a cool app for teenagers to record their dancing. So it’s more about telling people who already know that alcohol is bad, that White Claw is also bad.

anonporridge 4y ago
Not really. TikTok has had tons of bad press from day one, even if it was just the sense of ick that it's just for kids and skeevy people watching young people dancing. And there's been criticism for years that it's a covert tool China is using to manipulate our youths. We need to think of the children!
- ficklepickle 4y ago
  They do seem to have a policy of asymmetric warfare, for example turning a blind eye to the export of fentanyl. It's not exactly far fetched. See the book "Unrestricted Warfare" by 2 PLA colonels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
  - anonporridge 4y ago
    I doubt they merely turn a blind eye. China's mass production and export of fentanyl strikes me as a literal modern Opium War.
    - Eupraxias 4y ago
      Is it really possible for anyone to doubt that it is anything but this?
      - anonporridge 4y ago
        Sure. Lots of people will refuse to even entertain the thought, because if true, it means that we're already at war and our people are being killed, and most western people are too mentally weak to take on the burden of accepting that bitter reality.

anonporridge 4y ago

A better analogy. It's like comparing alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. Historically, we socially glorified alcohol and tobacco while heavily criminalizing marijuana in order to be sneakily racist. The problem is not what TikTok is doing to people. The problem is that we don't control it and China does. This is a sneaky thing those who manufacture consent do. They are very thorough in calling out the bad of the thing that exists outside their control and profit structure, but then accuse you of whataboutism when you try to compare and contrast with the status quo they are implicitly supporting in their criticism.

martin_a 4y ago
> The problem is that we don't control it and China does. So, if TikTok was a US-based company (like Meta) fucking up peoples' minds (like Meta) it would be fine? Sounds a bit racist, if not everybody is allowed to destroy lives.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  It would be less bad, yes, because American elites could more easily co-opt and control it to their support own agendas, like they are doing with Meta and Twitter and have done with all traditional media. I have heard it said that in China, the TikTok algorithm heavily favors content supporting and glorifying science and engineering, in an attempt to encourage their youths to go into those fields, while here, they prioritize vanity like dancing and bodybuilding.
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    Im in Taiwan, I downloaded tiktok, and basically in between a bunch of Taiwan content, was bombarded with propaganda videos about how covid started in the US and it’s all the US fault, and how amazing China is… So I don’t doubt they push content that keeps us dumb while they try to use their own platform for good inside China.

berjin 4y ago

If YouTube and Facebook are like vodka then TikTok is crack. LinkedIn is like a used bottle everyone wants to piss in but nobody wants to drink from.

anonporridge 4y ago
Not really. The Youtube rabbit hole is just as addictive and damaging as TikTok. Possible more so.
pessimizer 4y ago
> TikTok is crack. If you mean lots of propaganda meant to bolster racist sentiments. Crack Babies: The Epidemic That Wasn't https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27coca.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27coca.html

fezfight 4y ago

If it helps bring one down, I say focus on it. Bring down one social media platform, itll shine a light on the rest.

Eupraxias 4y ago

The idea is that if religion is like an opium for the masses, and if Facebook is more like morphine, TikTok is like poorly made fentanyl.