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I find the hard core defenders of tiktok, such as yourself, weird. I know for a fact you get propaganda videos shoved in between your feed of 'good stuff' that

I find the hard core defenders of tiktok, such as yourself, weird. I know for a fact you get propaganda videos shoved in between your feed of 'good stuff' that you enjoy watching, but I know you wont admit that, or downplay it or say you can scroll past it. It doesn't change the fact the platform is used by the CCP to push a narrative, and while it might not work on you, there's some 120m users in America on TT. That's an awful lot of people who are being fed bullshit and lies. > my accounts are all on USA servers Keep telling yourself that ;)

qingcharles 2y ago
What do these "propaganda" videos look like and how do I recognize them? I did once see a cat that was named "Chairman Meow" in one video, which might have been very subtle CCP reprogramming now that I think on it.
- xlii 2y ago
  FYI: They are very subtle. Usually it is about behavior shifts and/or emotions. E.g. if I’d be watching videos with cute penguins and then seen a politician „adopting” penguins at zoo, that’d be a political propaganda. Political ads have to be marked clearly but if politician is sympathetic to the platform and platform owner has a stake in keeping good relations then it’s just another penguins video, right? And it’s omnipresent, so you stop paying attention. It’s not only China who is doing that. That’s why Paris Syndrome exists, car manufacturers don’t allow game makers to show their models in a destroyed form or why actresses don’t like to show their nostrils. The problem with China (as far as I understand) is lack of the symmetry. They will sell you everything, but refuse to let your merchants in. And I’d describe message shown to American users as a propaganda.
janalsncm 2y ago
> I know for a fact you get propaganda videos shoved in between your feed of 'good stuff' that you enjoy watching No idea how you could know this. I have never seen any concrete evidence that there are propaganda videos interlaced into people’s feeds. Everything I have heard is hypothetical. “China could” do this or that. If there were anything more than conjecture it would be huge news. Casey Newton said on Hard Fork that he started a new account recently as an experiment and didn’t mention anything about China propaganda videos.
- lawgimenez 2y ago
  Here in my country, Chinese propaganda is vast in TikTok because of the disputes in the South China Sea, Scarborough Shoal and others. Maybe your feed is different since you aren't neighbors with China.
  - zug_zug 2y ago
    Fascinating, could you share an example link?
- a2128 2y ago
  I don't use the app personally but I have friends who use TikTok and sometimes they would just casually tell me "oh yeah sometimes it shows me weird stuff like nazi videos, I just scroll past them" The app's design is to get you to mindlessly doomscroll and not really think too hard about what it's showing you. If it shows you something insane occasionally it's no big deal, it's just the algorithm trying something new right? It's very difficult to show any concrete evidence for how a secretive algorithm controlled by an adversary behaves. In an ideal world the burden should be on the platforms to prove that their algorithms are fair and not biasing towards certain viewpoints, but that might never happen.
  - rafabulsing 2y ago
    I mean, if that's the standard, I've also unfortunately been exposed to more Nazi content than I'd like on Twitter/Reddit/etc. Should they be banned as well?
  - qingcharles 2y ago
    I've been using TikTok for four years and never once seen anything resembling Nazi content. I opened a new account in Canada last night due to the ban. I saw a lot of Canadian memes, and a ton of wildly incomprehensible foreign material from every corner of the globe as the algo tried to figure me out. But none of it looked remotely political or ideological in any way. If there is propaganda it is very covert. Compared with X where my feed is maybe 80% overt propaganda, including from the owner of the platform himself.
firtoz 2y ago
> I know for a fact you get propaganda videos shoved in between your feed of 'good stuff' that you enjoy watching, I have been using TikTok for months and I didn't see any propaganda at all. I only get content about my interests (3d printing, game dev, tech stuff). Sometimes it shows random stuff like animals and camping and funny videos or something but nothing like heavy politics at all. I guess if I started engaging with "slightly political stuff" and started searching for it, it may be possible to get that kind of content, but yeah it's definitely not shown to me. I expect that to stay unless I start to show intentions to the algorithm that I care about that kind of content.
sethammons 2y ago
So, when my feed dipped into politics, it was all anti-trump (though I'm traditionally conservative) and if it were my only news, I would have been flabbergasted by the Trump win. But apparently the app was pushing Trumps victory?

qingcharles 2y ago

What do these "propaganda" videos look like and how do I recognize them? I did once see a cat that was named "Chairman Meow" in one video, which might have been very subtle CCP reprogramming now that I think on it.

xlii 2y ago
FYI: They are very subtle. Usually it is about behavior shifts and/or emotions. E.g. if I’d be watching videos with cute penguins and then seen a politician „adopting” penguins at zoo, that’d be a political propaganda. Political ads have to be marked clearly but if politician is sympathetic to the platform and platform owner has a stake in keeping good relations then it’s just another penguins video, right? And it’s omnipresent, so you stop paying attention. It’s not only China who is doing that. That’s why Paris Syndrome exists, car manufacturers don’t allow game makers to show their models in a destroyed form or why actresses don’t like to show their nostrils. The problem with China (as far as I understand) is lack of the symmetry. They will sell you everything, but refuse to let your merchants in. And I’d describe message shown to American users as a propaganda.

janalsncm 2y ago

> I know for a fact you get propaganda videos shoved in between your feed of 'good stuff' that you enjoy watching No idea how you could know this. I have never seen any concrete evidence that there are propaganda videos interlaced into people’s feeds. Everything I have heard is hypothetical. “China could” do this or that. If there were anything more than conjecture it would be huge news. Casey Newton said on Hard Fork that he started a new account recently as an experiment and didn’t mention anything about China propaganda videos.

lawgimenez 2y ago
Here in my country, Chinese propaganda is vast in TikTok because of the disputes in the South China Sea, Scarborough Shoal and others. Maybe your feed is different since you aren't neighbors with China.
- zug_zug 2y ago
  Fascinating, could you share an example link?
a2128 2y ago
I don't use the app personally but I have friends who use TikTok and sometimes they would just casually tell me "oh yeah sometimes it shows me weird stuff like nazi videos, I just scroll past them" The app's design is to get you to mindlessly doomscroll and not really think too hard about what it's showing you. If it shows you something insane occasionally it's no big deal, it's just the algorithm trying something new right? It's very difficult to show any concrete evidence for how a secretive algorithm controlled by an adversary behaves. In an ideal world the burden should be on the platforms to prove that their algorithms are fair and not biasing towards certain viewpoints, but that might never happen.
- rafabulsing 2y ago
  I mean, if that's the standard, I've also unfortunately been exposed to more Nazi content than I'd like on Twitter/Reddit/etc. Should they be banned as well?
- qingcharles 2y ago
  I've been using TikTok for four years and never once seen anything resembling Nazi content. I opened a new account in Canada last night due to the ban. I saw a lot of Canadian memes, and a ton of wildly incomprehensible foreign material from every corner of the globe as the algo tried to figure me out. But none of it looked remotely political or ideological in any way. If there is propaganda it is very covert. Compared with X where my feed is maybe 80% overt propaganda, including from the owner of the platform himself.

firtoz 2y ago

> I know for a fact you get propaganda videos shoved in between your feed of 'good stuff' that you enjoy watching, I have been using TikTok for months and I didn't see any propaganda at all. I only get content about my interests (3d printing, game dev, tech stuff). Sometimes it shows random stuff like animals and camping and funny videos or something but nothing like heavy politics at all. I guess if I started engaging with "slightly political stuff" and started searching for it, it may be possible to get that kind of content, but yeah it's definitely not shown to me. I expect that to stay unless I start to show intentions to the algorithm that I care about that kind of content.

sethammons 2y ago

So, when my feed dipped into politics, it was all anti-trump (though I'm traditionally conservative) and if it were my only news, I would have been flabbergasted by the Trump win. But apparently the app was pushing Trumps victory?