Let's Talk TikTok

[nice gaijin]

I noticed there weren't any discussions about this already, and it's been something I think about occasionally but never bother talking about.

So, as a geriatric millennial...

Although I don't use the platform itself, and have never even made an account... there's no doubt it's driven how media is consumed these days. Much like how platforms I've never even engaged on have driven meme culture or internet slang, TikTok has driven the widespread adoption of the short form video. Youtube shorts, Instagram reels, Facebook stories... all just rip on the TikTok formula, and oftentimes are flooded with reposts directly from TikTok. These days, I'm sure content creators simply shotgun their videos across every platform they can.

Online video took a long time to take off, mainly because it took a while for technology to catch up with the demands of serving on-demand video. Video files are "heavy," and it took a while for devices smaller than a computer to handle them. When smartphones took over and started gaining a larger share of screen time, one of the approaches was to serve video in smaller chunks that didn't tax mobile infrastructure as much. Enter the short-form video format.

It started with Vine, who introduced the six second video. It was actually impressive how creative some people could be in such a short window. As with all things online, they're best when they're new and yet to be exploited or befouled. Since the content is short, it's easy to rack up views and engagement. At its zenith, Vine had 200 million users in 2015, and was the epicenter for viral jokes and challenges such as flipping water bottles and getting dunked with buckets of ice water, which actually demonstrated the platform's social impact for good (as it raised funds for ALS research that actually bore some fruit). Although it was clearly onto something that people found engaging, I don't know if Vine had figured out its own business model or what, because it was killed by Twitter in 2016.

For businesses, your engagement analytics make it easier to target you with advertisement. Ads support the platform, which exists to serve ads. I hate that this was the only capital that seemed to matter, so all the platform developers have naturally trended towards volatile and negative content. Anger is a stronger motivator of engagement. You can like something quietly, but hate is a tinderbox. All the entrepreneur cares is that revenue is up because engagement is up. And besides, if you don't serve it up, the next guy will. So maybe they drop their moderation levels, and the platform attracts more negativity (a la Twitter and Facebook). Unmoderated space inevitably get filled with the Mr. Hyde treatment, the dark side of human potential and creativity.

TikTok wasn't its first competitor, but it had the right timing to fill that void, and became itself a viral platform designed to make stuff go viral. It started as a music app that created easy templates for people to meme-ify their videos. Dances and "challenges" spread like the chain letters of old, making it easy for people all around the world feel like they were participating in something... And the platform used user data to build algorithms to keep people engaged and scrolling. Shrinking video content to bite sized chunks, short form content has really become the opiate of the masses, capable of capturing the entire range of time, from a few seconds at a stoplight, to hours of doomscrolling. This constitutes an enormous amount of human attention, which has become the precious resource of the internet age.

And now, we're on the verge of having TikTok banned in the US... though who knows what will really happen with all that.

The worst effect of all this is that our access to information has effectively killed our attention spans, to the point that spending any amount of time on something that isn't immediately gratifying has become a luxury of sorts. Even if you're consuming "educational" content, because the content bounces around so much you end up retaining very little of what you've been watching. And I've been finding it less and less gratifying to spend so much time with technology to fill the void of boredom, rather than do something productive. Although I enjoy creating things I find sharing them rather tedious, and I'm just not addicted to attention the way the business model wants me to be.

While I was looking up the history of Vine, I saw that a cofounder went on to make a platform that serves up looping videos between TWO and six seconds, showing that we haven't found the true minimum unit of human attention yet. At this point, I gotta tap out and find ways to rebuild my ability to focus. I think I'm going to take up kumiko woodworking.

 

[Grandpa Frank]

I think it's interesting that TikTok is being looked at from the angle it's a Chinese spy platform. My "spook" sites on Facebook have been on about China is a dangerous enemy and allowing them access to our young people will lead to brainwashing type influence. I was surprised when our government decided to act on it.

 

[salyavin]

Kinda funny as US government overreach pushed some users straight to the more proper Chinese site red book https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/tech/rednote-china-popularity-us-tiktok-ban-intl-hnk/index.html

I do not use tiktok either but this feels like we want US companies/oligarchs to profit not Chinese more than anything else. Yes we can see algorithms affect people anywhere even sites like facebook but the mess US sites like facebook or X one wonders if it is just out of control rage bait or trying to push people in a direction on purpose perhaps with content pushed from other countries they are worried about influencing the algo. I really think in the end they want US companies to profit like meta or google or someone here to purchase tiktok. I am pretty sure meta, apple (with all the new siri integration to apps), google etc. are spying on people in a way world wide. Last I heard the US is the only one wanting to ban tiktok. In my opinion they need to show exactly what TikTok is doing bad like influencing kids in some bad way different than what instagram etc. are, or what exactly they are "spying" on with the tiktok app showing specifics not vauge handwaving.

On short video and SNS in general yes I feel it has killed our attention spans. Most read short posts rather than books. Many are even looking at phones during movies and such so people are not even concentrating on one thing. Is this dumbing us down as we seek short dopamine hits? Not totally sure yet. On the other hand we are very connected globally. I am mid 50s so I am certainly not "with it".

 

[dracuella]

In my opinion they need to show exactly what TikTok is doing bad like influencing kids in some bad way different than what instagram etc. are, or what exactly they are "spying" on with the tiktok app showing specifics not vauge handwaving.

I don't know if it's been rectified but in the early days of TikTok, there was no limit to which content was served to anyone, meaning children could, completely unfiltered, watch whatever was on there. Quite a lot of children have died all over the world to retareded TikTok challenges that they didn't realise were deadly and more have been exposed to things far beyond their age.
Then there is the fact that China is, or at least used to be, far more lax with which information they gather from everyone, including children. In the EU, and I'm sure in the US as well, this is taken quite seriously with strict laws in place to prevent the collection, storage, and sharing of children's data.

Personally, I don't think they're any worse than Facebook. Perhaps even less so as Facebook sells our data to other corporations who have zero scrouples about how they exploit it to make money of us. At least China isn't profiteering or abusing said data.. yet.

No matter what, I'm never creating a TikTok account. And I limit what I post on Facebook, especially pictures, as FB has made it clear that anything posted publicly is used to train its AI. I have no idea to which extent but I'm doing what I can to prevent my face, friends, and experiences to be part of said training material. There are already so many people who post pictures of their families, children, etc publicly because they don't or didn't used to know any better, and changing the visibility of all those pictures to private now would be a task of insurmountable proportions.

EDIT:

My "spook" sites on Facebook have been on about China is a dangerous enemy and allowing them access to our young people will lead to brainwashing type influence.

Honestly, there's so much misinformation being spread by everyone these days that trying to prevent the brainwashing of our children and young people is as futile as trying to stop the ebb and flow of the tide.

 

[Grandpa Frank]

Too busy with Facebook to use anything else.

 

[mdchachi]

Last I heard the US is the only one wanting to ban tiktok.

India banned them several years ago.

In my opinion they need to show exactly what TikTok is doing bad like influencing kids in some bad way different than what instagram etc. are, or what exactly they are "spying" on with the tiktok app showing specifics not vauge handwaving.

I think it less to do with the algorithm/influence than it does with the fact that China can access everything. Personal user info etc.

On short video and SNS in general yes I feel it has killed our attention spans. Most read short posts rather than books.

I was using TikTok quite a bit five years ago. Now I only check in every week or so. They expanded the allowed length of videos so I like it less. Now people give long soliloquys to make some point whereas before they had to be succinct. The other thing that is a big feature which I guess Instagram also has but not sure about others is that creators can go live. So you can interact with creators real time. Ask them questions or whatever. For creators they'll actually get real money somehow this way because many people give them virtual gifts. But now those live streams have turned into a lot of shopping streams with -- usually Chinese -- people trying to sell various gadgets. Another weird thing is that many of the lives show people in the middle of Pakistan, Syria or wherever behaving like trained monkeys in order to get these gifts. For example, one I saw showed three guys in stereotypical middle eastern garb. One was sitting neck deep in a filthy mud puddle. The other two were just sitting around. Then when somebody gave them a big gift the guy in the puddle would dunk himself and the guys outside would dance around for 30 seconds or so and then reset waiting for the next one. Sad this is somehow the best way they could find to make a living.

Here's an article about begging on TikTok. I haven't seen any live streams exploiting children like this but I have seen some taken from within refugee tents.

In recent years, a disturbing phenomenon has spread across the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps of northwest Syria, where children beg for sympathy in live TikTok broadcasts in return for small amounts of food.

This is provided to them by the Tiktok account holders, who have themselves turned to the platform in desperation for a way out of the poverty of the displacement camps, which lack the most essentials of life.

The children beg the viewers for virtual gifts in the broadcasts, and the broadcasters attempt to increase their followers and donors.

Inside the TikTok trend exploiting child hunger in NW Syria

In recent years a disturbing trend has grown in NW Syria of TikTok livestreams featuring children begging viewers for gifts and getting food in return.

www.newarab.com

 

[salyavin]

Many apps including say Meta apps have access to user data but I guess since it is US within US it is OK for Americans to be exploited domestically on such data. Youtube does have lives and giving money not sure if they exploit child hunger though that might be unique to tiktok. I know instagram has go lives not sure if there are money gifts. I remember years ago (over a decade) we had a hard core Muslim dude watching Muslims getting tortured or killed on youtube in the office at a fortune 500 I worked at, he did not get in trouble and I chose not to turn him in as we got along well otherwise and he kept volume low. I believe youtube has improved how quickly they remove such disturbing content from youtube.

I do not use TikTok at all so most have more experience than I. A lot of this user data tiktok gathers many apps and sites also gather IMHO. Just not sure why we are picking on TikTok in particular it seems questionable to me. I do agree that making disadvantage people particularly children in a war zone do things for good does seem to push it especially: "in some cases, other support has been cut off from families, and even orphans, after a child has appeared in TikTok video clips."

 

[mdchachi]

since it is US within US it is OK for Americans to be exploited domestically on such data

A lot of this user data tiktok gathers many apps and sites also gather IMHO

Yes I think that's the basic idea. Only Americans (and a specific South African) should be allowed to exploit Americans.
The main difference is that there are no barriers from all that data going to the Chinese government. Whereas in the U.S. the government has no legal access to data held by the social media companies.

 

[salyavin]

While maybe no "legal" access I don't buy it especially when you see social media monguls front row at inauguration. The Chinese government has little direct power over US citizens, the US government does. The US corporations have a fair bit of power too.

 

[salyavin]

Also to be clear the Chinese government would be much less friendly to live under than the US government. Their social credit system is more commonly used to cause citizens problems, they do more overt direct interference with the life of one of their citizens than the US government does to US people.

 

[nice gaijin]

So, I guess TikTok's shutdown was just temporary enough to feel real before a tweet from the then-incoming president reversing the policy he himself set back during his last reign. I'm sure it has nothing to do with TikTok's CEO sitting next to Tulsi Gabbard, the current nominee for intelligence chief, at the inauguration. Or the sudden massive uptick of Trump's personal wealth thanks to a wave of foreign buy-in of his new meme coin, rendering the emoluments clause an absolute joke.

They will threaten a consequential policy and then act to "save" us from the way they made us feel in the first place. Amazing that it seems to work, so I expect a lot more of these manufactured crises moving forward.

Not that there are much better options for social media platforms, as Musk gave the old sieg heil during the celebration and Zuckerberg's lawyer just quit due to his "descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness" (his words). We'll probably find out that Jack Dorsey eats babies, and @thomas jaywalks. In all seriousness though, discussion boards like this one are the few places I bother to write down my opinion on anything. Once a community gets big enough, it becomes difficult or even impossible to hold the worst of humanity at bay. Not just for lack of moderation, but when the owners themselves get redpilled or blackpilled and show their utter contempt for their userbase, and enable the shittiest people to be themselves in anonymity amplified by a chorus of bot armies and bought-and-paid-for influence... well, you get what you see now.

Ironic that the revival of TikTok would herald it, but welcome to the dead internet, folks.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

... We'll probably find out that Jack Dorsey eats babies, and @thomas jaywalks....

Wait, does @thomas jaywalk?!? What is this...anarchy?

 

[mdchachi]

welcome to the dead internet, folks.

It's worse than dead. It's anti-humanity at this point.

 

[thomas]

Wait, does @thomas jaywalk?!? What is this...anarchy?

I do. But never in front of children.

In all seriousness though, discussion boards like this one are the few places I bother to write down my opinion on anything.

That's why I hope private fora will survive, sheltering us dinosaurs hailing from an age when the internet was still exciting.

 

[nice gaijin]

That's why I hope private fora will survive, sheltering us dinosaurs hailing from an age when the internet was still exciting.

not just exciting, but a net force for good. Where real people freely share their knowledge, and think before they write. Like an actual community. Now the internet seems hell bent on tearing down what remains of society, as the 6 guys who control to top internet profiteers and 20% of the world's wealth took the seats normally reserved for governors so the rest of us can see who really owns the country now.

Thanks for indulging the self-centered doomerism

 

[salyavin]

I like forums a lot. Another nice thing about forums is it is easier to search for older info than it is on instagram or even facebook for example for a car I own the web forum is far superior to social media. One reason I like the fediverse (mastodon, misskey etc.) is that it is independently run servers so there if the owner of one server gets red pilled or whatever you just move your account to another server. The problem of course is one does not have the massive userbase tiktok, X, instagram, or even Bluesky has.

 

[Achilles 1-1]

Honestly, all this TikTok ban really did was make people go to yet ANOTHER Chinese owned social media app. Oh, look at us, they say. We cheated the American government by going to this other Chinese app where we can post all day! Oh, we so clever! Bro. You're posting about it all day, the Government isn't as stupid as it was even just two days ago. They will ban that app.

 

[mdchachi]

the Government isn't as stupid as it was even just two days ago. They will ban that app.

The new government is what saved it. It's highly unlikely to get banned now.

 

[Achilles 1-1]

The new government is what saved it. It's highly unlikely to get banned now.
View attachment 123420

Im not talking about TikTok, I'm talking about the new app people are flocking to. Honestly, I hope TikTok ISN'T banned. I don't even have TikTok, but i like watching YouTubers react to it. I forget what new app they are flocking to though, lol

 

[Achilles 1-1]

Sorry, its called RedNote.

 

[mdchachi]

Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance so they probably won't get banned.
RedNote might fall into the same oversight that caught Tiktok but probably won't get much notice until it gets a large user base.

 

[Achilles 1-1]

Welp, Just found out TikTok came back. It isn't banned.

 

[Lothor]

I've been on Bluesky for a few weeks and I really like it. It's now busy enough to feel lively, and no adverts or crap is pushed at you. It's entirely up to you how much politics there's going to be in your thread. You can click on trending posts to read people's worries and abhorrance about having a fascist US government that condones Nazi salutes, or you can share photos with friends. Nobody unknown enters your feed unless you click on the Discover button. If it wasn't for two groups, I'd delete my Facebook account.

 

[mdchachi]

I've been on Bluesky for a few weeks and I really like it. It's now busy enough to feel lively, and no adverts or crap is pushed at you. It's entirely up to you how much politics there's going to be in your thread. You can click on trending posts to read people's worries and abhorrance about having a fascist US government that condones Nazi salutes, or you can share photos with friends. Nobody unknown enters your feed unless you click on the Discover button. If it wasn't for two groups, I'd delete my Facebook account.

I also started Bluesky a few weeks ago. I like it so far. Most of the people I followed on Twitter are there so I get much of the same content I'm interested in. For some reason I keep getting cat pics and videos pushed on me. I may have looked at a few that doesn't mean I want it constantly. One thing that's annoying is that I already have 36 followers even though I've never posted anything. They don't seem to be bots but people whose strategy seems to be to follow in hopes of getting reciprocated follows back. But I wonder how they found my account in the first place.

 

[nice gaijin]

Welp, Just found out TikTok came back. It isn't banned.

It is technically banned by law, but there's no executive will to follow through on it anymore.

Basically, Trump started the ball rolling on the tiktok ban back during his first term, and it took congress the entire Biden term to pass a law that said "It's not ok for a FOREIGN owned company to collect and use American user data," but if they divest and let an American company take a controlling share then it's somehow OK. When he realized that he could curry favor with the young user base by reversing his position, Trump tweeted support for "saving tiktok" the night before the ban went into effect. Tiktok was already shutting itself down, sending its users into a panic that led many to join RedNote, a much more blatantly Chinese owned platform. It was "down" for about half a day before restoring service, thanking Trump for promising to not enforce his country's laws.

It doesn't mention the campaign contributions that may have helped sway Trump's position, but here's a full timeline courtesy of The US TikTok ban – a full timeline

• September 2017 – TikTok is launched to the international market.
• August 2018 – TikTok is merged with Musical.ly.
• February 2019 – ByteDance is fined $5.7 million by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for collecting data from minors under the age of 13, in accordance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). ByteDance and the FTC reach a consent decree. TikTok adds a "kids only" mode in response.
• May 2020 – An advocacy group claims that TikTok has violated the terms of its February 2019 consent decree with the FTC and files a complaint.
• August 2020 – US President Donald Trump signs an order stating that TikTok transactions will be banned in 45 days if ByteDance does not sell the app.
• August 2020 – US President Donald Trump issues an order demanding that ByteDance sell or spin off its US TikTok businesses within 90 days.
• August 2020 – The Wall Street Journal reports that TikTok tracks the data of Android users. This tracking allegedly includes IMEIs and MAC addresses, which is in direct violation of Google's policies.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

• June 2021 – TikTok updates its privacy policy to include potential collection of biometric data, including "faceprints and voiceprints," sparking privacy concerns.
• June 2021 – US President Joe Biden signs an executive order, revoking the ban issued by Donald Trump. President Biden orders the Secretary of Commerce to investigate TikTok and determine whether or not it is a threat to national security.
• October 2021 – TikTok, alongside other social media sites YouTube and Snapchat, are questioned by a group of US lawmakers regarding data privacy and content moderation for underage users. TikTok is questioned specifically about whether ByteDance, TikTok's parent company in China, could pass user data to the Chinese government. ByteDance denies these allegations, stating that US user data is stored within the US, with backups in Singapore.
• February 2022 – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launches an investigation into TikTok following alleged violations of children's privacy and the facilitation of human trafficking.
• May 2022 – TikTok settles for $1.1 million in a class action lawsuit regarding violations of COPPA.
• June 2022 – Buzzfeed News reports that audio of 80 internal TikTok meetings reveals that TikTok has a "master admin" that can see "everything", and that employees located in China have repeatedly accessed the data of overseas users.
• June 2022 – Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner, calls for Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, citing concerns that sensitive user data was being accessed by those in Beijing, and that ByteDance would be forced to hand over user data due to the surveillance demands of the Chinese government.
• August 2022 – Keylogging functionality is discovered in TikTok's in-app browser (along with the in-app browsers of other platforms) by security researcher Felix Krause. TikTok claims this code is disabled.
• October 2022 – Forbes reports that a team at ByteDance had plans to surveil US citizens. The reason for the surveillance was undisclosed.
• December 2022 – ByteDance reveals that, as part of an investigation into the source of the leaks to Forbes and The Financial Times, its employees from China and the United States had accessed the data of two journalists and their close contacts.
• December 2022 – The US government bans the use of TikTok on devices owned by the federal government.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

• May 2023 – The Wall Street Journal reports that former TikTok employees have complained about the company tracking users who view LGBTQ+ content on the app.
• June 2023 – ByteDance confirms that some of the financial information of American content creators, e.g. social security numbers and tax forms, are stored in China. This applies specifically to those who have signed contracts with and receive payments from ByteDance.
• March 2024 – US President Joe Biden signs a bill demanding that ByteDance sell TikTok to a US-approved buyer within nine months or face a total ban of the app within the US.
• April 2024 – The claims of a former TikTok employee allegedly responsible for leaking information to The Washington Post, Forbes and Buzzfeed News, are revealed to be improbable.
• August 2024 – The FTC and the US Department of Justice file a joint lawsuit against ByteDance regarding alleged violations of the February 2019 consent decree.
• December 2024 – A federal appeals court upholds the ban on TikTok in the United States. ByteDance requests that the ruling be paused while it attempts to get the Supreme Court to hear the case.
• December 2024 – It is announced that the Supreme Court will hear arguments from ByteDance as to why TikTok should not be sold or banned in the US.
• January 9, 2025 – Senator Edward Markey, Senator Rand Paul and Representative Ro Khanna submit a bipartisan, bicameral amicus brief to the Supreme Court. The brief urges them to overturn the DC Circuit Court's decision in TikTok Inc. v. Garland, which upheld the TikTok ban.
• January 10, 2025 – President-elect Donald Trump files a request to the Supreme Court to delay the implementation of a ban on TikTok until he takes office on 20 January. The court declines to immediately act on this.
• January 10, 2025 – The Supreme Court hears oral arguments regarding why TikTok should be banned or sold in the United States.
• January 10, 2025 – TikTok's lawyers argue to the Supreme Court that banning TikTok is a matter of free speech, while the Solicitor General argues it is a matter of national security. The Supreme Court Justices rule that the case is submitted and adjourn the court.
• January 13, 2025 – Senator Edward Markey introduces the Extend The TikTok Deadline Act, which aims to extend the deadline by which ByteDance must sell TikTok by 270 days.
• January 15, 2025 – The Washington Post reports that President-Elect Donald Trump is considering an executive order than would suspend the enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale ruling for 60 to 90 days.
• January 15, 2025 – Sources close to TikTok announce its plans to completely shut down US operations of the app on January 19 if the ban goes ahead.
• January 16, 2025 – The incoming national security advisory for Trump's presidency, Mike Waltz, tells Fox News that the Trump administration is "going to find a way to preserve [TikTok] but protect people's data".
• January 16, 2025 – An official from President Joe Biden's administration tells NBC that officials are "exploring options" to prevent TikTok from going dark in the US if the ban is implemented, saying users "shouldn't expect to see TikTok suddenly banned on Sunday".
• January 17, 2025 – The US Supreme Court issues a ruling to uphold the nationwide TikTok ban. TikTok will no longer be available to download in app stores from January 19 unless President-Elect Donald Trump directs the justice department not to enforce the ban once he takes office on January 20.

(Image credit: Future)

• January 19, 2025 – The final deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok. If it does not sell, TikTok will be banned in the United States.
• January 19, 2025 – TikTok shuts down operations in the US. Users trying to access the app are met with the following message: "Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!"
• January 19, 2025 – President-Elect Donald Trump makes a Truth Social which promises to "extend the period of time before the [TikTok ban's] prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security". He also states that "the order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order". Trump also states that he would the US to have 50% ownership of TikTok in a "joint venture".
• January 19, 2025 – Roughly 12 hours after shutting down operations, TikTok makes a statement that in agreement with its service providers, it will be reinstating the use of the app in the US. The app makes a statement thanking President-Elect Donald Trump for "providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive". TikTok also says that it will "work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States".
• January 20, 2025 – On his first day in office, President Trump signs executive order delaying the ban for 75 days and instructing the US Attorney General not to enforce the law. However the app remains unavailable on app stores.

ironically, the anti "Chinese communist" zeal for banning TikTok pushed users to flock to RedNote, but that's not quite an accurate translation for the Chinese name of the app: 小红书, literally "little red book."

For those who are unfamiliar,

Who, What, Why: What is the Little Red Book?

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell threw a copy of Mao's Little Red Book at George Osborne. What exactly is this tome?

www.bbc.com