Applies just as well to almost any social media. The worst thing is that these apps addict one to unrealistic expectations and instant gratifications. Digital tobacco.
No it does not apply just as well to almost any social media.
TikTok is unique in its control of the user experience, its use of data, and its popularity.
Best not to throw this on the pile of “well duh, it’s social media — of course it’s bad.”
TikTok is spyware. TikTok is an adversary. TikTok must be regulated. Let’s talk about TikTok in this comments section, and not zoom out like we so often do.
>TikTok is unique in its control of the user experience, its use of data, and its popularity.
How so? I don't use TikTok, so I might not be aware and I would appreciate you expanding on what you're asserting here.
What is it doing different than other social media in regards to the control of user experience?
What data practices are employed which are different and worse than the other social medias? Is it just where the data is going, i.e. the 'wrong' people have the data? Or are they capturing more data than, say, FB is?
TikTok is no more spyware than any other major internet ad platform, it just happens to use the knowledge it gains to provide you with content you actually want to watch (even if you don't know you do).
Google and Facebook collect the same sorts of information, they just don't use it as much to curate your experience.
Edit: to the downvoters, do you really think that Google and Facebook don't scan images you upload to them, and save drafts of things you type into their views: email or chat window or what have you? Do you really think they're not creating a complex profile of who you are as a person? That's how ads work. "Show this ad to 20-35 year olds in [Area] with [political affiliation] and a hobby of [thing]. You gain that knowledge by reading and tracking _everything_
Do you really think it's how ad networks figure out someone's marketable interests? Based on their draft email/chat messages? You obviously haven't tried doing something like this, but getting solid inferences from such tangential data is very hard, and it's not really a priority when the same users leave such a large trail from their browsing and searching anyways, visiting countless websites with promiscuous audience reporting, ad tracking cookies, etc. Why would someone bother to track someone's draft emails to figure out their political affiliation when the media they consume provides all the signal.
In my book there are many adversaries and TikTok is only an item in a set of adversaries. The solution is to look at the set, this is not zoom out.
There are many children who are target to pederastians in Instagram and we can also say that they should be regulated and/or take this very seriously improving their alerts.
I wonder why it would be a valid argument to say "what about Facebook". To me, the same applies to Facebook too, and I don't participate on either platform - well maybe I do on Facebook[0], despite me not registering.
It's a valid argument in the context of the comment being replied to. If you look at the parent comment, you will see that they are specifically claiming that TikTok is different than other social media companies in its intrusion on privacy.
>No it does not apply just as well to almost any social media.
>TikTok is unique in its control of the user experience, its use of data, and its popularity.
Its legislation. More transparent governments like the US' are generally trusted with data over closed governments, at least, for the majority of Westerners.
I think I'm far less likely to be impacted by China having access to the intimate detail of my life, than my own countries government or companies based in my country.
I can't see the Chinese government selling my medical information to health insurers, but could certainly see a local company doing this.
TikTok is made by China, considered an all-encompassing adversary by proponents of nationalism, conflict, and hatred. Therefore it makes TikTok an "adversary" despite the only unique thing it did was eating into Meta's marketshares.
It's very telling when it comes to topics marginally related to general idea of China (the place, the people, the culture, etc.), these so-called free thinker intellectuals seamlessly transition into Goebbel-like devices as if a switch has been flipped on.
> The worst thing is that these apps addict one to unrealistic expectations and instant gratifications.
I mean, there's also racism, sexism, white nationalism, etc. that TikTok occasionally dumps into your feed to test your engagement with it in order to improve the psychographic profile it uses to decide what to throw at you next. (To be clear, this is not hypothetical, this is my personal experience with it.)
>The worst thing is that these apps addict one to unrealistic expectations and instant gratifications. Digital tobacco.
You could say the same about the internet, even pre-broadband, as anyone who spend significant time on websites, message boards, etc during the 90s and 2000s (or earlier with Usenet, IRC, etc) could attest to. Shall we just do away with the whole thing then?
