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A paper out of Rutger's: > For pop-culture hashtags, the ratio between platforms is consistently range-bound: > Conversely, the ratios we found for topics sen
by throw0101a 2y ago
A paper out of Rutger's:
> For pop-culture hashtags, the ratio between platforms is consistently range-bound:
> Conversely, the ratios we found for topics sensitive to the Chinese Government were completely out-of-bounds.
> The data below illustrates that across topics directly sensitive to the Chinese Government, relevant hashtags are dramatically underrepresented on TikTok vs. Instagram.
> Given the unanimity of anomalies, we expanded our research to topics relevant to the Chinese Government’s geopolitical interests: 1) Ukraine-Russia War; 2) Kashmir Secessionism; 3) Israel-Hamas War. There too, we found relevant hashtags are dramatically underrepresented on TikTok vs. Instagram.
* https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing...
* Via: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tiktok-is-just-the-beginning https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/tiktok-is-just-the-beginning
- janice1999 2y agoInstagram is hardly a reliable benchmark given that it has been widely criticised for its suppression of Palestinian content. [1] [1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/...
- fsflover 2y agoWhy is this not reliable for other topics than Palestine?
- janice1999 2y agoIf one topic is being provably artificially suppressed, how is any data reliable? Instagram is not a good baseline -perhaps no large social is.
- zug_zug 2y agoThat's a really weak argument. Let's clarify: 1. An anti-free-speech government that arrests people for discussing certain topics that controls a company that seems not to show certain topics much. 2. The company doesn't make any claim it's not filtering out anti-china topics. 3. We find strong evidence that platforms don't match. 4. You want to throw out all evidence and blindly presume complete innocence because you think 1 of 10 topics on instagram isn't easy to explain? Feels hard to believe you could come to that conclusion in good faith.
- redeux 2y agoSo what does that say when they’re even more underrepresented on TikTok as GP showed?
- noworriesnate 2y agoThat's not what the paper is saying. Hashtags like #PrayForIsrael or #IsraelUnderAttack are way lower on Tiktok than on Instagram[1]. They aren't talking about anti-genocide or pro-Palestinian hashtags. Basically, Instagram is way more pro-Israel than Tiktok. Many people think that that is why Tiktok is coming under fire. Because China is ambivalent towards the Israel/Hamas conflict whereas many power structures in the U.S. are very pro-Israel. [1] https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing... page 14
- zug_zug 2y agoThis feels pretty convincing to me. It also feels to me like we shouldn't have to reverse-engineer platforms to deduce whether they are pushing an agenda... If they aren't doing any interfering then they should simply put out an official statement clarifying that.
- josephcsible 2y agoAre you saying that if they just assert they're not doing any interfering, we should uncritically take them at their word?
- zug_zug 2y agoNo, I'm saying that if they aren't even willing to assert innocence of manipulating what trends then we certainly shouldn't presume innocence. I'd like for them to testify under oath about how they alter what is trending, then I'd like for us to independently verify those those results to the best of our ability.
- josephcsible 2y agoThat I agree with, but the way your first post was worded, it sounded like the opposite.
- guilhas 2y agoOr they found Instagram is censoring things, and boosting others, as demanded by the US government Which we know to be true for Covid or Palestine/Israel