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TikTok profits from livestreams of families begging

531 points by DocFeind 4y ago

yibberish 4y ago
and the top rungs of society profit from poor people existing (allows for lower wages by the desperate need for any work)... i.e. I'm calling out the hypocrisy and straw escape goat to point that this piece is just another salvo in the ongoing culture war.
gubernation 4y ago
endisneigh 4y ago
> But when the BBC used the in-app system to report 30 accounts featuring children begging, TikTok said there had been no violation of its policies in any of the cases. After the BBC contacted TikTok directly for comment, the company banned all of the accounts. > It said in a statement: "We are deeply concerned by the information and allegations brought to us by the BBC, and have taken prompt and rigorous action.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ClassyJacket 4y ago
  These companies don't care about banning people because it's more profitable not to - unless you upset someone about a trendy topic like gender. This week I reported someone on Twitter for telling me to kill myself ("Kill yourself" was their exact words). Twitter said they found this "Doesn't violate our rules". Part of the problem is that TikTok appears to have relied far too heavily on automation for moderation. I was suspended for saying "America is worse" and also for saying "God isn't real". Many girls have been banned for showing their shoulders. But I guess those users aren't bringing in money like the ones taking donations.
  - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
    >- unless you upset someone about a trendy topic like gender. I am very active in the online trans sphere and let me tell you, they don't care about that either. The situation is not that any topic has a focus, the online moderation of sites of this size is simply flawed. Only clear hate speech is grounds for banning and muting. And even then, when I say clear, it's about keywords that trigger algorithms.
    - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
      But “kill yourself” isn’t a keyword?
      - miroljub 4y ago
        martin_a 4y ago
        In Germany we have a saying "Steter Tropfen höhlt den Stein", which seems to be translated to "Little strokes fell big oaks". Hear it often enough, without any consequences for the people telling you that, and it will hurt you.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        I suspect the majority of the "AI" for these moderation systems is "has this been reported by X number or Y% percentage of post viewers? then ban".
      - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
        In my experience, the same string can result in different moderation based on unknown factors. For example, I used to report the trans slur of the "t" word and Facebook would remove the content. Now, when I report it, the comment stays posted. Maybe it has something to do with the age of the post or the number of positive reactions to it. Maybe I reported too much and the false positives resulted in my account being banned from reporting comments. Similar behaviors on other platforms.
- falcolas 4y ago
  TikTok is notoriously inconsistent in the application of its TOS. One person I follow was set up as a partner (which includes things like bank accounts and drivers licenses), yet their account was banned for the personality being under 13 (she's 31). The remedy? Send a picture of the drivers license TIkTok already has associated with the account to prove her age.
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    there's literally a whole genre of live trolling where you try to get people who are obviously under 13 or close enough to say so and they get banned hella quick usually.
  - px43 4y ago
    Turns out that TikTok, like many other companies, is made up of individual humans, and not some all powerful uni-mind.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      >> TikTok is notoriously inconsistent in the application of its TOS. One person I follow was set up as a partner (which includes things like bank accounts and drivers licenses), yet their account was banned for the personality being under 13 (she's 31). The remedy? Send a picture of the drivers license TIkTok already has associated with the account to prove her age. > Turns out that TikTok, like many other companies, is made up of individual humans, and not some all powerful uni-mind. Though you'd think in a case like this, they'd have the ID on file or be able to easily infer from their account metadata that the person is over 13. It seems like more of a case of dumb one-size-fits-all processes or laziness on the part of the moderator.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Which is what every single company would say when caught red-handed.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
vxNsr 4y ago
This isn’t surprising. Your local grocery chain store does the same thing when they ask if you want to donate to whatever charity they’re promoting that month. At least there it’s obviously a “finders fee” as they wouldn’t get the amount of engagement if not for the store. But if you want to donate to a place always do it directly. Facebook also takes a good chunk.
- ianai 4y ago
  I’d consider that a donation to the grocery store and worthwhile. Those are some of the worst, lowest paying jobs. People treat retail workers horribly and grocery is where everybody goes. And grocery is known for awful margins. Tiktok is just the long arm of the CCP.
  - cube00 4y ago
    Don't kid yourself. Grocery store executives are doing just fine for themselves. Donating does not make life any better for the front line workers. If you want to help, support your local independent stores and avoid the chains. I know that's not practical for everyone and can be more expensive but better conditions for workers doesn't come cheap.
    - LBJsPNS 4y ago
      "better conditions for workers doesn't come cheap." Unless you take them out of the bloated salaries and perks of upper management...
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Even for the millions-paid CEOs it doesn't end up much when divided out among all the workers. You can do much more for retail workers as a customer by not being an ass and by doing things like putting things back where you found them instead of leaving eggs in amongst the produce, etc.
  - codyb 4y ago
oefrha 4y ago
70% cut is surprising, I thought it's 50% like Twitch. Indeed, Googling "tiktok streaming gift cut" still tells me TikTok takes 50% commission on multiple sites. I wonder if there are withheld taxes or something.
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  Unfortunately it’s a meme that you can’t make any money on tiktok compared to other platforms. The money comes from sponsored content and Amazon affiliate links. Tiktok itself pays out very little, especially vs YouTube.
- ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
  Foreign exchange fees, perhaps?
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  Is it 70%? App stores are taking 30% off the top. The article doesn't talk about that, so I wonder if they are taking the total and working from there. $1000 in donations means $300 to the app store, which would leave $400 for TikTok and $300 for the streamer. While that still doesn't look as good, 40% is significantly less than 70%. Edit: In the test they performed, it's clear they are ignoring the app store fee. Simply put, this is a really misinformed article at best.
  - risyachka 4y ago
    Not sure about Apple but Google doesn't take fees from charitable donations.
    - jasonlotito 4y ago
      Are these actually considered charitable donations though in Google's eyes? The article talks about "digital gifts" so it's not "donations" in the legal sense.
    - kristjansson 4y ago
      However well intentioned the gifts in this article are, it’s be hard to convince me that most gifts sent through TikTok are “charitable”, and sorting that out on the App Store side seems like a nightmare.
mickael-kerjean 4y ago
That's very much the same as the AWS marketplace. I have an image that should be getting 1000$ per month but Amazon sent 362$ this month. The actual payment is always very far from what the daily reports tells you and it's not like they've withheld the taxes from it...
- mannykannot 4y ago
  If they were withholding taxes, I would guess that, in most jurisdictions, they would be required to notify you formally, and quite possibly the taxing authority as well.
- TuringNYC 4y ago
  AWS is also withholding infra fees, which seems fair depending on the cost of the software vs cost of underlying infra.
  - mickael-kerjean 4y ago
    yes but that comes on top of it all. If you account for the hardware fees then they get a lot more than 70% ...
- BonoboIO 4y ago
  Typical Amazon ;-)
view 4y ago
It's funny how these journalists spend all this time researching these stories but miss a very important point - Google and Apple take a 30% cut off in-app purchases. Governments take sales taxes/VAT as well - up to 25% in some European countries. It's not TikTok pocketing 70%.
- risyachka 4y ago
  This point is not important.Not even comparable. One is a purchase in the shop, another one is a charitable donation. And google does not take 30% from charitable donations.
  - sneaky_verily 4y ago
    I missed this when I read the title. TikTok does not have a charity feature and the money in this case is not going to charitable organizations. They are regular live streams where people are asking for money and watchers are giving money through a standard "tip" feature of live streams.
  - view 4y ago
    TikTok gifts are not charitable donations. They are in-app purchases. For every gift you buy, streamers earn "diamonds" which can be withdrawn for cash. You cannot built this kind of functionality without giving Google/Apple a 30% cut, plus they collect sales tax and VAT on your behalf. I'll give you an example. If I sell an in-app purchase for a price of £1 in the UK, £0.17 go to the government, and £0.25 to Apple/Google. I'm left with £0.58!
    - WHA8m 4y ago
      That's the point and the title is misleading. If you buy goods from an organization because you'd like to support their cause, that's not a donation but a simple purchase. Even though 'donation' is not mentioned here, it is implied in many of the comments I read in this thread. But that's far from what it actually is and how the transaction is worked. The story would actually be outrageous if some vendor took x % from a 'donation'. But that's not the case here. These are 'purchases' with the intention of helping someone. Nevertheless, the intention doesn't matter at all here. If you want to donate, you'll have to look for a place to 'donate'. And then your transaction will be handled accordingly (hopefully).
rvz 4y ago
Hardly surprising. No different or in fact worse than the alternatives then for monetisation and pleasing the algorithm. So once again TikTok screwing over their billions of users. Why would anyone expect anything different or better, when the same privacy violations, monetization leeching is happing again as this time it is competing to be worse than the rest?
johndfsgdgdfg 4y ago
[flagged]
etblg 4y ago
TikTok livestreams are a bizarre experience that doesn't get fully conveyed by this article. Scrolling through TikTok it will start showing you live streams every once in a while, and they tend to fall in to patterns like: * baby with a giant deformed head in some kind of medical setting, unable to tell if that baby is real -- if it is, then it's not a good situation for that baby * people who outwardly have disabilities of some sort, but it also looks like how you'd act as having a severe disability if you're a con-artist (like constantly shaking, or very slurred speech, I still can't whether these are legit or not) * people with these vibrating bowls of sand with crystals in them, and they take crystals out of the bowl every once in a while to show you * a teenager building a house of cards, and when they get a certain sticker, they have to destroy the house of cards and start building it again. they are pretending to cry while doing this, and begging you not to give them that sticker \* there was also a variation where it was a kid deleting games off their PlayStation when they got a certain sticker * people pretending to sleep, and if you donate different kinds of stickers, it plays different loud sounds or trigger lights to "wake" them * people freestyle rapping on the spot, but it's more like melodic rambling to the same backing track, so you don't really have to rhyme, you just have to rap in a way that sounds like it rhymes or makes sense * and my favourite: some workers in what seems to be a Chinese factory assembling something like AirPods. they take the airpods, they take the case, they put the airpods in the case, and they throw the whole thing on to the completed pile I came across one last night that I hadn't seen before and was kind of cool. It was a livestream of a woman filling a washing machine with different detergents, and like, way too much detergents for a load, way too much, and then eventually she turned the machine on. It's a wild show that you don't ask for, it gets thrust on you every once in a while when scrolling. The whole game is to give viewers a reason to use stickers on the show, which gives the streamer money (and TikTok like 70% of it).
- optimalsolver 4y ago
  These might as well be reports from some parallel universe.
- edmcnulty101 4y ago
  That's hilarious and sad at the same time.
tus666 4y ago
Still lower than what actual charities pocket when taking expenses, wages, etc into account.
- jstanley 4y ago
  Other than "proxy charity" (where they just pass on money), would you not expect that 100% of charitable donations go towards expenses and wages? What else would they be doing with the money? Presumably you're donating precisely because you want them to do the work that you're paying for?
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    Well, I think the grandparent is thinking of charities whose owners rake in millions; the expectation is that people working for a charity do it for charity, moreso than making a lot of money; everyone should get a fair wage, of course, but it does seem like a lot of the people at the top of a charity earn exorbitant wages. Then there's where the money goes to. Is it a charity that does good work, or is the money going into people lining their pockets? I believe famously that relief funds for Haiti, New Orleans, or the tsunami were mismanaged, stories like millions being donated but only a dozen houses being built. I found [0] which breaks down where the record 6+ billion dollar that went to the tsunami relief ended up at. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/25/where-did-indian-ocean-tsunami-aid-money-go https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/25/w...
  - kmonsen 4y ago
    Not really, let’s say the charity is for providing mosquito nets against malaria. The expectation is that any donation goes to providing more nets and not to pay for expenses and wages.
    - jstanley 4y ago
      But expenses and wages are what is providing the nets! If you want 100% of the money to be spent on nets, just buy nets yourself, but that isn't enough to provide mosquito nets to the people in foreign countries who need them.
avelis 4y ago
More reason to never be on TikTok. oof.
- deepspace 4y ago
  I was surprised to see so many comments here from people who apparently use TikTok. The HN audience tends to be familiar with the technology ecosystem and the ways it can be abused. I cannot fathom why anyone here would willingly go anywhere near something as obviously bad as TikTok.
  - WHA8m 4y ago
    Sometimes it's just fun to see what all this fuss is about and delve into it. I used TikTok for a couple days and paid the zoo a visit. Like most people here (I'd assume), I closely observed myself using this app and wondered how it would effect my behavior. After a few days I got the feeling that I've seen everything this platform has to offer and left. Everything for the experience!
Kukumber 4y ago
> TikTok clearly states that users are not allowed to explicitly solicit gifts, so this is a clear violation of their own terms of services, as well as the rights of these people Why does the headline want to suggest otherwise? To me it sounds like users want to profit from the donations, they get 30% If they used proper infrastructures to encourage people to donate, they'd get 0% BBC yet again is using and spreading the "TikTok bad" propaganda Instagram scam: https://dailytargum.com/article/2021/11/its-time-to-call-out-instagram-charity-scams https://dailytargum.com/article/2021/11/its-time-to-call-out... It's a systemic problem in the west from western users, where is journalism?
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Plus the article mentions middle men; does tiktok take 70%, or do the mediators?
  - yojo 4y ago
    TikTok. They post the full math toward the bottom. TikTok took 69% off the top, the money transfer shop took 10% of the remainder, and the middleman got a 35% cut of what was left, leaving the family with $19 of the original $106 donation
    - jasonlotito 4y ago
      > TikTok took 69% off the top So, is the App store not taking 30% off the top (29.68)? TikTok would end up with $43, and the result is $33. Withdrawing from the Local Money transfer shop is outside of TT, and then after that, I don't know what "TT middlemen" are, but that happens after the withdrawal happens to get the numbers they are sharing. The shop and the middleman are outside the control of TikTok. But you can't ignore the app store's cut.
      - yojo 4y ago
        You’re right. I didn’t consider the AppStore. From the article, a $103 donation ended up as a balance of $33 in the TikTok account. If we assume TikTok has not negotiated a better rate (doubtful), then the math looks like: Donation: $106 After App Store 30%: $74.20 After TikTok: $33 Which puts the TikTok commission at a (still egregious IMO) 55%
s0teri0s 4y ago
I don't get the TickTock.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  And that's okay, you're allowed to not care or have an opinion on things.
- azinman2 4y ago
  It’s another leap in TV. What’s not to get?
hunglee2 4y ago
True, but not necessarily nefarious, as implied by the title. The ease with which begging can be done on mobile livestream is part of the reason why people do it on TikTok. Not everyone has the wherewithal to set up a GoFundMe and the existing distribution network to effectively market such a campaign. TikTok gives people with nothing but a phone a chance at an audience, a chance at virality and therefore a chance of raising funds. This is an outcome from lowest barrier to entry, not perverse profit seeking from big tech
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > This is an outcome from lowest barrier to entry, not perverse profit seeking from big tech Both can be true.
  - hunglee2 4y ago
    indeed. can also be true that they are decoupled from each other, whereas the implication of this article is that one is driving the other.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
tomp 4y ago
So do the internet providers. Hardware producers. Hardware sellers. Mobile phone companies. Governments. BBC.
biggerbio 4y ago
[flagged]
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
This really is a story for our age: Rather than giving money to organisations and charities that can distribute donations cheaply and fairly to those that need it, people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most harrowing channel on a social media app and even then most of the donation ends up in the pockets of middlemen and for profit corporations.
- hello_friendos 4y ago
- roywiggins 4y ago
  > people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most harrowing channel Donors have always liked this sort of thing, that's why organizations invented "sponsor a child" to give people the experience of direct giving to particular recipients. Mediating it through an organization is probably fairer than this totally disintermediated giving (especially if, in reality, the money is pooled and spent on needy communities), but the impulse has always been there.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    It's because our compassion evolved to respond to visual stimuli, not facts about sufferring. We should be cautiously skeptical and analytical about these things. Otherwise we get paradoxes like the monstrosity of factory farms, the produce of which we use to feed our pets that we love. The end result is mass scale harm and suffering if we rely on gut moral instincts and don't use reason.
- jkeat 4y ago
  Adding to the spectacle, we have westerners displeased with a Chinese platform siphoning off too much of their direct aid, which is being sent to displaced Syrians who likely wouldn't be in this situation were it not for the US.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
  - 4y ago
cm42 4y ago
> TikTok said it would take prompt action against "exploitative begging". > The company said this type of content was not allowed on its platform, and it said its commission from digital gifts was significantly less than 70%. But it declined to confirm the exact amount. Did they find the people responsible for this outrageous grift? Is it safe to use TikTok again without the danger of seeing poors?
_blz2 4y ago
Umm its a private platform and free to do so?
ok123456 4y ago
Cyberbegging has existed as long as sending money and other fungible things online has existed. TikTok allows you to put a URL in your profile. If they really wanted to, they could put a Paypal or CashApp link there. This article is yet more 'china bad' yellow peril.
- Zanneth 4y ago
  Where in the article did it specifically criticize China?
  - ok123456 4y ago
    Are you being intentionally dense?
Magi604 4y ago
TikTok livestreaming reminds me of Mojoworld (from the X-men). A TV with infinite bizarre channels. One channel is a boy endlessly flipping through papers and then randomly stacking them. Another is a man asking for donations so he will eat a spoonful of maggots. People playing all sorts of video games, instruments doing weird and random things...
stiltzkin 4y ago
Cyberbegging came way before like Badoo livestreams, TikTok nailed picking features of so many apps and put it well together and you get stuck to it. You got to taste your own dog food and food of other to see what people really like and get hooked.
SilverBirch 4y ago
Ah I see the Meta PR team have been busy. It's pretty clear that Tiktok actively doesn't want this on their platform, and not in a passive "Well, we say we don't want it, but we let it happen". They don't want it and are actively working against it. But instead of hitting the "Report" button, the Beeb decided to write an article.
- cheriot 4y ago
  I don't see Tiktok refunding the money they made from these channels.
- fleddr 4y ago
  You might try and read the article. They reported it, it did nothing. Only when the BBC got involved did they take any action. "Don't want it" -> they have middlemen directly connected to Tiktok actively helping to set this up.
  - robocat 4y ago
    > You might try and read the article https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
fleddr 4y ago
"The middlemen said they worked with agencies affiliated to TikTok in China and the Middle East, who gave the families access to TikTok accounts. These agencies are part of TikTok's global strategy to recruit livestreamers and encourage users to spend more time on the app." Fascinating and rare insight (to me) on how they acquire some of their users. Recruiting high value livestreamers isn't new (see Twitch) but the target here is radically different: people that don't even have a phone. That's one desperate (or at the very least aggressive) rollout. Like a Jehova's witness for social networks.
- notyourwork 4y ago
  Ignoring the ethics and whether or not you agree... is it desperate or is it a tactical strategy?
zac23or 4y ago
New technology to modernize an old way of making money: Exploitation of desperate humans
- nomel 4y ago
  Or, streaming platform helps struggling families connect with a diverse audience, for donations. :) I don't mean to defend them, but for some of these people, perhaps the perspective is positive. And, for comparison, Tik-Tok takes 50% [1], while the Salvation Army takes 20%. 1. Mentions live gets 50% of gifts. This may not be correct. https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-subscription-service https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-subscription-service
  - zac23or 4y ago
    >Tik-Tok takes 50% 70% > for some of these people, perhaps the perspective is positive. For desperate people, anything can be positive, but it's still exploitation.
  - zac23or 4y ago
    At the end of the livestream, the balance of the Syrian test account was $33. TikTok had taken 69% of the value of the gifts.
jongjong 4y ago
Thanks to our current monetary system, begging is going to be a huge industry in the future. Why work when you can make more money begging? Once you understand how the system works, begging carries no stigma. Money acquired through begging is more deserved than money acquired through big finance, big corporations or big government. I consider begging to be the most honorable of all rent-seeking professions; instead of extracting free money behind the scenes by befitting from all sorts of schemes, you do it face to face, out in the open, totally honest.
jongjong 4y ago
The solution is to normalize begging. Make it cool. Begging should be re-framed as a fun, ethical way to earn an income. Also, in many countries, such income classifies as a gift and so is tax free!
- factsarelolz 4y ago
  In some cities a mere 25$ license to panhandle keeps you on the up and up.

531 points by DocFeind 4y ago

and the top rungs of society profit from poor people existing (allows for lower wages by the desperate need for any work)... i.e. I'm calling out the hypocrisy and straw escape goat to point that this piece is just another salvo in the ongoing culture war.

gubernation 4y ago

endisneigh 4y ago

> But when the BBC used the in-app system to report 30 accounts featuring children begging, TikTok said there had been no violation of its policies in any of the cases. After the BBC contacted TikTok directly for comment, the company banned all of the accounts. > It said in a statement: "We are deeply concerned by the information and allegations brought to us by the BBC, and have taken prompt and rigorous action.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ClassyJacket 4y ago
These companies don't care about banning people because it's more profitable not to - unless you upset someone about a trendy topic like gender. This week I reported someone on Twitter for telling me to kill myself ("Kill yourself" was their exact words). Twitter said they found this "Doesn't violate our rules". Part of the problem is that TikTok appears to have relied far too heavily on automation for moderation. I was suspended for saying "America is worse" and also for saying "God isn't real". Many girls have been banned for showing their shoulders. But I guess those users aren't bringing in money like the ones taking donations.
- Karawebnetwork 4y ago
  >- unless you upset someone about a trendy topic like gender. I am very active in the online trans sphere and let me tell you, they don't care about that either. The situation is not that any topic has a focus, the online moderation of sites of this size is simply flawed. Only clear hate speech is grounds for banning and muting. And even then, when I say clear, it's about keywords that trigger algorithms.
  - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
    But “kill yourself” isn’t a keyword?
    - miroljub 4y ago
      - martin_a 4y ago
        In Germany we have a saying "Steter Tropfen höhlt den Stein", which seems to be translated to "Little strokes fell big oaks". Hear it often enough, without any consequences for the people telling you that, and it will hurt you.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I suspect the majority of the "AI" for these moderation systems is "has this been reported by X number or Y% percentage of post viewers? then ban".
    - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
      In my experience, the same string can result in different moderation based on unknown factors. For example, I used to report the trans slur of the "t" word and Facebook would remove the content. Now, when I report it, the comment stays posted. Maybe it has something to do with the age of the post or the number of positive reactions to it. Maybe I reported too much and the false positives resulted in my account being banned from reporting comments. Similar behaviors on other platforms.
falcolas 4y ago
TikTok is notoriously inconsistent in the application of its TOS. One person I follow was set up as a partner (which includes things like bank accounts and drivers licenses), yet their account was banned for the personality being under 13 (she's 31). The remedy? Send a picture of the drivers license TIkTok already has associated with the account to prove her age.
- collegeburner 4y ago
  there's literally a whole genre of live trolling where you try to get people who are obviously under 13 or close enough to say so and they get banned hella quick usually.
- px43 4y ago
  Turns out that TikTok, like many other companies, is made up of individual humans, and not some all powerful uni-mind.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    >> TikTok is notoriously inconsistent in the application of its TOS. One person I follow was set up as a partner (which includes things like bank accounts and drivers licenses), yet their account was banned for the personality being under 13 (she's 31). The remedy? Send a picture of the drivers license TIkTok already has associated with the account to prove her age. > Turns out that TikTok, like many other companies, is made up of individual humans, and not some all powerful uni-mind. Though you'd think in a case like this, they'd have the ID on file or be able to easily infer from their account metadata that the person is over 13. It seems like more of a case of dumb one-size-fits-all processes or laziness on the part of the moderator.
Nextgrid 4y ago
Which is what every single company would say when caught red-handed.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

vxNsr 4y ago

This isn’t surprising. Your local grocery chain store does the same thing when they ask if you want to donate to whatever charity they’re promoting that month. At least there it’s obviously a “finders fee” as they wouldn’t get the amount of engagement if not for the store. But if you want to donate to a place always do it directly. Facebook also takes a good chunk.

ianai 4y ago
I’d consider that a donation to the grocery store and worthwhile. Those are some of the worst, lowest paying jobs. People treat retail workers horribly and grocery is where everybody goes. And grocery is known for awful margins. Tiktok is just the long arm of the CCP.
- cube00 4y ago
  Don't kid yourself. Grocery store executives are doing just fine for themselves. Donating does not make life any better for the front line workers. If you want to help, support your local independent stores and avoid the chains. I know that's not practical for everyone and can be more expensive but better conditions for workers doesn't come cheap.
  - LBJsPNS 4y ago
    "better conditions for workers doesn't come cheap." Unless you take them out of the bloated salaries and perks of upper management...
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Even for the millions-paid CEOs it doesn't end up much when divided out among all the workers. You can do much more for retail workers as a customer by not being an ass and by doing things like putting things back where you found them instead of leaving eggs in amongst the produce, etc.
- codyb 4y ago

oefrha 4y ago

70% cut is surprising, I thought it's 50% like Twitch. Indeed, Googling "tiktok streaming gift cut" still tells me TikTok takes 50% commission on multiple sites. I wonder if there are withheld taxes or something.

sillysaurusx 4y ago
Unfortunately it’s a meme that you can’t make any money on tiktok compared to other platforms. The money comes from sponsored content and Amazon affiliate links. Tiktok itself pays out very little, especially vs YouTube.
ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
Foreign exchange fees, perhaps?
jasonlotito 4y ago
Is it 70%? App stores are taking 30% off the top. The article doesn't talk about that, so I wonder if they are taking the total and working from there. $1000 in donations means $300 to the app store, which would leave $400 for TikTok and $300 for the streamer. While that still doesn't look as good, 40% is significantly less than 70%. Edit: In the test they performed, it's clear they are ignoring the app store fee. Simply put, this is a really misinformed article at best.
- risyachka 4y ago
  Not sure about Apple but Google doesn't take fees from charitable donations.
  - jasonlotito 4y ago
    Are these actually considered charitable donations though in Google's eyes? The article talks about "digital gifts" so it's not "donations" in the legal sense.
  - kristjansson 4y ago
    However well intentioned the gifts in this article are, it’s be hard to convince me that most gifts sent through TikTok are “charitable”, and sorting that out on the App Store side seems like a nightmare.

mickael-kerjean 4y ago

That's very much the same as the AWS marketplace. I have an image that should be getting 1000$ per month but Amazon sent 362$ this month. The actual payment is always very far from what the daily reports tells you and it's not like they've withheld the taxes from it...

mannykannot 4y ago
If they were withholding taxes, I would guess that, in most jurisdictions, they would be required to notify you formally, and quite possibly the taxing authority as well.
TuringNYC 4y ago
AWS is also withholding infra fees, which seems fair depending on the cost of the software vs cost of underlying infra.
- mickael-kerjean 4y ago
  yes but that comes on top of it all. If you account for the hardware fees then they get a lot more than 70% ...
BonoboIO 4y ago
Typical Amazon ;-)

view 4y ago

It's funny how these journalists spend all this time researching these stories but miss a very important point - Google and Apple take a 30% cut off in-app purchases. Governments take sales taxes/VAT as well - up to 25% in some European countries. It's not TikTok pocketing 70%.

risyachka 4y ago
This point is not important.Not even comparable. One is a purchase in the shop, another one is a charitable donation. And google does not take 30% from charitable donations.
- sneaky_verily 4y ago
  I missed this when I read the title. TikTok does not have a charity feature and the money in this case is not going to charitable organizations. They are regular live streams where people are asking for money and watchers are giving money through a standard "tip" feature of live streams.
- view 4y ago
  TikTok gifts are not charitable donations. They are in-app purchases. For every gift you buy, streamers earn "diamonds" which can be withdrawn for cash. You cannot built this kind of functionality without giving Google/Apple a 30% cut, plus they collect sales tax and VAT on your behalf. I'll give you an example. If I sell an in-app purchase for a price of £1 in the UK, £0.17 go to the government, and £0.25 to Apple/Google. I'm left with £0.58!
  - WHA8m 4y ago
    That's the point and the title is misleading. If you buy goods from an organization because you'd like to support their cause, that's not a donation but a simple purchase. Even though 'donation' is not mentioned here, it is implied in many of the comments I read in this thread. But that's far from what it actually is and how the transaction is worked. The story would actually be outrageous if some vendor took x % from a 'donation'. But that's not the case here. These are 'purchases' with the intention of helping someone. Nevertheless, the intention doesn't matter at all here. If you want to donate, you'll have to look for a place to 'donate'. And then your transaction will be handled accordingly (hopefully).

rvz 4y ago

Hardly surprising. No different or in fact worse than the alternatives then for monetisation and pleasing the algorithm. So once again TikTok screwing over their billions of users. Why would anyone expect anything different or better, when the same privacy violations, monetization leeching is happing again as this time it is competing to be worse than the rest?

johndfsgdgdfg 4y ago

[flagged]

etblg 4y ago

TikTok livestreams are a bizarre experience that doesn't get fully conveyed by this article. Scrolling through TikTok it will start showing you live streams every once in a while, and they tend to fall in to patterns like: * baby with a giant deformed head in some kind of medical setting, unable to tell if that baby is real -- if it is, then it's not a good situation for that baby * people who outwardly have disabilities of some sort, but it also looks like how you'd act as having a severe disability if you're a con-artist (like constantly shaking, or very slurred speech, I still can't whether these are legit or not) * people with these vibrating bowls of sand with crystals in them, and they take crystals out of the bowl every once in a while to show you * a teenager building a house of cards, and when they get a certain sticker, they have to destroy the house of cards and start building it again. they are pretending to cry while doing this, and begging you not to give them that sticker \* there was also a variation where it was a kid deleting games off their PlayStation when they got a certain sticker * people pretending to sleep, and if you donate different kinds of stickers, it plays different loud sounds or trigger lights to "wake" them * people freestyle rapping on the spot, but it's more like melodic rambling to the same backing track, so you don't really have to rhyme, you just have to rap in a way that sounds like it rhymes or makes sense * and my favourite: some workers in what seems to be a Chinese factory assembling something like AirPods. they take the airpods, they take the case, they put the airpods in the case, and they throw the whole thing on to the completed pile I came across one last night that I hadn't seen before and was kind of cool. It was a livestream of a woman filling a washing machine with different detergents, and like, way too much detergents for a load, way too much, and then eventually she turned the machine on. It's a wild show that you don't ask for, it gets thrust on you every once in a while when scrolling. The whole game is to give viewers a reason to use stickers on the show, which gives the streamer money (and TikTok like 70% of it).

optimalsolver 4y ago
These might as well be reports from some parallel universe.
edmcnulty101 4y ago
That's hilarious and sad at the same time.

tus666 4y ago

Still lower than what actual charities pocket when taking expenses, wages, etc into account.

jstanley 4y ago
Other than "proxy charity" (where they just pass on money), would you not expect that 100% of charitable donations go towards expenses and wages? What else would they be doing with the money? Presumably you're donating precisely because you want them to do the work that you're paying for?
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Well, I think the grandparent is thinking of charities whose owners rake in millions; the expectation is that people working for a charity do it for charity, moreso than making a lot of money; everyone should get a fair wage, of course, but it does seem like a lot of the people at the top of a charity earn exorbitant wages. Then there's where the money goes to. Is it a charity that does good work, or is the money going into people lining their pockets? I believe famously that relief funds for Haiti, New Orleans, or the tsunami were mismanaged, stories like millions being donated but only a dozen houses being built. I found [0] which breaks down where the record 6+ billion dollar that went to the tsunami relief ended up at. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/25/where-did-indian-ocean-tsunami-aid-money-go https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/25/w...
- kmonsen 4y ago
  Not really, let’s say the charity is for providing mosquito nets against malaria. The expectation is that any donation goes to providing more nets and not to pay for expenses and wages.
  - jstanley 4y ago
    But expenses and wages are what is providing the nets! If you want 100% of the money to be spent on nets, just buy nets yourself, but that isn't enough to provide mosquito nets to the people in foreign countries who need them.

avelis 4y ago

More reason to never be on TikTok. oof.

deepspace 4y ago
I was surprised to see so many comments here from people who apparently use TikTok. The HN audience tends to be familiar with the technology ecosystem and the ways it can be abused. I cannot fathom why anyone here would willingly go anywhere near something as obviously bad as TikTok.
- WHA8m 4y ago
  Sometimes it's just fun to see what all this fuss is about and delve into it. I used TikTok for a couple days and paid the zoo a visit. Like most people here (I'd assume), I closely observed myself using this app and wondered how it would effect my behavior. After a few days I got the feeling that I've seen everything this platform has to offer and left. Everything for the experience!

Kukumber 4y ago

> TikTok clearly states that users are not allowed to explicitly solicit gifts, so this is a clear violation of their own terms of services, as well as the rights of these people Why does the headline want to suggest otherwise? To me it sounds like users want to profit from the donations, they get 30% If they used proper infrastructures to encourage people to donate, they'd get 0% BBC yet again is using and spreading the "TikTok bad" propaganda Instagram scam: https://dailytargum.com/article/2021/11/its-time-to-call-out-instagram-charity-scams https://dailytargum.com/article/2021/11/its-time-to-call-out... It's a systemic problem in the west from western users, where is journalism?

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Plus the article mentions middle men; does tiktok take 70%, or do the mediators?
- yojo 4y ago
  TikTok. They post the full math toward the bottom. TikTok took 69% off the top, the money transfer shop took 10% of the remainder, and the middleman got a 35% cut of what was left, leaving the family with $19 of the original $106 donation
  - jasonlotito 4y ago
    > TikTok took 69% off the top So, is the App store not taking 30% off the top (29.68)? TikTok would end up with $43, and the result is $33. Withdrawing from the Local Money transfer shop is outside of TT, and then after that, I don't know what "TT middlemen" are, but that happens after the withdrawal happens to get the numbers they are sharing. The shop and the middleman are outside the control of TikTok. But you can't ignore the app store's cut.
    - yojo 4y ago
      You’re right. I didn’t consider the AppStore. From the article, a $103 donation ended up as a balance of $33 in the TikTok account. If we assume TikTok has not negotiated a better rate (doubtful), then the math looks like: Donation: $106 After App Store 30%: $74.20 After TikTok: $33 Which puts the TikTok commission at a (still egregious IMO) 55%

s0teri0s 4y ago

I don't get the TickTock.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
And that's okay, you're allowed to not care or have an opinion on things.
azinman2 4y ago
It’s another leap in TV. What’s not to get?

hunglee2 4y ago

True, but not necessarily nefarious, as implied by the title. The ease with which begging can be done on mobile livestream is part of the reason why people do it on TikTok. Not everyone has the wherewithal to set up a GoFundMe and the existing distribution network to effectively market such a campaign. TikTok gives people with nothing but a phone a chance at an audience, a chance at virality and therefore a chance of raising funds. This is an outcome from lowest barrier to entry, not perverse profit seeking from big tech

CharlesW 4y ago
> This is an outcome from lowest barrier to entry, not perverse profit seeking from big tech Both can be true.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  indeed. can also be true that they are decoupled from each other, whereas the implication of this article is that one is driving the other.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

tomp 4y ago

So do the internet providers. Hardware producers. Hardware sellers. Mobile phone companies. Governments. BBC.

biggerbio 4y ago

[flagged]

helsinkiandrew 4y ago

This really is a story for our age: Rather than giving money to organisations and charities that can distribute donations cheaply and fairly to those that need it, people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most harrowing channel on a social media app and even then most of the donation ends up in the pockets of middlemen and for profit corporations.

hello_friendos 4y ago
roywiggins 4y ago
> people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most harrowing channel Donors have always liked this sort of thing, that's why organizations invented "sponsor a child" to give people the experience of direct giving to particular recipients. Mediating it through an organization is probably fairer than this totally disintermediated giving (especially if, in reality, the money is pooled and spent on needy communities), but the impulse has always been there.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  It's because our compassion evolved to respond to visual stimuli, not facts about sufferring. We should be cautiously skeptical and analytical about these things. Otherwise we get paradoxes like the monstrosity of factory farms, the produce of which we use to feed our pets that we love. The end result is mass scale harm and suffering if we rely on gut moral instincts and don't use reason.
jkeat 4y ago
Adding to the spectacle, we have westerners displeased with a Chinese platform siphoning off too much of their direct aid, which is being sent to displaced Syrians who likely wouldn't be in this situation were it not for the US.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
- 4y ago

cm42 4y ago

> TikTok said it would take prompt action against "exploitative begging". > The company said this type of content was not allowed on its platform, and it said its commission from digital gifts was significantly less than 70%. But it declined to confirm the exact amount. Did they find the people responsible for this outrageous grift? Is it safe to use TikTok again without the danger of seeing poors?

_blz2 4y ago

Umm its a private platform and free to do so?

ok123456 4y ago

Cyberbegging has existed as long as sending money and other fungible things online has existed. TikTok allows you to put a URL in your profile. If they really wanted to, they could put a Paypal or CashApp link there. This article is yet more 'china bad' yellow peril.

Zanneth 4y ago
Where in the article did it specifically criticize China?
- ok123456 4y ago
  Are you being intentionally dense?

Magi604 4y ago

TikTok livestreaming reminds me of Mojoworld (from the X-men). A TV with infinite bizarre channels. One channel is a boy endlessly flipping through papers and then randomly stacking them. Another is a man asking for donations so he will eat a spoonful of maggots. People playing all sorts of video games, instruments doing weird and random things...

stiltzkin 4y ago

Cyberbegging came way before like Badoo livestreams, TikTok nailed picking features of so many apps and put it well together and you get stuck to it. You got to taste your own dog food and food of other to see what people really like and get hooked.

SilverBirch 4y ago

Ah I see the Meta PR team have been busy. It's pretty clear that Tiktok actively doesn't want this on their platform, and not in a passive "Well, we say we don't want it, but we let it happen". They don't want it and are actively working against it. But instead of hitting the "Report" button, the Beeb decided to write an article.

cheriot 4y ago
I don't see Tiktok refunding the money they made from these channels.
fleddr 4y ago
You might try and read the article. They reported it, it did nothing. Only when the BBC got involved did they take any action. "Don't want it" -> they have middlemen directly connected to Tiktok actively helping to set this up.
- robocat 4y ago
  > You might try and read the article https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html : Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

fleddr 4y ago

"The middlemen said they worked with agencies affiliated to TikTok in China and the Middle East, who gave the families access to TikTok accounts. These agencies are part of TikTok's global strategy to recruit livestreamers and encourage users to spend more time on the app." Fascinating and rare insight (to me) on how they acquire some of their users. Recruiting high value livestreamers isn't new (see Twitch) but the target here is radically different: people that don't even have a phone. That's one desperate (or at the very least aggressive) rollout. Like a Jehova's witness for social networks.

notyourwork 4y ago
Ignoring the ethics and whether or not you agree... is it desperate or is it a tactical strategy?

zac23or 4y ago

New technology to modernize an old way of making money: Exploitation of desperate humans

nomel 4y ago
Or, streaming platform helps struggling families connect with a diverse audience, for donations. :) I don't mean to defend them, but for some of these people, perhaps the perspective is positive. And, for comparison, Tik-Tok takes 50% [1], while the Salvation Army takes 20%. 1. Mentions live gets 50% of gifts. This may not be correct. https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-subscription-service https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-subscription-service
- zac23or 4y ago
  >Tik-Tok takes 50% 70% > for some of these people, perhaps the perspective is positive. For desperate people, anything can be positive, but it's still exploitation.
- zac23or 4y ago
  At the end of the livestream, the balance of the Syrian test account was $33. TikTok had taken 69% of the value of the gifts.

jongjong 4y ago

Thanks to our current monetary system, begging is going to be a huge industry in the future. Why work when you can make more money begging? Once you understand how the system works, begging carries no stigma. Money acquired through begging is more deserved than money acquired through big finance, big corporations or big government. I consider begging to be the most honorable of all rent-seeking professions; instead of extracting free money behind the scenes by befitting from all sorts of schemes, you do it face to face, out in the open, totally honest.

jongjong 4y ago

The solution is to normalize begging. Make it cool. Begging should be re-framed as a fun, ethical way to earn an income. Also, in many countries, such income classifies as a gift and so is tax free!

factsarelolz 4y ago
In some cities a mere 25$ license to panhandle keeps you on the up and up.