Is TikTok installed on your phone right now? \ stacker news ~tech

Is TikTok installed on your phone right now?

767 sats \ 28 comments \ @kr 13 Mar tech

It’s interesting to see how so much of the legacy news coverage today is about TikTok (even more than Bitcoin it seems), and yet there is barely any conversation about TikTok on SN.

Just a heat check poll, curious to know if you have TikTok installed on your phone?

In the comments, feel free to also share your thoughts on the proposals to divest or ban TikTok in the US, and what knock-on effects this kind of legislative action might have on other social platforms.

Yes5.6%

No77.8%

Nice try, Fed16.7%

54 votes \ poll ended

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155 sats \ 0 replies \ @ch0k1 13 Mar

I'm pretty much on every platform you can think of but never opened TikTok!

I either somehow knew that it is harmful or just felt it's not for me

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @astro_penguin 13 Mar

Not a chance! Seeing short snippets of the content people watch on there makes my brain hurt. Plus, video looks much better in a landscape orientation.

100 sats \ 4 replies \ @xz 13 Mar

Never have installed, never will. Is there an actual difference to Instagram in terms of the format? I've never used that either. Nor snapchat.. I have to confess to having been used by Twitter and Facebook in the past. Not much though. To me these are all very similar.

I understand the 'potential threat' it is not a homegrown data harvesting all those seconds, minutes and hours of videos are going straight to P.R.China (via U.S.)

What is obviously not an issue is if that data could be bought legally anyway, so the idea of a pretext to ban an app based on x y z is straight up censorship and eroding of the U.S constitution.

Knock on effects will be censorship, further fragmentation of app-stores internet platforms. Tribalism. State sanctioned application-induced comas.

41 sats \ 3 replies \ @kr OP 13 Mar

the biggest difference is that TikTok’s feed is entirely algorithmically generated, whereas Instagram still gives you some of the content from your friends or others you are following

79 sats \ 2 replies \ @xz 13 Mar

I was not aware of that. Thanks for the clarification. I guess that's fairly significant in terms of shaping a consensus.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinosphere 14 Mar

That algorithm is racist AF, too. For instance, if you are Chinese it always tends to show you videos of people making life & the world around them better, with words of wisdom & prosperity every other video.

If you're american though, it only shows you ghetto drama, gay promotion, and a whole lot of twerking videos.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @xz 14 Mar

Insidious.

The problem IMO is the need to link your profile to phone number. Correct me if I'm wrong, without that it would be difficult to distinguish user nationality and pipe a different algorithm to pump garbage or healthier content. Maybe IP allows to do the same, but that is the beautiful thing about connecting from different locations, and to my mind is how and why the internet was designed.

Not that it provides much anonymity if there's real incentive to trace, but that little protection or masking that it can provide to stop profiling users based on location, just like drawing the curtains in your home. Gulag surveillance is the problem. There's no benefit to exposing your location from a users perspective. It does not increase security.

89 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 13 Mar

I installed it on my phone because my Dance club students wanted to find some videos to inspire them to choreograph their dance. Another occasion, an ex-convict-turned influencer came to my school to give a talk, so I showed my students his TikTok videos on my laptop.

But rn, I uninstalled TikTok. It’s a meaningless time sink! I can’t deny the profound impact it has on the young, though

90 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 13 Mar

If you give me a "Nice try, fed" option I will choose a "Nice try, fed" option.

79 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 14 Mar

I don’t think this legislation is necessary. The president and congress already have authority to regulate foreign companies especially if national security is threatened

79 sats \ 0 replies \ @037447d9ca 13 Mar

Is it decentralized and free software? no? then I'm not on it.

69 sats \ 0 replies \ @OneOneSeven 13 Mar

83 sats \ 6 replies \ @kenn_b 13 Mar

social media apps are like the cholera of our times

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @026180d3a3 13 Mar

Cholera is the Cholera of our times. Social media is the ass cancer of our times.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @kr OP 13 Mar

what is the cure?

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @kenn_b 13 Mar

high self esteem and some brain:)

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @kr OP 13 Mar

is high self esteem the cure or the outcome?

69 sats \ 1 reply \ @kenn_b 13 Mar

the cure.

the outcome is parasites doing stupid shit in front of cameras and low esteem lost souls watching that shit for hours

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr OP 13 Mar

oh sorry, i meant the outcome of no longer using TikTok (my last message was confusing).

i can see self esteem being higher on average if nobody had access to TikTok, but I don’t see how raising self esteem gets rid of TikTok.

25 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scholarhacker 13 Mar

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @gmd 14 Mar

I have it because sometimes it gets linked to or a friend sends me a link but I never scroll on there.

It’s quite disturbing to hear (although I have not seen this substantiated) how much the ratio of content pro-israel/palestine ukraine/russia is flipped on IG vs Tiktok.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 13 Mar

Never used instagram, Snapchat or tik tok.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @drlh 14 Mar

Nice try, I see tiktok as a slot machine, and I don't want a skinner box to push me into doom scrolling or to show news for me. Same with youtube's shorts.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @guts 14 Mar

I have it. The legislation does not affect me. But the U.S. government and Israel are taking seriously they can't control TikTok as they do with other U.S. based apps where propaganda is so obvious.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 14 Mar

Huhhh! TikTok is banned in my country. We don't accept Chinese waste. We stay clean and have YT for clean content and Facebook where we post the less dignified content, like naked scenes, porn, vulgal language etc. Etc. Facebook doing great here.