[HN Gopher] TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020
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TikTok owner ByteDance sees its earnings double in 2020
Author : shivbhatt
Score : 107 points
Date : 2021-06-18 13:42 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| IncRnd wrote:
| The headline uses the word "earnings" incorrectly.
|
| > "ByteDance also saw its annual gross profit rise by 93% to to
| $19bn, while it recorded a net loss of $45bn for the same
| period."
| an_opabinia wrote:
| How did ByteDance lose $45b...
| azurezyq wrote:
| They are expanding like crazy. Loss is not a problem at this
| stage.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| that too is answered in the article
|
| _" The net loss was attributed to a one-off accounting
| adjustment and not related to the company's operations._"
| ralusek wrote:
| So I've learned that TikTok allows copyrighted music to be played
| in videos, and just gives a cut of the revenue to the label. Why
| don't more social media have this arrangement?
|
| YouTube not allowing copyrighted music is _insane_ to me. Just
| give the label a large fraction of the revenue from the watch
| time during the time that their music was playing. How hard can
| it be to negotiate this arrangement?
| the-dude wrote:
| How is YT not allowing copyrighted music? AFAIK, it is.
| Spivak wrote:
| It's up to the copyright owner if they want to take down or
| monetize the videos that have their IP in it.
| rchaud wrote:
| There are ways to get around YT's automatic strikes. There are
| numerous 'music reaction' channels where listeners play the
| music video in a small PIP window, and maybe shift the pitch a
| tad so it's not 100% identical to the original audio. This
| approach lets them play back the whole song + music video.
|
| Some rights holders are especially aggressive, and proactively
| search for infringing material, so this method isn't foolproof;
| if they manually flag it, the audio will be stripped from the
| video. But for the cases where the rights holders are happy to
| use automatic strikes, the workaround still works.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > YouTube not allowing copyrighted music is insane to me. Just
| give the label a large fraction of the revenue
|
| Youtube does exactly this. Upload music owned by labels that
| Youtube has a deal with and they'll get revenue.
| [deleted]
| rednerrus wrote:
| I've followed 1000 new people on TikTok in the past 6 months. I
| don't feel any pressure because none of the people know me IRL.
| The content is amazing.
| passivate wrote:
| Can someone who knows this stuff explain how TikTok actually
| makes money?
| adjkant wrote:
| Senator, we run ads!
| passivate wrote:
| I guess they do organic ads, as I don't recall ever seeing a
| proper professionally produced ad. I admit I haven't spent
| much time on it though..
| adjkant wrote:
| It's genuinely interesting you haven't seen any, or perhaps
| you haven't used the app in the past 6 months?
|
| There's tons of them today, they've been cranking the ad
| load hard. I see like Nike and the like all the time. It
| might be they only show ads to users who use regularly.
| belval wrote:
| I hate TikTok because it's so good. It's a frictionless content
| pump that we can open and doom-scroll for hours. I have never
| seen such a beautifully crafted user experience, from the
| recommendation algorithm that is top-notch the content that is
| catchy and highlights trends without overdoing it and the absence
| of political content if you don't engage with it (or maybe there
| is none at all).
|
| I don't have it on my phone, but I truly see it as the pinnacle
| of the stupidly addictive social media app and it scares me
| because it means that Chinese companies are just as capable as us
| to spin the next Facebook and distribute propaganda to the next
| generation.
| the-dude wrote:
| And why is that bad?
| jozvolskyef wrote:
| One feature that amazes me about the algorithm is that it
| reacts to scrolling habits in what seems to be the minimum
| possible number of observations. Suppose half of your feed are
| talking head videos. Stop interacting with them abruptly by
| scrolling over within 2 seconds and observe how the algorithm
| gradually reduces their frequency.
| schoolornot wrote:
| I never understood the Chinese propaganda angle but I agree the
| app is wonderful. It's the only app that has found a way to
| touch every one of my emotions.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| Its basically shows similar content to the people that you
| follow.
|
| I started following people from India and it will only show me
| content from India.
|
| I unfollowed everyone, and started following indian people in
| USA, and it started showing me content from that.
|
| I started following people in America, and it started showing
| me similar content.
|
| It wouldn't show any new trends or new/different content.
| dominotw wrote:
| i uninstalled it and avoid it all cost because i ended up
| spending around 14 hrs in the app for the 5 days i had it
| installed on my phone.
|
| Unfortunately now the copy cats like youtube shorts have me
| hooked and i cannot uninstall youtube because i use it for so
| many more things.
| dunningkruger27 wrote:
| This is spot on.
| passivate wrote:
| > it scares me because it means that Chinese companies are just
| as capable as us to spin the next Facebook and distribute
| propaganda to the next generation.
|
| Is there any good reason to focus on the misuse of a
| technology?
| anthony_romeo wrote:
| IMO I find the platform to be mentally abusive for me. It's a
| whirlwind of stirring emotions, shocking content, and
| 'earworms' everywhere, where memes iteratively compound into
| their own nonsensical language at a faster rate than on other
| networks. I'm afraid of observing, say, misconceptions and
| false math tricks passively on the platform, and accidentally
| letting them burrow into my brain. There isn't enough time for
| proper critical thinking on TikTok.
| RGamma wrote:
| I honestly think TikTok might be a ploy to dumb down/analyze
| the western population.
|
| I find it fantastically stupid.
|
| Once I saw the aggressive marketing for it in the play store
| I knew this was something we now have to deal with. And so we
| do.
| quenix wrote:
| Why do you find it "fantastically stupid"?
| stevofolife wrote:
| You got it all wrong. You don't use TikTok for critical
| thinking. This product was never designed to be a critical
| thinking tool.
| saturdaysaint wrote:
| I mean, you're not completely wrong, but if you say "not
| interested" to a handful of emotion-stirring or shocking
| things, it's amazing how savvily the algorithm will steer you
| away from that content and often into more interesting fare.
| endisneigh wrote:
| your comment is contradictory - if there is no political
| content, what propaganda is there to distribute? per your own
| comment wouldn't they just be distributing the "catchy"
| content?
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Silencing political content is inherently propagating the
| status quo.
| rcpt wrote:
| Yeah. My understanding of Chinese internet is that it's 99%
| fluff or celebrity news and other inconsequential things
| mixed with a bit of CCP approved nationalism
| xvector wrote:
| There isn't propaganda. I guess people say there is, because
| conspiracy theories are more fun than fact. But strong
| statements like "TikTok is propaganda" need to be supported
| with evidence.
|
| I would say that the highly tailored experience of the TikTok
| algorithm would make a propaganda op quite easy to detect.
| The algorithm is so ridiculously good, that you would
| instantly spot a propaganda video, or notice when your feed
| begins to skew from what you like to see.
| gruez wrote:
| >The algorithm is so ridiculously good, that you would
| instantly spot a propaganda video, or notice when your feed
| begins to skew from what you like to see.
|
| Would you notice it if they slowly ramped it up? How would
| you know whether it's grassroots or planted by the CCP?
| xvector wrote:
| Yes, I think it would be absurdly easy to notice, because
| nothing in most people's feeds is remotely political.
|
| How exactly would you propagandize a stream of improv
| skits, or dance videos, or pet videos? Every user's feed
| is extremely specific and deviations, even small ones,
| are easy to notice.
| est wrote:
| > There isn't propaganda
|
| There is. Tiktok China also got rid of all the political
| content because of the superior censorship algorithms.
| [deleted]
| karaterobot wrote:
| Wasn't there something about how you couldn't find TikTok
| videos about the Hong Kong protests?
|
| Ahh, so the Guardian had some leaked moderation
| documents[1] implying there was an active moderation
| keeping them from being viewed. Buzzfeed said they did
| their own experiments and found no evidence that videos
| about Hong Kong were being removed[2].
|
| I see no reason why both of those can't be true: if you
| control the algorithm, you don't need to delete anything,
| you can control with fine granularity how viral it's
| allowed to go. I guess that's a conspiracy theory, but for
| myself, I'm very skeptical that any media company operates
| in China with what most of us would call political
| neutrality and free speech.
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/reve
| aled-...
|
| [2]
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/tiktok-
| us...
| xvector wrote:
| I think it's much more likely that such videos don't rise
| to the top because it's not what TikTok's audience cares
| to engage with.
|
| I honestly don't know anyone that actually wants to see
| political content on TikTok (though, if you seek it out,
| you will find it.) It's simply not what the platform is
| for.
| pope_meat wrote:
| That's a very naive perspective, in my opinion.
|
| I wouldn't put it past tech giants in democratic nations
| not to tweak their algorithms to push their own political
| agenda, much less tech giants in non democratic nations.
|
| It's too powerful a tool not to abuse, I know it, and you
| know it too.
| Spivak wrote:
| If you don't interact with political content you will never
| see it. But if you do you'll see a lot more of it. TikTok
| basically has auto-subreddits that are crazy specific because
| of its discovery algorithm.
| belval wrote:
| There is no political content right now, my point is that in
| case of escalating conflict or proxy-conflict with China they
| could absolutely run disinformation through this channel in a
| way that is somewhat transparent to their users to spark
| anti-war counter-movements in the US.
| poisonarena wrote:
| there is definately political content, half of my feed
| became radicalized living in israel during the last
| conflict
| xvector wrote:
| This is a far-fetched concern. Realistically speaking, the
| platform would just get permanently banned if it was being
| used to spread propaganda in a manner that harms a wartime
| effort.
|
| Otherwise, I just don't see China risking one of the most
| promising gems to have come out of its internet technology
| industry in a long time.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| The funny thing about TikTok/ByteDance is actually that
| the Chinese government didn't really care about them
| until Trump was against them. Like, by Chinese standards
| Douyin is smaller than the companies that the CCP do care
| about.
| justicezyx wrote:
| You are misled by the title...
|
| ByteDance's overwhelming revenue is from non-TikTok sources,
| i.e., all JinRiTouTIao, DouYin, and other minor properties. The
| title wants you to think it related to TikTok as it was one of
| the most controversial news pieces in 2020.
|
| TikTok's financial success is still very uncertain.
|
| ByteDance is facing a weak BIDU (note Alibaba do not have much
| Ads business, and Tencent has a different walled garden), while
| here they are facing FB & Google in US.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > TikTok's financial success is still very uncertain.
|
| I would take that bet any day of the week and twice on
| Fridays. TikTok has a massive, growing user base with
| engaging content on a platform that people generally like. I
| find it hard to believe they would succeed so massively in
| their app design and recommendation algorithms and then fail
| at monetization, which at this point is the trivial part.
|
| I don't know what BIDU means.
| justicezyx wrote:
| BIDU is baidu's stock tick
|
| For any spectacularly failed startup, there have been
| ardent supporters who uttered words no less enthusiasm than
| yours.
|
| When I say their future are uncertain, I mean that it's
| more uncertain than one might expect, based on DouYin's
| success in China. One evidence I raised, is that
| competitors here are much stronger.
|
| Plus, you might not believe it, CCP is more friendly to big
| tech than US government...
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| Having people spend their attention span w/ "fun" content - as
| opposed to political / critical - seems perfect for a dystopian
| state.
| yumaikas wrote:
| That's interesting, though. I find a _lot_ of political and
| critical content on TikTok. You do have to look for it, it 's
| not as popular, but TikTok definitely can be used for it.
| eunos wrote:
| Better live in Huxleyan than in Orwellian world
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| We're missing all the best parts of the Huxleyan sphere,
| though... more's the pity.
| belval wrote:
| It's highly debatable that the current twitter mobs are doing
| anything but alienating the wider population to their cause.
|
| Liking or retweeting some police abuse video has about the
| same impact as liking a picture about famine in Somalia, the
| dopamine hit is just stronger.
| codetrotter wrote:
| Most so called political content is not useful anyways I
| don't think. All I see for the most part is people convinced
| that their view is the right view, and almost no one seems to
| be trying to find common ground and work out solutions that
| everyone can be satisfied with. Instead it's like they think
| that any inch you "give" is a loss.
| lucasverra wrote:
| https://polemix.io is a mobile platform that try to find
| common grounds by allowing "respect" votes that show that
| you disagree, but still find the idea/content/opinion
| relevant.
|
| Social networks isolate people by only showing them content
| they agree with. It's like french kissing yourself in the
| mirror.
|
| We are 9 weeks online and growing with 2k+ users. Would
| appreciate your intake (invite code LV005). Cheers
| codetrotter wrote:
| Thanks I will check it out
| hiidrew wrote:
| I do not use the product (mainly because I'm too hooked on
| others...sadly) but one of my biggest gripes on the UX is the
| lack of video player controlls.
|
| It really grinds my gears to have to watch 90% of a 60 sec
| video to be able to replay text at the end of something else.
| Other social apps fail with this as well, e.g. Snapchat,
| Instagram.
|
| I'm curious how intentional the design decision is, perhaps
| trying to maximize time spent on the app? Interesting though
| how FB and Twitter do not follow the design pattern.
| curiousllama wrote:
| I've decided to outsource dopamine production to The Chinese
| Algorithm and honestly it's going great
| dnh44 wrote:
| Star Trek TNG basically predicted this in 1991 in the episode
| The Game.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28Star_Trek:_The_Nex.
| ..
| xvector wrote:
| I love how positive and _fun_ the content on TikTok is. It
| really is a breath of fresh air, never fails to bring a smile
| to my face.
| artificial wrote:
| They collect biometric data now, faceprints and voiceprints.
| [0]
|
| [0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-
| itself-pe...
| pope_meat wrote:
| But the fun app made me look like a kitten, and all it cost
| me was privacy for the rest of time.
|
| Can you say WORTH IT?
|
| Heh.
|
| _Anxiety attack_
| LightG wrote:
| I think "doom scroll" is the wrong phrase. I was recommended
| lighthearted content.
|
| But yes, had to delete the thing a year ago to avoid addiction
| ... a back-handed compliment, I know.
|
| Fun, but a complete time-sink ...
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Tiktok, at least for me, is the complete opposite of doom
| scrolling.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| Yeah I had to delete it. Something about the fullscreen
| autoplaying videos is really addicting. And then of course the
| recommendations are good too and are seamless.
| rvz wrote:
| Yeah. We said this about Facebook 11 years ago didn't we? Now
| another one ascends to the throne of the most popular and
| widely _' used'_.
|
| So how long until the users get screwed (again)?
| xnx wrote:
| I've never found Facebook or Instagram fun, but Tiktok is an
| absolute delight. The serendipity they put into the
| recommendations is key.
| rvz wrote:
| Given that there are those calling these social networks
| highly addictive, catchy and delightful I guess it's safe
| to say that the drugs are still in effect.
|
| Especially when the content and algorithms itself is or can
| be easily manipulated or gamed.
|
| So how long until the users get screwed (once again)?
| xvector wrote:
| Who cares? If the platform goes to shit, people will stop
| using it. In the meantime, it's a breath of fresh air in
| a stagnant space.
| rvz wrote:
| > In the meantime, it's a breath of fresh air in a
| stagnant space.
|
| Exactly. We've been here before haven't we?
|
| How many more social networks do you need to join just to
| say the exact same thing? Of course. You're the one
| shilling it everywhere on this whole thread, when the
| news is for early 'investors' preparing for a gigantic
| IPO for massive returns. That's the news they want to
| hear.
|
| As for the users; well _who cares about them_ , they
| (Bytedance) don't care about you. As long as you keep
| generating great shareholder value for them it is another
| social network with a different internal flavour. Nothing
| has changed.
|
| So I will ask again: How long until the users get screwed
| (once again)?
| xvector wrote:
| I'll be honest, your reply is kind of all over the place,
| so I don't know what you're trying to get at.
|
| How are you expecting TikTok to "screw" its users? And
| what's the big deal with users just leaving the platform
| if this does happen? I really don't see the big issue
| here.
| rvz wrote:
| > I'll be honest, your reply is kind of all over the
| place, so I don't know what you're trying to get at.
|
| I'll put it in a very simple TikTok format for you:
| TikTok is just the same as any other social media
| platform which is fundamentally in the interests of the
| investors (they want to IPO with a massive return on
| investment); Not you or the users. Why do you think I
| quoted _' used'_ here? [0]
|
| > How are you expecting TikTok to "screw" its users?
|
| They already did [1][2], which is my point. Therefore, I
| do not have any confidence that they will change or how
| they are any different to other social media platforms.
| Yet you continue to deny such basic things like
| 'censorship' [3] even when another user pointed out a
| source [4] that included leaked information about
| TikTok's own suppression actions; completely debunking
| your vacuous claim.
|
| > And what's the big deal with users just leaving the
| platform if this does happen?
|
| That's not my problem. Another platform will just take
| its place and screw over their users over the interest of
| the investors (If they take capital).
|
| So far with all your responses, you have provided ZERO
| evidence to your claims. I will ask one more time: _' How
| long until the users get screwed (once again)?'_
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27550851
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56815480
|
| [2] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/25/22301704/tiktok-92
| -millio...
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27550717
|
| [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27551195
| JoshTko wrote:
| the feed algo is very good. I can assure you that there is
| loads of political content if you want to see it.
| MasterScrat wrote:
| It's super interesting to compare it with Facebook's attempt at
| the same mechanisms with Instagram Reels:
|
| - terribly redundant content (as in, I see multiple times the
| exact same content from different accounts)
|
| - content ripped off and reposted from original creators by
| spam accounts
|
| - complete destruction of the original Instagram app to try to
| force-feed Reels down your throat
|
| TikTok looks so simple when you use it because everything just
| works. Using Reels makes you realise all the ways there are to
| fuck it up!
| dntrkv wrote:
| This is largely due to the fact that "Reels" is an add-on
| feature to the rest of the Instagram app, rather than its
| primary focus like it is on TikTok.
|
| TikTok was built around this flow. Its community culture
| expects the content to be in a certain format and will self-
| moderate via metrics such as likes, comments, views. The UX
| of the app itself is built around this content. There are no
| distractions.
|
| Instagram on the other hand has a very different community,
| with different culture and expectations. The content creators
| on Instagram may not be as familiar with the content that is
| conducive to the Reels format. The UX of Reels on insta is
| also an add-on feature. You're not opening instagram to
| interact with Reels, you have different intentions. Whereas
| when you open TikTok, you are there for one reason, so the
| app is built around that one flow.
| nith3n wrote:
| You should also see the pathetic copycat feature YouTube has
| created called the shorts. Facebook's attempt with short
| videos and reels is not much better either.
|
| Why does every company feel the urge to copy this and also
| fail so badly at this
| spoonjim wrote:
| YouTube shorts broke my workflow. My son likes to make
| short videos of himself singing songs or doing funny things
| and then we watch them on the TV together. YouTube
| retroactively made all of our videos "shorts" and then says
| you can't cast shorts to the TV.
| dntrkv wrote:
| Because sometimes it works. Instagram stories being a great
| example of this. Though once the functionality of an app
| gets diluted enough, like with Instagram and Facebook, each
| additional feature becomes less competitive.
| 1915cb1f wrote:
| Are youtube shorts a failure? They seem to be immensely
| popular in terms of views/engagement.
|
| Reminds me of how people would deride Instagram for copying
| Snapchat stories, yet far more people probably use
| Instagram stories than snapchat and are perfectly satisfied
| with the UX despite it being a blatant copycat.
| iotku wrote:
| >Are youtube shorts a failure? They seem to be immensely
| popular in terms of views/engagement.
|
| I just think that's only because "the algorithm"
| prioritizes shorts at the moment to try and push them and
| make folks even bother making them. Once YouTube starts
| acting neutral towards them I don't think they'll hold
| up.
|
| I've never come across a short intentionally and after
| seeing quite a few I haven't tried to find further ones
| (and outside of mobile it's quite difficult to do so).
|
| That said of course, I'm probably not in the demographic
| shorts plays to either.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Everyone copies the core feed mechanic, but no one actually
| builds good video editing/creation tools into their app,
| which is actually why Tiktok took off.
|
| If you don't make it easy for your users to post good
| content, of course you're going to make a boring app.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Exactly. This is a really under estimated part of the value
| proposition. Look at how many Reels just have the TikTok
| watermark on.
| rapsey wrote:
| They are missing the core TikTok feature, content moderation.
| Clampower wrote:
| So I installed tik tok for the first time yesterday. I don't
| get how it's supposed to show me things I like. It's mostly
| hot girls doing makeup or teens running from the police and
| stuff. How do I get it to show me things I like? How does it
| discover my niche interests.
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| you can click and hold on the screen to trigger a pop up
| menu to dislike a video that's not in your interest.
| cdstyh wrote:
| I have the same issue with medium. My coworker talk about
| how great it is and he learns so much from it. All I see is
| clcikbait garbage.
| MasterScrat wrote:
| Here's your mistake: you're a couple of years late ;-)
| komodo wrote:
| You do so by tapping the heart to like the video. If you
| want to jump-start it use the discover tab and search for
| something you like.
| IvyMike wrote:
| I mean it's mostly a kids dancing app, so that's mostly
| what you get by default.
|
| Follow Tom Silva, Mr Barricade, Soft Pourn,
| Woodshopdiaries, Scott Hanselman. This will get you a bunch
| of interesting content. It might not be what you want, but
| it's definitely not makeup tutorials.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I actually find it less addictive than other feeds - I think
| it's because I feel less attached to the content (it's either
| people I don't know or famous people I like) and don't really
| engage with it beyond sometimes liking things.
| mongol wrote:
| Tinder is the same. I.e beautifully crafted for addiction.
| JackPoach wrote:
| Did Oracle end up owning a part of the company or not?
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Nope. Some low-balled bids during the height of the Trump
| regime's maximum pressure campaign did not get them anywhere.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Though I still think ByteDance have the goal of an US IPO for
| TikTok International.
| rapsey wrote:
| TikTok is a social network that could not be made by an American
| company, due to its complete disregard for free speech and
| embrace of censorship.
|
| This is a major part of its success, due to not allowing its
| network to deteriorate into culture wars and general unpleasant
| behaviour.
|
| I suspect any future social network much like TikTok will have
| exclusion as a major feature.
| sjg007 wrote:
| American companies can censor, they do it all the time. Free
| speech is protection of speech from prosecution by the
| government, not corporations.
| netr0ute wrote:
| If companies replace roles of the government, then this
| limitation no longer applies.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Doesn't facebook, twitter, and other networks have a lot of
| censorship?
| marderfarker2 wrote:
| Ironic since your ex POTUS got banned from your own social
| media on grounds of causing civil unrest.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| More fun is still to come, when the audits come out.
| wise_young_man wrote:
| Can this conspiracy stuff stop already? He lost and please
| move on. We are all tired of this.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Trust but verify. 40% don't trust. More reason to verify.
| lorlou wrote:
| What I love about tiktok is how they've managed to ban all
| political content. It's a social network which is fun precisely
| because it's not monopolised by rotten people with loads of
| free time.
| NathanKP wrote:
| Political content isn't banned, it just doesn't perform well
| with the audience on TikTok, which is generally younger and
| mostly less interested in politics. Usually when I see
| political content it is from someone dueting the original
| content to troll it, and the troll outperforms the original.
|
| People try to get their political content trending on TikTok,
| but it seems like it usually just gets parodied and they
| basically get laughed off the platform.
| rapsey wrote:
| It is not just about audience. The political content is
| definitely de-emphasised and made harder to appear on
| peoples stream. It does not just happen by itself. It is
| moderated.
| NathanKP wrote:
| I really don't think it is as human curated as you think.
| A lot of political content is very low effort. For
| example boring political rants that regurgitate the same
| tired old political lines that we've already heard a
| million times before. This stuff doesn't last long on For
| You page because it doesn't have people watching it loop
| multiple times, and it doesn't get likes, so the
| algorithm deemphasizes it.
|
| I have seen high effort political content hit the FYP
| page though and get millions of views. Like there is a
| guy who composes his own songs with a political theme and
| sings and dances them. That hits FYP all the time,
| because it is high effort and engaging, and people enjoy
| the tune and watch it loop a few times.
|
| High effort political content does succeed and does hit
| FYP, but it is rare to see because most people haven't
| figured out how to do it right for the TikTok audience.
| The kind of tired old outrage memes that make it on
| Twitter won't succeed on TikTok because they don't
| generate the same algorithmic signals.
| tootie wrote:
| It's kinda unbelievable that there so much praise for their
| tightly controlled content and so much scorn for moderation
| done by Twitter or Reddit. It goes to show how much people's
| judgement is based on expectations and not absolutes.
| dimmke wrote:
| I keep seeing these things about TikTok that are absolutely
| not true. There is definitely political content on TikTok.
|
| Here's a few with > 100k likes from a minute of searching
| "Immigration": https://www.tiktok.com/@janetwthehazeleyes/v
| ideo/69415659895... https://www.tiktok.com/@attorneyericpri
| ce/video/691993902413...
|
| "Gun control" https://www.tiktok.com/@feministmama/video/69
| 619490520616174...
|
| I keep seeing "facts" about TikTok posted on HN threads
| about it that don't hold up to basic research. It's so
| bizarre.
| tootie wrote:
| Idk, I've never opened tiktok. I'm reacting to people's
| comments.
| xvector wrote:
| > they've managed to ban all political content
|
| Can you please source this claim? Plenty of people see highly
| political content on their FYP, but it is a niche within
| TikTok because it's not really why people use it.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| > What I love about tiktok is how they've managed to ban all
| political content.
|
| This is... not my experience with TikTok at all. I think what
| you've just described is your own little filter bubble that
| Tiktok presents.
|
| My Tiktok is _very gay_. Not that that is political, but I
| get a lot of trans rights content, queer issues /advocacy,
| BLM content, pro-choice content, "landlords are evil" content
| etc etc and usually its funny and witty and I love it.
| rapsey wrote:
| You say it is not your experience then you say you don't
| get political content.
| dntrkv wrote:
| > but I get a lot of trans rights content, queer
| issues/advocacy, BLM content, pro-choice content,
| "landlords are evil" content
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Sorry for being unclear - I meant to say that just
| generally gay content is not political. Everything else I
| listed after I think is somewhat political (because
| politics is more than just saying "Republicans are
| bad!!!")
| flycaliguy wrote:
| I guess it depends on what you would label as political.
| Breitbart (sigh... I know) stated that "Politics is
| downstream of culture". It's not a new idea but I have no
| doubt that these non-political spaces will serve as cultural
| funnels into various ideological bubbles.
| rapsey wrote:
| My point exactly.
| vanattab wrote:
| How is tiktok more exclusive?
| [deleted]
| rchaud wrote:
| American companies booted their own head of state off their
| platforms. Careful you don't drown in all that freedom.
| topicseed wrote:
| > I suspect any future social network much like TikTok will
| have exclusion as a major feature.
|
| Do you mean like Clubhouse?
| rapsey wrote:
| Exclusion by driving away users for being complete dog shit
| is not what I had in mind. Not a recipe for success. I guess
| I should have put "any future successful social network".
| reidjs wrote:
| Anecdotally, clubhouse rooms were higher quality before they
| allowed Android users into the platform. Not saying that
| there's something inherently wrong with android users,
| there's just a higher noise to signal ratio now.
| topicseed wrote:
| Probably because the first users were naturally more
| selected and targeted. Opening up to more people,
| regardless of their phone, inevitably leads to a noiser
| experience indeed.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > TikTok is a social network that could not be made by an
| American company, due to its complete disregard for free speech
| and embrace of censorship.
|
| This is nonsense. All the social networks have things they will
| remove and ban your account for, from spam and CP upwards
| (Instagram and FB being notoriously touchy about sexuality). It
| seems that TikTok is heavier about politics than most, but
| censorship is not a boolean.
| rapsey wrote:
| TikTok removes or makes it much harder to find content they
| do not want on the platform. Things that are not the right
| tone. There is very little political and culture war crap on
| it. They don't just censor for abusive, CP, spam and so on.
| dntrkv wrote:
| > There is very little political and culture war crap on it
|
| That all depends on what kind of content you engage with.
| There is plenty of "political and culture war" type content
| on TikTok. You probably just don't see it.
| ska wrote:
| Both could be true - i.e. that there is that sort of
| content there and you will find it if you engage with
| that stuff ... _and_ that there is notably less of it
| that on other services.
|
| Any individuals exposure to one of these large networks
| is a tiny, tiny fraction of what is there.
| throwkeep wrote:
| Not sure if sarcastic. Twitter, Facebook and Youtube are all
| heavily engaging in censorship. For example, they banned people
| last year for talking about the lab leak hypothesis, which is
| now acceptably mainstream(1). They are currently censoring a
| Youtube channel(2) run by a PhD in biology, who has been
| interviewing MDs and the inventor of mRNA vaccines, and whose
| stated purpose is to help end the pandemic(3).
|
| 1) https://youtu.be/sSfejgwbDQ8?t=170 (Jon Stewart on Colbert
| earlier this week)
|
| 2) https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1405234596820643840
|
| 3) https://twitter.com/BretWeinstein/status/1404474243128037378
| dncornholio wrote:
| I tend to disagree, it's successful despite it's complete
| disregard for free speech and embrace of censorship. If the
| content is good enough people really don't care.
| rapsey wrote:
| The content is good because they surgically remove the bad.
| dncornholio wrote:
| Then how do you explain the huge success of League of
| Legends and Valorant? They have some of the most intrusive
| anti-cheat in the planet, are Chinese based, and are HUGELY
| popular specifically in NA.
|
| Again, when the features are good enough, people really
| don't care.
| rapsey wrote:
| Sorry I have no idea what you mean
| draw_down wrote:
| I'd say its success is due to how well it works to entertain
| the user. It understands how to understand what you like, and
| shows you videos in that vein. I don't know how nor do I care.
|
| It's simple and works well- we like those things, remember?
| ericls wrote:
| It's also becoming a Chinese state owned company
| dartdartdart wrote:
| You know every company has to comply with regional laws:
| twitter got banned from that one African country, that doesn't
| mean twitter is against free speech. Tiktok has to comply with
| US laws to be able to enter the US market, and it also hires a
| bunch of US workers.
|
| Your sinophobia is not welcome on this website.
| jiofih wrote:
| I think you're not really grasping how much TikTok "curates"
| the content on the platform compared to everyone else. Having
| posts removed seems to be a very common occurrence - I've
| never had a single post of mine removed from any social
| platform in two decades.
| rapsey wrote:
| I have no idea what you are talking about or how it is
| sinophobia.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| isn't this actually the defining feature of commercial American
| television? You don't see a lot of incisive political
| commentary on Dancing with the Stars or a season of Survivor
| either
|
| basically cleansing entertainment of anything that could be
| considered incendiary and replacing it with people doing funny
| dances is something the American ad industry came up with a
| century ago.
|
| Like it's not as if American popular entertainment looks like
| German ARTE or some Scandinavian drama where politics and
| culture is baked into everything
| dilap wrote:
| Huh? Major american social networks are highly censored. From
| the diversity of political opinions I see on TikTok, it
| certainly doesn't seem to be any more censored than say
| Twitter.
|
| (Exception: TikTok does not allow explicitly sexual content,
| whereas twitter does. But facebook and instagram don't.)
| rapsey wrote:
| They are not as censored as TikTok and they had to be strong
| armed into doing it.
| endisneigh wrote:
| this is a strange comment.
|
| are US social media comments bound by free speech laws? don't
| they all remove content arbitrarily just like tiktok?
|
| how is this the top comment? lol. not to mention Vine was
| literally the same thing as tiktok - it had terrible execution
| and quickly died.
| rapsey wrote:
| Facebook content moderation is not even remotely arbitrary.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _TikTok is a social network that could not be made by an
| American company, due to its complete disregard for free speech
| and embrace of censorship._
|
| Huh? Are you just going to ignore Vine? Twitter completely
| screwed the pooch on Vine by not paying creators which drove
| many high profile influencers to move to Instagram. To
| attribute TikTok's success to censorship is to eagerly insert
| your own political bias into their story. Regardless TikTok,
| nee Musica.ly had already started gaining steam as an American
| company without any major decision on whether to participate in
| culture wars
| rapsey wrote:
| TikTok is un-american because of their complete disregard for
| free speech. Ehat you are talking about has nothing to so
| with what I said.
| dntrkv wrote:
| > Twitter completely screwed the pooch on Vine
|
| All of the complaints about Google's shuttered apps pale in
| comparison to this one.
|
| Vine had the best community of any of the major apps, back
| then, and arguably even now.
|
| I understand they had trouble monitizing it, but it had a
| strong, vibrant community, even when they shut it down. If
| they hadn't neglected it for so long and iterated on the
| concept, they could have easily been TikTok today.
| xvector wrote:
| Can you please source your claims? AFAIK TikTok ended
| censorship. You can even find vids with a lot of views talking
| about things like Tienamen Square, and I know friends whose
| FYPs are pretty political. It seems to me that you are
| confusing TikTok with Douyin (the Chinese version.)
|
| The thing is, TikTok's audience self-censors. People go on the
| app to feel good, not because they want to be dragged into
| another political debate or negativity-inducing spiral like
| with literally every other social media.
| rapsey wrote:
| TikTok employs a lot of moderators and they go much farther
| than facebook or twitter by hiding or removing videos that
| are not upbeat or fun.
| xvector wrote:
| I couldn't find a recent source for this. My understanding
| is that the audience of TikTok does not watch it for
| content that "is not upbeat or fun," effectively self-
| censoring the platform.
|
| People download TikTok specifically for the fun and upbeat
| content, so negative content naturally does not rise to the
| top (unless it is particularly comedic.)
| goatsi wrote:
| Here's a source:
| https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-
| moderators-us...
|
| Of course since the news has come out:
|
| >TikTok spokesperson Josh Gartner told The Intercept that
| "most of" the livestream guidelines reviewed by The
| Intercept "are either no longer in use, or in some cases
| appear to never have been in place," but would not
| provide specifics.
|
| How far you believe them is up to you.
| admn2 wrote:
| While I wouldn't be surprised by this at all, I also think
| the algorithm is so good that it generally just blocks out
| content you don't interact with. It's always pretty obvious
| when the algo bubbles up a new topic completely outside of my
| normal feed, and when I linger, I'll start seeing more.
| OJFord wrote:
| > AFAIK TikTok ended censorship.
|
| Not GP but one of the concierges from my building left to
| work there on 'content moderation' not too long ago (er, just
| before Christmas iirc). Sounded like they have people
| literally sit there, scrolling (or swiping, whatever you do)
| watching like a user, but marking (perhaps voting 1 of N I
| suppose) go/no-go.
| Spivak wrote:
| Honestly, good for them. TikTok is such a breath of fresh air in
| the social media space -- it's bursting with raw unfiltered
| creativity, interactions are really genuine and I've actually met
| now IRL friends on TikTok. Their recommendation engine is scary
| good at discovery which solves the "I don't know who to follow"
| problem, the ads are the least intrusive of any social media
| platform.
|
| If you don't "get" TikTok because your hobbies don't map well to
| video snippets -- stuff like makeup, art, fashion, cooking,
| baking, dance, inde music, cosplay, interior decorating -- don't
| write it off. It's basically a social media paradise for
| women[1]. Like the early days of Tumblr but replace gifs with
| videos.
|
| [1] TikTok's format lends itself to hobbies stereotypically
| cultivated by women. The implication doesn't go the other way;
| loads of guys on TikTok. It also doesn't imply that every woman
| will find like it; don't @ me with logical fallacies.
| justicezyx wrote:
| > raw unfiltered creativity
|
| LMAO
|
| Those videos are literally produced by color or facial
| enhancement *filters*...
|
| Not to mention the content moderation and censorship...
| graphpapa wrote:
| A figure of speech
| Barrin92 wrote:
| it also has really out there content. I didn't expect much
| because I don't care much for pop culture but I found a crew of
| a ship who seemed to ferry stuff around the Caspian Sea and
| they pretty much documented most of their trip on tiktok. That
| was a surprise to me.
| xvector wrote:
| TikTok creators are pushing out so much incredible OC. It feels
| like half of the Reddit front page are just TikTok reposts
| (with the logo censored out, because Redditors are too cool to
| admit they like TikTok content.)
| cwkoss wrote:
| I think how the 'human centipede' of content works is really
| interesting as it has evolved over time. Creators coalese in
| certain apps and consumers others.
|
| 4 chan greentext used to be pretty common on Reddit a decade
| ago, and 9gag would repost reddit content. Twitter text often
| gets reposted to tiktok and reddit. Tiktok videos often get
| reposted to Twitter or Reddit. Heck, many major 'journalism'
| outfits now regularly include tweets - sometimes thats even
| the entire content of an article. /r/AmITheAsshole or similar
| long-form reddit posts are regularly read to make content for
| youtube or podcasts.
|
| In terms of original amateur-created content, seems the
| current winners of each medium are:
|
| - short form text: twitter
|
| - long form text: reddit
|
| - short video: tiktok
|
| - long video: youtube? but seems fragile
| radu_floricica wrote:
| Women? I haven't seen as many diggers and backhoes in the last
| 10 years as I've seen in the last 10 days. There's a guy doing
| lives from the cockpit of heavy forestry equipment. Give the
| algorythm a chance, it will find your niches.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I guess I still just don't get it. I'm always shocked at
| glowing recommendations of TikTok...from HN of all places!
| Every time it comes up here, I take a few minutes to browse the
| site, to see if anything changed to justify the praise, and it
| hasn't. The content may be more lighthearted, but over half of
| the random feed on the home page I just browsed is
| fundamentally the same "camera in your own face" narcissism
| amplifier as Instagram and the influencer portions of YouTube.
| I'm not even seeing a lot of hobbies there. It's just people
| who are not remarkably talented, but want to be in a video,
| making a video of themselves. It's got the same validation-
| seeker signals as the rest of social media (like count, comment
| count, share count). I browsed for about 30 minutes this
| morning so I could at least be informed before I comment, and
| literally found nothing remarkable or interesting. No unusual
| musical talents or athletics. Nothing really novel or even
| relatable. Just 20 year-old zeros making videos about
| themselves. Why is this a thing?
| cwkoss wrote:
| if you search for topics you're interested and like videos,
| the recommendation algorithm will shift fast.
|
| I used to never get 3dprinting vids until I searched for it
| and watched+liked a few, and now I get lots of them.
| bmarquez wrote:
| I used to have the same arguments against TikTok, too many
| narcissist attention-seeking influencers. But TikTok's
| algorithm shows you videos partly based on how much time you
| spend looking at a video.
|
| So I started swiping to a new video immediately every time a
| selfie video showed up. The selfie videos mostly show up when
| you first create an account. The algorithm figured out I
| didn't like selfies so started showing me other random
| content, like travel, animals, etc. Then I started liking
| content I liked, so the algorithm gave me more of it.
|
| I finally have what I like and don't see any "20 year-old
| zeros making videos about themselves", but it took some time
| to set up. It's refreshing, and much more pleasurable than
| Facebook or Instagram which tries to show me political shares
| when I'm actively unfollowing politics.
| curiousllama wrote:
| The big difference between Tik Tok and everything else to me:
| when I stop scrolling, I feel _good_.
|
| On Instagram, I scroll until I hate myself. On Facebook, I used
| to scroll until I got frustrated. But on Tik Tok - it's a
| dopamine hit without the hangover.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| You have no attachment to the content you see on Tik Tok.
| Facebook and Instagram are social network based. Tik Tok is
| not.
| cruano wrote:
| I'm also not attached to youtube and yet I never leave there
| happy either
| sporedro wrote:
| I agree, I don't get the comparison of Facebook to like YouTube
| or tiktok they're all different things... While YouTube and
| google may try to add features similar to Facebook and Facebook
| may add features similar to them I feel they're not in the same
| category... There's almost "personal social media" with
| Facebook and Instagram than just "social media" like tiktok,
| YouTube, even this site... I guess things like Twitter fall
| somewhere in the middle.
| ericls wrote:
| It's easy to make money if you can sell addictive drugs before
| they are categorized as such.
| xvector wrote:
| Are you implying that social media consumption should be
| regulated simply because people find it so good as to be
| addictive?
|
| Honestly, TikTok is a breath of fresh air compared to every
| other social media platform I've used. Positive, fun, and
| tailored content with no doomscrolling or negativity. It's just
| a fantastic platform.
| zffr wrote:
| Easy? I would push back on that.
|
| TikTok has built a great app, a community of creators, an
| audience to consume content, and relationships with advertisers
| to generate revenue. They have made careful design decisions to
| engineer how addictive it is. This is hard work, and few
| companies can pull it off.
| cwkoss wrote:
| The people who decided to shut down Vine really screwed the
| pooch on this one.
| zajd wrote:
| > They have made careful design decisions to engineer how
| addictive it is.
|
| Again, easy because this is all legal. It's like putting
| nicotine or opiates in McDonalds cheeseburgers and being
| amazed people keep coming back for them. Of course they will,
| the shit is ultra addictive and we all know it.
| ericls wrote:
| Do you know how they got started?
| justicezyx wrote:
| He has no idea probably.
|
| ByteDance's founder is an engineer, who happened to notice
| the fact that automation should come into content
| distribution in addition to all other aspects of social and
| economic activities.
|
| So he started JinRiTouTiao, pretty much a DouYin/TikTok
| applied to text news. The narattive is this to give an
| analog. The fact is that DouYin/TikTok followed
| JinRiTouTIao's model.
|
| TouTIao's content, like DouYin/TikTok, are manufactured to
| catch the attention. With attractive/provoking/(or whatever
| encourages clicking) titles, like the filtered/enhanced
| cover photo of any DouYin/TikTok video. The content is
| largely nonsensical, usually a rehash of some well-known
| old news. Just like DouYin/TikTok, just nonsensical videos
| to give you some short-term surge of satisfaction. The ads
| are mixed together with the manufactured content, which
| also has the same attractive title and content. Just like
| DouYin/TikTok.
|
| The thing is that ByteDance, as a new generation of
| Internet company, becomes more fragile than any of its
| predecessors. In the sense that most of key factors of its
| success are based on machines, which are much easier to
| copy than things invovled more human activities (for
| example, it's easy to copy a successful anime, to make it
| successful, but it's much harder to copy the idea of a
| motion picture with actors and make it successful).
|
| You can imagine someday, another startup, happen to
| invented a new AI that can generate content, whoola,
| ByteDance would be crumbling. If the founder would be as
| convicted as Mark Zuckberg, ByteDance would be killed in a
| few years...
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| That is an insane amount of revenue. But I get it. My kids are
| addicts.
| tananaev wrote:
| TikTok is currently only a small percentage of the revenue.
| ByteDance has quite a few apps in China. Douyin (Chinese version
| of TikTok) is a big one, but they also have a very popular news
| app in China. They also have a separate app for longer videos
| than TikTok. And many other.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| TikTok basically took the whole ice-bucket challenge and created
| a platform for it.
| rchaud wrote:
| Alternatively, they made a far better version of Vine.
| DevKoala wrote:
| TikTok is genius. I don't have it installed, but whenever someone
| links me to it, it is hard to not continue looking at other
| related clips.
|
| I don't see Facebook ever building something as cool.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I must be getting old because when my younger sibling links me
| to it, it always falls short of delivering. Usually some
| amateur trying to be funny by over exaggerating something, but
| not something I have not already seen.
| DevKoala wrote:
| It depends on the content you are being linked to. It is hard
| for the platform to fix that. However, what I mean is that it
| is easy to get hooked consuming similar short videos and
| before you know it, you have spent almost half an hour on
| this thing you are trying to avoid. I believe it is the UI
| that makes it so easy to jump to the next video even on the
| browser.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| There was a story awhile ago that TikTok's curation selected for
| relatively wealthy people, and I mean 'wealthy' the scale of rich
| countries. For example, they didn't want something shot in a home
| that looked impoverished, presumably because it wasn't the
| experience they wanted for their audience.
|
| I don't use TikTok, but a few times I've seen compilations of
| TikTok on YouTube, and the above description certainly matched
| what I saw. Also, the compilations show people who are
| overwhelmingly white. Is what I saw representative? Are they
| representative in the US, and maybe people in other places see
| something different? (Edit: And I see the appeal of TikTok, nice
| dopamine hits without any cost.)
|
| Those policies, if they exist, seem unhealthy for kids and for
| society: Lots of kids in the world have cell phones, but nly a
| small portion of the world would qualify for success on TikTok,
| and they are qualified by their money (and possibly ethnicity).
| It says to the vast majority who are poorer that you aren't part
| of society and no matter how good your video is, you can't
| qualify. It also would hide from the rich kids the vast reality
| of life, and that there is nothing threatening about poverty and
| poor people, and people who don't look like you.
| babesh wrote:
| My feed isn't overwhelmingly white. It is very multiracial and
| not that US centric either. I suspect you give the algorithms
| cues as to what you want to see. I suspect my cues are the
| people I follow and I basically follow anyone who posts
| something I found fun or interesting.
| cwkoss wrote:
| > TikTok's curation selected for relatively wealthy people
|
| Was this controlled in some effective way? Seems plausible that
| humans like looking at wealth, and so wealthy people tend to
| get more likes. It's like crowdsourced tabloids.
|
| > Also, the compilations show people who are overwhelmingly
| white
|
| I think that depends a lot on what filter bubble you get sorted
| into. Plant/science/compsi/engineering/lefist sections where I
| tend to hit like feel pretty diverse. The default
| 'prankbro/dance/thirsttrap/wealth porn' areas do seem
| predominantly white though.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Was this controlled in some effective way?
|
| According to the article, yes. Human curators were instructed
| on that policy. I don't remember how/if it was implemented in
| algorithms, but per the article, humans controlled who
| succeeded.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| Humans reflexively want to see beautiful, successful, high
| status people in rich, successful contexts. You don't need a
| conspiracy for this - it's the way things naturally flow.
|
| To prevent it you want to mess with "natural" algorythms so
| that you can teach the people what to want, and that way lies
| dystopia. The better your intentions the more horrible the
| result.
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