[HN Gopher] TikTok profits from livestreams of families begging
___________________________________________________________________
TikTok profits from livestreams of families begging
Author : DocFeind
Score : 446 points
Date : 2022-10-13 13:24 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| vxNsr wrote:
| This isn't surprising. Your local grocery chain store does the
| same thing when they ask if you want to donate to whatever
| charity they're promoting that month. At least there it's
| obviously a "finders fee" as they wouldn't get the amount of
| engagement if not for the store. But if you want to donate to a
| place always do it directly. Facebook also takes a good chunk.
| ianai wrote:
| I'd consider that a donation to the grocery store and
| worthwhile. Those are some of the worst, lowest paying jobs.
| People treat retail workers horribly and grocery is where
| everybody goes. And grocery is known for awful margins.
|
| Tiktok is just the long arm of the CCP.
| cube00 wrote:
| Don't kid yourself. Grocery store executives are doing just
| fine for themselves. Donating does not make life any better
| for the front line workers.
|
| If you want to help, support your local independent stores
| and avoid the chains. I know that's not practical for
| everyone and can be more expensive but better conditions for
| workers doesn't come cheap.
| LBJsPNS wrote:
| "better conditions for workers doesn't come cheap."
|
| Unless you take them out of the bloated salaries and perks
| of upper management...
| bombcar wrote:
| Even for the millions-paid CEOs it doesn't end up much
| when divided out among all the workers.
|
| You can do much more for retail workers as a customer by
| not being an ass and by doing things like putting things
| back where you found them instead of leaving eggs in
| amongst the produce, etc.
| codyb wrote:
| Huh? This is when you go to the grocery story and at checkout
| they ask if you want to donate to the Red Cross or St Judes
| Hospital for Children or some other large well known charity.
| This isn't a donation to the employees, although I've seen
| tip jars you could use to tip the folk who bag your groceries
| if you'd like.
|
| Thankfully, it appears, according to another responder that
| they're not taking chunks of money out of these donations and
| they're getting to the charities.
| jays wrote:
| Perhaps in your area that is happening, but not in mine (NJ).
| 70% fee is outrageous. 20% would even be difficult to swallow.
| But there are grocery chains that do the right thing. As with
| any charitable giving, you need to be aware of who you're
| giving money to and how they'll be using the money.
| justapassenger wrote:
| > Facebook also takes a good chunk.
|
| I went and check. Doesn't seems so. 0% for charitable
| organizations (which means they loose money as they need to
| cover payment processing fees) and less than 2% in most cases
| for personal ones (which seems to be in line with general
| payment fees).
|
| https://www.facebook.com/help/901370616673951
|
| Are there any other fees they don't tell us about there?
| cube00 wrote:
| I'm sure Facebook is large enough to strong arm an excellent
| deal from their processors for those transactions.
| rapind wrote:
| Not sure that VISA or MasterCard are going to roll over on
| their fees for Facebook.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Both have lower interchange rates specific to charities;
| it's highly likely Facebook can flag the charitable
| donation transactions as such.
| bombcar wrote:
| I doubt they bother, they probably just pay whatever low
| fees they negotiate and then count the fees they have to
| pay for the charitable ones out of their slush fund and
| count it as an expense. It's not like they aren't getting
| income in other areas.
|
| The marketplaces that are _entirely_ charitable stuff
| have to charge or source (they often have a checkbox you
| can use to "donate" to cover the fees, so you give
| $10.30 instead of $10 so the charity gets $10).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Your local grocery chain store does the same thing when they
| ask if you want to donate to whatever charity they're promoting
| that month.
|
| No, they don't. This, and the related idea that they're doing
| it for a tax benefit, are myths.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-000329849244
|
| "Rather than receiving a customer's donation as income, the
| company serves as a holding agent for that money, Zaretsky
| said. Customers may tally up their cash register donations for
| their own tax returns, but stores are not allowed to claim
| those."
| [deleted]
| im3w1l wrote:
| As far as I can tell that's inaccurate. Grocery stores do it
| pro-bono to show they care about the community.
|
| https://thegrocerystoreguy.com/why-do-grocery-stores-ask-for...
| etblg wrote:
| TikTok livestreams are a bizarre experience that doesn't get
| fully conveyed by this article. Scrolling through TikTok it will
| start showing you live streams every once in a while, and they
| tend to fall in to patterns like:
|
| * baby with a giant deformed head in some kind of medical
| setting, unable to tell if that baby is real -- if it is, then
| it's not a good situation for that baby
|
| * people who outwardly have disabilities of some sort, but it
| also looks like how you'd act as having a severe disability if
| you're a con-artist (like constantly shaking, or very slurred
| speech, I still can't whether these are legit or not)
|
| * people with these vibrating bowls of sand with crystals in
| them, and they take crystals out of the bowl every once in a
| while to show you
|
| * a teenager building a house of cards, and when they get a
| certain sticker, they have to destroy the house of cards and
| start building it again. they are pretending to cry while doing
| this, and begging you not to give them that sticker
| \* there was also a variation where it was a kid deleting games
| off their PlayStation when they got a certain sticker
|
| * people pretending to sleep, and if you donate different kinds
| of stickers, it plays different loud sounds or trigger lights to
| "wake" them
|
| * people freestyle rapping on the spot, but it's more like
| melodic rambling to the same backing track, so you don't really
| have to rhyme, you just have to rap in a way that sounds like it
| rhymes or makes sense
|
| * and my favourite: some workers in what seems to be a Chinese
| factory assembling something like AirPods. they take the airpods,
| they take the case, they put the airpods in the case, and they
| throw the whole thing on to the completed pile
|
| I came across one last night that I hadn't seen before and was
| kind of cool. It was a livestream of a woman filling a washing
| machine with different detergents, and like, way too much
| detergents for a load, way too much, and then eventually she
| turned the machine on.
|
| It's a wild show that you don't ask for, it gets thrust on you
| every once in a while when scrolling. The whole game is to give
| viewers a reason to use stickers on the show, which gives the
| streamer money (and TikTok like 70% of it).
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| > baby with a giant deformed head in some kind of medical
| setting, unable to tell if that baby is real -- if it is, then
| it's not a good situation for that baby
|
| I think I know which baby you're referring to. If it's a mom
| tending to the baby, then that baby is fine. I agree it's shock
| value, and in fact is so shocking that I took a screenshot of
| it:
| https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1512778289676496902?s=2...
|
| But the truth is that the baby is profoundly disabled and is
| barely responsive. Using them for social media attention at
| least gives you some money to better tend to them.
|
| (There are lots of examples in that thread which illustrate
| your overall point. Tiktok can be quite the carnival.)
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| They do not better care for them. In many parts of the world,
| deformed or mutilated children are just tools for strangers,
| who traded them in, to improve begging results.
|
| When you donate to these gangs, you are supporting child
| trafficking and worser things.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEnN_Bqu14s
|
| If you want to help, donate to certified organizations with a
| proofen track record of helping the poor.
| odysseus wrote:
| Yikes. Makes me think of certain scenes in Slumdog
| Millionaire.
| collegeburner wrote:
| the one i'm thinking of is a full grown (i think) brasilian
| guy who has his head bent like full backwards and just sits
| there rocking back and forth and saying "please i need help
| guys" or sum.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| This fellow :) https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1512778
| 314083094528?s=2...
| etblg wrote:
| Close, in the same genre at least. The one I had in mind was
| this one with a much bigger head: https://www.tiktok.com/@the
| gorrilagang/video/712723258380868...
|
| Disclaimer: severe medical deformity, may not want to click
| this.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Welp. Thank you for adding to my collection.
|
| It's so interesting that tiktok managed to revitalize
| this... genre.
| nwienert wrote:
| Sideshows continue to be gross even in the rare cases
| where there's plausible consent.
| mr_toad wrote:
| A lot of social media these days does resemble a
| travelling circus. And a lot of influencers give off a P.
| T. Barnum vibe.
| zippergz wrote:
| I watch quite a bit of TikTok and I have never seen ANY of
| these.
| neaden wrote:
| One live it has shown me a couple times, and I'm not sure if it
| is always the same person or a genre, is someone carefully
| dissecting an egg, trying to remove all the shell while leaving
| the membrane intact. I also get a decent number of ones in
| Spanish of people exploring creepy things, like an abandoned
| building or a forest at night. As I don't speak Spanish I'm not
| sure exactly what is going on.
| asdfqweqe12 wrote:
| Since you are getting comments saying that your experience on
| live isn't reflective of theirs I wanted to add that my
| experience is very similar.
|
| I see the sleep streams, the disability streams, and I saw the
| same chinese factory fake airpod one.
| wingworks wrote:
| I too have seen nearly every he talked about, and keeps
| popping up.
| collegeburner wrote:
| lmaooo facts. you forgot the innumerable 14yr old girl putting
| on way too much makeup that's half thirst trap and the 8yo
| fortnite kid raging at his xbox.
|
| btw i'm pretty sure i know _exactly_ which live you 're talking
| about with the house of cards guy. about the only kind of lives
| i actually like are the debate ones which can be kinda
| interesting.
| xnx wrote:
| I love TikTok, but TikTok "live" (most streams seem to be fake
| prerecordings) is terrible. I can't skip those streams fast
| enough.
| Thlom wrote:
| I keep getting an Italian dude in a pizzeria making pizza
| while he's humming, singing and talking to the audience. And
| yesterday I got a guy on an assembly line repairing pallets.
| Best part of tiktok if you ask me. (Worst part is that
| there's a lot of people with mild developmental disorders
| that publishes their lives on the app. It doesn't feel
| right.)
| adamm255 wrote:
| Sounds like some Black Mirror storylines in there... bizarre
| stuff
| supertofu wrote:
| The reason I refuse to get TikTok is that I am certain my
| psycho-emotional state cannot handle content like this.
| Especially item number 1.
|
| Is this normal? Is it safe for the human mind to consume
| content like this constantly? How does this affect production
| of dopamine? Is this what children are seeing?
|
| This sounds really scary.
| gxt wrote:
| Sounds like beggars as a service.
| antiquark wrote:
| The new BAAS paradigm!
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I'd be a little more generous and say "Buskers as a service".
| Stuff like:
|
| > * a teenager building a house of cards, and when they get a
| certain sticker, they have to destroy the house of cards and
| start building it again. they are pretending to cry while
| doing this, and begging you not to give them that sticker
|
| Is clearly performative and meant to entertain the audience.
| cyral wrote:
| And no matter how many times you click "Not interested" on the
| livestream, you will keep getting it every so often. I also get
| the crying kid with cards, sleep livestream, and deformed baby
| one all the time.
|
| Oh and you forgot the one where they have a calculator app open
| set to 999,999,998 or something and if they just get two more
| gifts they will see what happens when you get to one billion,
| but they are always so awkwardly slow and keep decrementing the
| number so it never reaches it.
| etblg wrote:
| That calculate one is a whole genre on to itself: TikToks
| where there's a goal the streamer is working towards to do
| something, but they do it so slowly that it never happens.
| People keep donating to see the thing happen, the streamer
| doesn't want the thing to happen because then the donations
| stop, so they only pretend like they're going to do the
| thing.
|
| Like that damned guy stacking bolts in a giant column.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Sisyphus, but with gamification.
| falcolas wrote:
| As always with TikTok, your experience will vary based on the
| videos you watch, favorite, save, and the creators you follow.
| What appears for any given individual is highly tailored to the
| things they seem to find interesting.
|
| I, in contrast, get gamers (kind of like a lo-fi twitch
| channel), accounts I follow, and the odd musician. I have
| honestly never seen any of the live streams you mention.
| not_math wrote:
| I don't get these kind of comment. What are you trying to
| say? That the reason this person see this content is their
| fault? They secretly want to see these type of videos?
|
| There are a lot of articles and videos showing that sometimes
| watching just one video will suggest a ton of videos related
| to it, no matter if you are not interested. Machine learning
| and deep learning is not perfect, and sometimes the goal of
| the companies is not clear and may not align with your goals.
|
| Sure, your experience will vary on Reddit, Facebook,
| Instagram or TikTok based on the people you follow, that's
| the goal of hyper-personalized feed. But you still get a
| trend, a social effect of the network.
|
| For example, on Youtube, you need "clickbait" thumbnails. So
| even Tom Scott, who 's content is educative and entertaining,
| needs to follow the "trend" of Youtube to get views.
|
| But I see these comments every time someone is blaming the
| weird content they are seeing on their feed: "Oh me I only
| see nice stuff, stop watching weird stuff". I think we can
| have a deeper conversation than that.
| falcolas wrote:
| What I'm trying to say: It's more complicated than the
| parent makes it sound. The parent makes it sound like "if
| you're on TikTok, this is what you see."
|
| > TikTok livestreams are a bizarre experience that doesn't
| get fully conveyed by this article.
|
| > It's a wild show that you don't ask for, it gets thrust
| on you every once in a while when scrolling.
|
| However the reality is that what you see on TikTok really
| is a direct reflection on you. It's not an accusation, it's
| just an acknowledgement of the truth.
|
| TikTok's algorithms are scarily-effective (dramatically
| more effective at tailoring than all of your other
| examples), and thus what you see _is indeed_ a direct
| reflection of what you watch. Any single video (ads
| excepted), or even trend, just doesn 't appear globally on
| TikTok.
| aikendrum wrote:
| I've seen several of the creepy / disturbing live videos
| described above - the begging family and the baby with
| the large deformed head specifically. Each have been
| shown multiple times, despite immediately reporting them.
| So this isn't a unique artefact of OP's experience. There
| clearly are ways of bringing these videos, which are
| clearly pretty far outside any normative preference
| pattern, to the front of the algorithm.
|
| Shouldn't have to point this out - but I do not search
| for, like or watch anything remotely similar on Tiktok.
| godmode2019 wrote:
| These videos are punishment for watching videos flagged
| as unapproved.
|
| Think about what you watched right before these videos,
| its coded to being a feeling a disgust so you assioate
| that with the previous videos.
|
| YouTube does the same thing with ads of kids dying in
| hospital, screaming for help on the start of
| 'controversial' content. Most of the time it makes you
| click back and watch something else.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| > However the reality is that what you see on TikTok
| really is a direct reflection on you. It's not an
| accusation, it's just an acknowledgement of the truth.
|
| If this was the whole truth we could as easily excuse
| facial recognition algorithms failing non-white people by
| simply saying that non-white people are more difficult to
| identify.
|
| The algorithm is a human-made thing and subject to
| conscious intents or subconscious biases of its makers.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| TikTok's algorithm is deeply flawed to draw any
| conclusion about. Its a deep reflection on what other
| people in your content branch accepted, not you.
|
| Simply looking at the comments on a video you disagree
| with, just to see if others are appalled or brainwashed
| is something that the algorithm will interpret as deep
| interest in that kind of content. I have to go find the
| "not interested" button. Its sad because all those other
| people are really stuck in that rabbit hole.
| mattnewton wrote:
| > However the reality is that what you see on TikTok
| really is a direct reflection on you. It's not an
| accusation, it's just an acknowledgement of the truth.
|
| It's a direct reflection on what tiktok's algorithms
| _think they know_ about you so far, modulo what they
| _think they know_ about the contents of the videos they
| are showing. They have a good recommendation engine,
| sure, but it works on average over large populations
| through the limited funnel of video interactions, and
| their video understanding and inventory is similarly
| limited. This is even before considering that they
| clearly add some kind of extra exploratory weight to new
| content they don 't have a lot of data about from you.
|
| Their machine learning is basically fancy statistics on
| watch data, not a peering-into-your-soul _Oracle_ , it's
| very possible it gets some people's preferences very
| wrong and is still profitable for larger population
| segments.
| tough wrote:
| More on this point, there was a great article by the
| verge I think on how different tik tok was on the same
| city border ukranian vs russian.... wild war vs bliss
| valarauko wrote:
| I find my recent experiences with the algo amusing. It
| very heavily weighs new creators that I may have watched
| a single video all the way through, so much so that
| perhaps every 4th video would be old content (couple of
| months old) from this new creator. It gets super annoying
| super fast that I have to resort to blocking these
| individual creators (marking as "show less" does
| absolutely nothing for me). I also note that the algo
| seems to run out of interesting content for me after
| about 20 minutes or so - at which point the videos are
| further and further away from my interests.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| > However the reality is that what you see on TikTok
| really is a direct reflection on you. It's not an
| accusation, it's just an acknowledgement of the truth.
|
| I really do not think this is true, and is what the
| parent is getting at. Yes, the videos shown are a
| reflection of _past videos_ shown to you, and your
| reactions to them.
|
| That does not mean that they are a _direct_ reflection on
| you, or an acknowledgement of the truth. The first videos
| shown to you, or a random stray video with off-content,
| whether you like them or not, can have a strong biasing
| effect.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > What are you trying to say? That the reason this person
| see this content is their fault?
|
| You can control the feed by tapping on a clip you don't
| like and selecting 'Not interested'. Less successfully by
| immediately swiping to the next clip. In this way I have
| got rid of live streams, cats and girls doing dance or
| PoV trends.
|
| But if you do in fact have a quick peak at the live
| streams, cats and girls doing dance or PoV trends, TikTok
| will keep showing them.
| aamoscodes wrote:
| There is no way to completely avoid a certain type of
| content in an algorithmic feed. As good as the algorithm
| is, unless they have a "no variation or A/B testing"
| policy (doubtful), eventually you'll run into something
| that doesn't conform to your "profile."
| derefr wrote:
| > What are you trying to say? That the reason this person
| see this content is their fault? They secretly want to see
| these type of videos?
|
| Nah, it's not about intent, but it _is_ about profiling.
| They 're saying that e.g. gullible-seeming people will be
| algorithmically matched with videos trying to con them out
| of something, while non-gullible people won't be. People
| who watch more videos by creators with religious values
| will eventually be recommended religious content; while
| people who don't do that, won't. Etc.
|
| Think about it less like _users_ being matched with things
| they 'll appreciate; and more like _creators_ being matched
| with the audience most receptive to their message.
|
| > There are a lot of articles and videos showing that
| sometimes watching just one video will suggest a ton of
| videos related to it, no matter if you are not interested.
|
| This isn't a failure of ML. They've got the algorithm doing
| exactly what they want it to do. It just isn't serving
| _you_.
|
| TikTok is a two-sided market, where the _supply_ is
| "engaged eyeballs" and the _demand_ is from advertisers
| with ads to show them (where a regular video producer is
| just an advertiser who provides enough retention value to
| the platform with their "ads" that they get paid rather
| than paying per impression.)
|
| TikTok's algorithm isn't trying to match you with the
| videos _you 'll_ most like; rather, it's trying to optimize
| the amount of money ByteDance extracts out of its
| advertisers by optimizing for three things:
|
| 1. keeping the eyeballs engaged, by showing them videos
| which are predicted to increase the particular user's
| session duration in the app;
|
| 2. showing the "engaged eyeballs" the most profitable ads,
| under the proviso that any given advertiser can filter for
| eyeballs with specific demographics/interests;
|
| 3. (here's the clever bit) -- _nudging_ the eyeballs
| _toward_ videos that will allow them to plausibly say that
| a given user has a given high-CPM interest, and thus now
| show them the high-CPM ads.
|
| The third factor is what makes the "one video causes your
| recommendation feed to completely change" thing.
|
| An very close analogy would be to dating (another
| imbalanced-demand two-sided market where demand is a
| passive judgement while supply is an active offer.)
|
| Picture person A walking into a nightclub, looking for a
| date, but not actively talking to anyone. They sit there,
| and wait for other people to come up and talk to them. The
| people that come to person A might be somewhat random at
| first; but, as the people in the club notice a pattern in
| who's doing best talking person A up, the supply-side will
| self-select -- they're _profiling_ person A, and
| "recommending" themselves based on said profiling.
|
| But then, at some point, imagine person A quietly
| mentioning to one of these strangers "I think I might like
| [niche interest]." And this news spreading throughout the
| club.
|
| Now, if there's anyone who likes [niche interest] in the
| club -- suddenly, they think they have a _chance_. And if
| having [niche interest] is _rare_ , maybe there are a bunch
| of unsatisfied single people with [niche interest] who've
| been desperately waiting for someone like person A to show
| up. So now there's suddenly a _stampede_ of people, all
| with [niche interest], trying to get person A 's attention.
| Willing to _pay money_ to get person A 's attention, even.
| So much that the club manager (who happens to be easily
| bribed) is willing to cordon off the area around person A
| and set up a queue of all these interested people, so that
| the "rabble" who aren't so intensely interested (and so
| aren't willing to pay a bribe), won't even get a word in
| edgewise any more.
|
| That's TikTok. You're person A. The advertisers are the
| desperate people in the club. And a single clicked video
| can be the whisper of acknowledgement of a niche interest
| they were hoping for.
| zippergz wrote:
| Here's why I post like that. People who don't use TikTok
| see comments like the parent and think that's all TikTok
| is. So then they assume that everyone who uses TikTok must
| be into that stuff, because that's what they're there to
| watch. Non-titktok users seemingly do not understand how
| wildly variable the experience is person to person. It's
| not about blaming the poster, but about bringing
| perspective that we're not all just there happily watching
| live streams like what the poster described.
| cookiecaper wrote:
| It's hard to blame the average passerby for harboring
| contempt for TikTok. I joined at one point and the
| content they show "brand new" accounts trends extreme. I
| assume they do it to find the edges of the new users'
| comfort zone, but I don't blame anyone who takes one look
| and says "eff this". My feed got much more tolerable
| after a few days of periodic swiping, but I uninstalled
| it a long time ago and have no interest in returning.
| aamoscodes wrote:
| I don't interpret the parent (article) as saying that is
| all TikTok is, but that it is possible to encounter or
| host these streams on their platform, which is
| objectively true.
| collegeburner wrote:
| yes you can still end up seeing stuff you hate because it's
| ragebait. so you may "hate it" but you also have a revealed
| preference that you lowkey like it bc it's something to
| hate on.
| [deleted]
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Likewise-- I get people streaming NES games, musicians
| (piano, guitar, harmonica, ocarina, harp, and that bagpipe
| lady), and then occasionally someone cooking or doing a Q&A
| on something like relationships.
|
| The only truly "sleepy" lives I've seen are ones where it's
| someone quietly studying/working and using the live as the
| accountability part of the pomodoro method. Like, "I'm going
| to study for 20 mins, then we can chat for 5 mins, then I'm
| going to study again for 20 mins, etc."
| LastTrain wrote:
| It says to me that you spent a lot of time curating your
| TikTok experience, and the other person didn't. So you are
| right, THAT says a lot about who you are. See how that
| works. Shitty, huh.
| jvm___ wrote:
| The pessimistic view is that Tiktok is a customized
| propaganda machine.
|
| Pre-internet everyone consumed the same media, TV,
| newspapers, radio, magazines. You had to read older books or
| listen to smaller, probably local artists to get a different
| viewpoint.
|
| Now no one shares the same information feed, no two Tiktok
| feeds, Twitter feeds, Facebook/instagram homepages are the
| same.
|
| It's making for interesting societal changes. How will future
| historians be able to judge the intentions of society of they
| can't view our individual feeds, previously you could refer
| to news reports, but now it's just lost in the day to day
| feeds of billions.
| cma wrote:
| > In a corner of the large room a chime sounded and a
| tinkling mechanical voice called, "I'm your free homeopape
| machine, a service supplied exclusively by all the fine
| Rootes hotels throughout Earth and the colonies. Simply
| dial the classification of news that you wish, and in a
| matter of seconds I'll speedily provide you with a fresh,
| up-to-the-minute homeopape tailored to your individual
| requirements; and, let me repeat, at no cost to you!"
|
| Ubik, by Philip K. Dick
| swores wrote:
| Go back 100 years and just because people had more shared
| media, it didn't make everyone think the same. There were
| communists and fascists, people who loved or hated new
| technology, music, etc.
|
| Historians reading newspapers learn what a small part of
| society thought, and hopefully read them in the context of
| as much other information from the time. But maybe the
| newspaper made something that hardly anyone really cared
| about seem like the main opinion, or vice versa - it
| happens now days, likely more back then.
|
| If anything social media might make things easier for
| future historians, with literally billions of opinions
| written by everyone from homeless people to billionaire
| CEOs, all within large datasets to be analysed.
|
| More importantly though is the amount of semi-political &
| marketing-related polling that goes on. By semi-political I
| mean things politicians want to know, rather than polling
| about politics - people regularly get polled on anything
| from transport ideas to favourite songs. And I imagine
| that's a huge trove of data compared to what there is
| around public opinion even decades ago, yet alone
| centuries.
| samus wrote:
| The divisions we had were already bad enough. Now amplify
| those up to eleven with social media, and you end up with
| the perfect tool to endlessly divide society in difficult
| to detect ways. People seemed to be at least somewhat
| aware what the doctrines of the various -isms were, even
| if warped through propaganda. Customized echo chambers
| can make it impossible for any affected slice of the
| population to ever experience how deep in they really
| are, and get a genuine impression of what people outside
| are like and what they think. Best case, they are seen as
| ignorant, worst case as a danger, which can lead to
| violence being seen as a legitimatd tool to deal with
| them. We have seen what this can lead to on Jan 6, 2021.
| lmm wrote:
| On the contrary, the one social medium that puts everyone
| in a shared, global space rather than customized "echo
| chambers" (twitter) causes more trouble than the rest of
| them put together, not least your own example.
| jader201 wrote:
| I'll admit that I have never used TicTok -- mostly because it
| always sounded toxic/unhealthy from the start -- and this
| comment/article seem to reinforce that.
|
| It's really crazy -- and a bit scary -- how much messed up
| stuff can proliferate a single app.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| I used it briefly and was disgusted by the amount of
| political garbage that was flowing. I'm glad I stayed off.
| There's nothing in the above list that I want to see.
|
| I used to tell people that even if Trump had the wrong
| reasons, he had the right idea when he wanted to ban TikTok.
| stavros wrote:
| Oh man, if you're wary of TikTok, wait until you see
| Instagram!
| lavezzi wrote:
| > I'll admit that I have never used TicTok
|
| I don't think you needed to admit anything :)
| sho_hn wrote:
| The reality we live in today is so much more fucked up already
| than any of the cyberpunk dystopias we still copy and celebrate
| in our mainstream media (hello, Cyberpunk 2077).
|
| Or it's just regressive: We're back to the traveling circus and
| the freak show, but different middle men.
| mr_toad wrote:
| At least we haven't regressed to gladiatorial combat. Yet.
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| That's hilarious and sad at the same time.
| reportgunner wrote:
| There's also multiple streams where the streamer has a mouse
| click counter with a [+] and a [-] button. They are clicking to
| get to some outrageous number like 100000000 and every time you
| give them money they take 10, 100 or 1000 clicks away or they
| destroy their mouse and they are begging you to let them finish
| clicking. This goes on for multiple days.
| wongarsu wrote:
| To me, the most interesting thing out of the list is that I've
| only seen two categories from the list: people sleeping and the
| assembly line workers (covering a wide range of industries).
|
| Other kinds of livestreams that seem to be persistent
| categories:
|
| - people in classrooms, libraries or other social settings,
| livestreaming themselves
|
| - insides of mosques, presumably with the camera hidden
| somewhere
|
| - space station footage with random background music. Sometimes
| footage from space walks, mostly Russian ones
|
| I think it goes to show how wildly different people's TikTok
| experiences can be, depending on what the algorithm decides and
| what TikTok decides to push in your region.
| rednerrus wrote:
| We're one iteration from HJs at Starbucks.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Some of those sound like some of those carnival things where
| you have to throw a ball at a target to have a clown go in the
| drink.
|
| The others sound like "outrage porn", which is most of the
| content on subreddits like diwhy and shittyfoodporn. Doing
| things wrong or exaggerated on purpose to elicit a reaction and
| engagement.
|
| Weirdly enough, come to think of it, Epic Meal Time started
| trends like that over a decade ago - just make stupid,
| expensive and exaggerated food that doesn't look appetizing at
| all... yet strangely compelling.
| dirtyid wrote:
| Feels like interdimensional cable.
| latexr wrote:
| > people who outwardly have disabilities of some sort, but it
| also looks like how you'd act as having a severe disability if
| you're a con-artist (like constantly shaking, or very slurred
| speech, I still can't whether these are legit or not)
|
| Do a web search for "TikTok fake disorder". Or specify one
| directly, such as "tourette" or "ADHD".
| jstarfish wrote:
| Related: Munchausen-by-internet
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > it will start showing you live streams every once in a while,
| and they tend to fall in to patterns like:
|
| _FOR YOU._
|
| What TikTok chooses to show you is extremely personalized, I
| have never encountered any of the live streams you describe
| above.
|
| I mostly get young good-looking guys trying to promote their
| OnlyFans.
|
| ...and I don't think most people on TikTok get livestreams like
| that, so I would be very cautious about making any sort of
| sweeping statements of what the experience will be like for
| other people.
|
| That said, I'm absolutely delighted about all the absolutely
| crazy things and the enormous diversity of stuff you can get on
| your feed. TikTok _feels_ just like GeoCities did on the early
| web, it 's a bazaar of the bizarre, and trends change so fast
| that you never get bored, and corporations still haven't been
| able to suck the joy and life out of the thing yet.
| jerojero wrote:
| I find odd when people critique tiktok for having some kind
| of content when it is clear that's what the algorithm has
| given _them_ or other times they maybe use the app for a
| couple minutes and never really get to a personalised stage.
|
| In any case, I never really encounter very many Livestream
| when I'm on the for you page. Could this be because I almost
| always don't engage with them? I'd like to get good looking
| guys promoting their OF.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| These might as well be reports from some parallel universe.
| cm42 wrote:
| When you order your PSYOPS from Wish
| zen_1 wrote:
| This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRaaVhoJjCE&t=105
| suggests that some of the livestreams may be prerecorded and
| running on infinite loop
| ryanSrich wrote:
| This is definitely the case as many TikTok accounts are fake.
| They'll take something like a prerecorded live event from Mr.
| Beast, create a fake TikTok account with a name that looks
| like Mr. Beast, and then stream the previously recorded live.
| Without fail there are always THOUSANDS of people watching
| these thinking it's the real thing and donating money.
| qjx wrote:
| happens a lot even on twitch and youtube too. With this tool
| that shows small channels, there are a lot of channels with
| the same thumbnail and the channels would have gibberish
| channel names https://twitch-
| tools.rootonline.de/channel_previews.php?game...
| mgkimsal wrote:
| why didn't any of these experiences end up on Chatroulette
| years ago? Is it just the size of the user base? Or because
| it's all mobile now?
| soylentcola wrote:
| No "tips" to be made on Chatroulette? That's my guess.
|
| I do remember one amusing thing we did back when Chatroulette
| was still fairly novel - hung out at a local dive bar where
| one otherwise boring evening's entertainment was Chatroulette
| on a projector screen with a webcam pointed at the bar
| patrons.
|
| Any time we hit a disembodied penis, we would all cheer and
| laugh. They always disconnected right after. Had some fun
| talking to folks in other countries and around the US. I
| think it was a lot more fun when it was still the novelty du
| jour early on and hadn't quite become 90% (literal) wankers
| yet.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| New trend is people saying stuff like "every time someone joins
| my live I'll do X" - where X is just some gross thing.
| mikrl wrote:
| As a former obsessive 4channer, wooooow.
|
| I've seen some wild stuff online but some of this just seems
| gratuitous. It's not just for maladjusted kids on an Indonesian
| throat singing forum either, it's being beamed to everyone's
| phone.
| dlandis wrote:
| Is there any way to "report" streams in the app, when you come
| across them and they seem inappropriate?
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Every time it comes up I see almost this exact same comment--
| maybe it is the same comment? I kind of wonder.
|
| I never see any of this content. Maybe I'm not on it enough,
| but all I ever see are mostly just people talking. There's a
| guy who "races" pool balls on a treadmill, but except for that
| and an occasional person building some strange contraption, it
| all just seems like extremely mundane (and in my mind boring)
| chats.
| sam1r wrote:
| >> I came across one last night that I hadn't seen before and
| was kind of cool. It was a livestream of a woman filling a
| washing machine with different detergents, and like, way too
| much detergents for a load, way too much, and then eventually
| she turned the machine on.
|
| What's so wild or appealing about this -- that would entice
| someone to continue their time on TikTok?
| ycombinete wrote:
| The gist of many these sorts of videos, is to do a familiar
| activity but with steps that don't make sense. This starts
| your brain's little curiosity/real-time-explanation loop.
|
| Like the videos of a guy lighting a firework, shoving it in a
| tube, filling the tube with a potatoes and then covering that
| with putty. They catch me for a few seconds every time, just
| slightly longer than a video that made sense would; and I
| think that extra second or two is all they need to jump up
| the algorithm's ratings a little.
| qjx wrote:
| > that would entice someone to continue their time on TikTok?
|
| a lot of people want to be simulated every moment of every
| day, so they need the constant hit of dopamine
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| It's not just this. It's the "long tail of this". That
| particular example might not sound too appealing, but when
| you scroll through the livestreams, you'll find hundreds of
| other niche things.
|
| I spend my time watching artists draw, watching people play
| FF6 for nostalgia, and putting mustaches on Ellie from the
| last of us: https://imgur.com/a/rLjU7Ux
| etblg wrote:
| Nothing really, I was just kind of curious what it would look
| like when she turned it on with a ton of detergent.
|
| Turns out it bubbles a bit, the cycle continues as normal.
| Very mild entertainment.
| sam1r wrote:
| I see exactly what you mean. It's like .. _justttttt_
| enough to make one watch til the end.
|
| Reminds me of those extended silent close captions videos
| all over Facebook.
| stefan_ wrote:
| And then you deleted TikTok, after all the only reason this
| depraved shit exists is because people keep watching it? One
| thing to go "the algorithm is making them do it", another
| entirely to fall into its trap.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I don't have TikTok but one of the most impressive things I've
| seen while watching my mom scroll is the live streams of folks
| with a thick stack of lottery tickets, scratching them off one
| by one. They all admit they only have about a 70% return on
| investment, which means those streams are largely a loss unless
| they're making a good amount of money on donations.
| charcircuit wrote:
| You can just loop the footage to cap your capex.
| wishfish wrote:
| TikTok live is kinda wild. You never know what you're going to
| get. One thing I like about it. My favorite was a live stream
| from a small town festival in Bali. Started off with a bunch of
| acrobats doing slapstick comedy. Ended with dancers in
| elaborate dragon masks, and the crowd joined in to make it a
| big dance party. Was so much fun. I now have a new resolve to
| go visit Bali.
|
| I also really like all the truck drivers who do cab views.
| There's an ambulance driver somewhere in Vietnam who
| livestreams his shifts. Oddly mesmerizing to watch him zip
| through dense city traffic without a care in the world.
|
| Quite a few people who seem to found the best hustle possible.
| They go daily to Disneyland and other parks. Somehow get enough
| gifts and tips to pay for it.
|
| Also like the bars that stream their house bands. That one guy
| who rides a scooter around downtown LA late at night and gets
| in weird conversations with drunks. A guy who races Matchbox
| cars on his track and keeps track of the winners in a pseudo
| league. An Italian man who looks vaguely like Mr. Bean and does
| an almost endless stretch of magic tricks.
|
| The one that I think about often is this 19 yr old guy in the
| Ukrainian Army. Only caught him once. Back in the summer. He
| and his unit were not yet on the front lines but his superiors
| had him digging a trench anyways. He was half-assing the
| digging while his comrades relaxed under trees and occasionally
| yelled something that would make the young guy laugh. He'd perk
| up anytime someone with a cute girl avatar would say something
| to him. They'd say something that made him just beam with
| happiness. I'll always wonder what happened to him. I hope he's
| ok.
| HEHENE wrote:
| Disney "influencers" are such a scourge on theme parks.
| Normal visitors take loads of photos and videos, often at
| inconvenient times, but when it comes to being in/on the
| attractions, they usually put their phones away and shut up.
|
| Most rides at Disney parks have pre-shows about 3/4 of the
| way through the line that set up the story for the ride.
| Sometimes these are audiovisual, sometimes animatronic, but
| always with audio and almost always dark.
|
| Likewise, most Disney rides are "dark rides" where the ride
| is primarily in the dark with animatronics and the scenery
| lit by carefully designed show lighting.
|
| Influencers have seen these pre-shows and rides a thousand
| times and don't care about them. They keep there full-
| brightness phone up and filming for them and talk over them
| to their audience. It's incredibly distracting and immersion
| breaking.
|
| I imagine Disney sees them as a net-positive though, as I'm
| sure they drive tons of ticket sales. Most influencers are
| travel agents who get paid by Disney, or are affiliated with
| a travel agency.
| flutas wrote:
| > I imagine Disney sees them as a net-positive though, as
| I'm sure they drive tons of ticket sales. Most influencers
| are travel agents who get paid by Disney, or are affiliated
| with a travel agency.
|
| FWIW, I dug into this a while back because I was curious.
|
| Most of them don't get 'paid' by Disney in a traditional
| sense, but will get things like exclusive access to press
| events/rides, free upcoming products, or in the case with
| that flop of a star wars hotel a "free $7,000 hotel stay."
|
| All of which lets them technically say "I'm not paid by
| Disney, they just gave me this to show all of you!"
|
| Most of their money comes from donations/stickers/whatever
| the latest term for it is from the livestreams.
|
| Usually the order with Disney showing off new stuff goes
| something like
|
| - Travel agents
|
| - Social Media Influencers
|
| - EDIT: Club 33
|
| - EDIT: Timeshare suckers (DVC)
|
| - Passholes
|
| - D23 (aka pay $100/yr for access)
|
| - Joe Shmoe
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| > ... I'm not paid by Disney, ...
|
| The IRS have a completely different point of view.
| prvit wrote:
| They really don't though.
|
| "Hey, we'll give you a free stay if you promote our
| hotel!" is compensatory.
|
| "Hey, we'll give you a free stay" isn't obviously so.
| Smoosh wrote:
| But no company would simply give away free stays. That
| would cost them with no benefit.
|
| There is a clear if unstated expectation that they will
| receive positive reviews and promotion as a result.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| It will be marked as an expense outgoing to a third party
| by Disney, and the third party will be named or
| identified. That third party if did not account for that
| income and get audited, will be provided a demand letter.
| Vast majority of the "audits" are fully automated using
| cross referencing expenses & deductions to incomes.
|
| There is no such thing as "free" when it comes to the US
| IRS.
| prvit wrote:
| None of this means that you have to pay taxes.
|
| But yeah, you're right. _If_ you get audited, you _might_
| have to explain to the IRS that this is not compensatory
| income.
| flutas wrote:
| > The IRS have a completely different point of view.
|
| Oh, I fully agree and I would bet a majority of them know
| that as well, they just have figured out a way to use
| some weasel words to act like it's not a payment to the
| general public.
| drawingthesun wrote:
| It's because there is no exchange, if I give you a
| birthday gift can that be considered income? Obviously
| not as I am not asking for something in return.
|
| However:
|
| If I buy you a gift and we agree for the gift you do task
| x for me. Now that is income and the value of the gift
| must be considered income on your tax return.
|
| Disney isn't saying "here is a room for free if you do x,
| y , z"
|
| Disney is saying "here is a room for free" and that is
| the end of it.
|
| Of course the obvious issue for Disney is that the
| influencer might never do the review of the park and
| never in a million years could Disney take them to court
| complaining services were not rendered.
|
| You cannot give a gift with expectation of return.
|
| So it's not income.
|
| But it's limited because the one giving you the gift
| really has to trust that you'll do the thing you do.
|
| I am surprised Disney would bother to be honest. I
| thought their theme parks were popular enough already.
| tough wrote:
| > I am surprised Disney would bother to be honest. I
| thought their theme parks were popular enough already.
|
| They want to keep being popular ;). Same as the coke
| comment above me
| hooverd wrote:
| Why does Coke pay for advertising?
| prvit wrote:
| > Most of them don't get 'paid' by Disney in a
| traditional sense, but will get things like exclusive
| access to press events/rides, free upcoming products, or
| in the case with that flop of a star wars hotel a "free
| $7,000 hotel stay."
|
| >All of which lets them technically say "I'm not paid by
| Disney, they just gave me this to show all of you!"
|
| So they literally are not receiving any meaningful
| payments from Disney. A "$7000 hotel stay" you can't even
| resell is worth very little compared to $ in bank.
|
| Also, you forgot about Club 33. Those folks sometimes get
| better treatment than the regular passholes.
| flutas wrote:
| > So they literally are not receiving any meaningful
| payments from Disney. A "$7000 hotel stay" you can't even
| resell is worth very little compared to $ in bank.
|
| Except it's $7k that they most likely would have spent
| themselves as a business expense to try and get money
| from their streams. It's still Disney paying them, just
| in an alternate way.
|
| It's why YouTube, Amazon and others require you to
| disclose that you got the item for free, because that can
| significantly alter your view and is basically turning
| you into an ad.
|
| How many "normal" people would spend $7k for a 2 day
| hotel stay where you basically are stuck in someone
| else's itinerary? Hint, not enough to fill out 100 rooms
| consistently, even within 2 days. But it was all "OMG
| THIS IS AWESOME YOU HAVE TO DO IT" from the
| 'influencers.'
|
| >Also, you forgot about Club 33. Those folks sometimes
| get better treatment than the regular passholes.
|
| Oops, yep. Forgot the $100k Disney club. Plus the
| timeshare suckers.
| prvit wrote:
| > Except it's $7k that they most likely would have spent
| themselves as a business expense to try and get money
| from their streams. It's still Disney paying them, just
| in an alternate way.
|
| So and so. Here's an exaggerated example: Disney likes
| your consistent shilling and grants you a Club 33
| membership valued in many tens of thousands.
|
| Even as a big Disney influencer there's a very good
| chance you'd never have paid for this.
|
| From a legal POV whether or not something like this is
| compensation isn't clear, it's highly dependent on the
| specific details. An influencer absolutely _can_ legally
| receive gifts from Disney knowing that they're almost
| certainly hoping for those gifts to pop up on that
| influencers feed.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > It's why YouTube, Amazon and others require you to
| disclose that you got the item for free, because that can
| significantly alter your view and is basically turning
| you into an ad.
|
| I always assumed that was a legal requirement. Isn't it
| technically classed as fraud (or something?) to not
| disclose that you were sponsored by the resort?
| OJFord wrote:
| Obviously this will vary by jurisdiction, but it's a
| relatively new problem in all of them. (At least, the
| format is new and it hasn't been obvious if/how the old
| rules apply.)
|
| In the UK for example the advertising regulator decided
| it's advertising, kind of like a 'product placement' on
| television, and therefore needs to be clearly
| so/declared.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Most of the influencers I saw talking about that Star
| Wars hotel when it opened were basically shitting on it.
| I felt like their reviews were pretty unbiased.
| maxfurman wrote:
| Aw man, did the Star Wars hotel shut down already? I was
| hoping it would stick around until the check cleared for
| my kidney so I could take my family.
| flutas wrote:
| > Aw man, did the Star Wars hotel shut down already? I
| was hoping it would stick around until the check cleared
| for my kidney so I could take my family.
|
| Nah, but you can book it for literally 2 days for now,
| which is somewhat unheard of for something like it,
| especially with the Disney and Star Wars name attached.
| fencepost wrote:
| Talk with people around you and try to get agreement that
| if there's a disruptive influencer you'll all chant "Turn
| off the phone! Turn off the phone!"?
| wishfish wrote:
| I could see that. I enjoy the live cam tours because my
| partner is immunosuppressed and we're not going anywhere
| for a while. So it's nice to visit virtually. But I hadn't
| thought about the actual visitors and what they would think
| about it. I could see how they'd loathe these people
| constantly recording and being obnoxious about it.
| helios_invictus wrote:
| All of this sounds like dystopia performance art.
| zo1 wrote:
| Here's another:a guy using tweezers and pliers to peel the egg
| shell off a...raw egg. Keeping the contents inside the thin
| translucent layer under the shell that he can't tear or he
| "loses".
|
| Or: people packing sweet boxes.
|
| Worst is when you see random people doing streams cause they're
| bored. They're alone, playing music, answering semi private
| questions and pandering to strangers. I don't even know what to
| make of it.
| azinman2 wrote:
| There are a lot of eggs. People in the comments seem to go
| crazy for it. And the point? At the end he basically pops the
| egg anyway and starts all over. And yet ppl send him "roses"
| the whole time.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > and TikTok like 70% of it
|
| No. This is not true. HN likes to believe it's "smarter" but
| how do people forget that the app stores take a 30% cut off the
| top? These aren't charities, these are digital live streaming
| fits.
|
| You see TikTok in the title, and you just blindly believe it.
|
| It seems (from doing the math in the article) TikTok is taking
| ~40% of the cut. You can argue that's still too much, but
| that's a far cry from 70%.
|
| But blindly spewing 70% is ignorant at best.
| tspike wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| > With TikTok declining to say how much it takes from gifts,
| the BBC ran an experiment to track where the money goes.
|
| > A reporter in Syria contacted one of the TikTok-affiliated
| agencies saying he was living in the camps. He obtained an
| account and went live, while BBC staff in London sent TikTok
| gifts worth $106 from another account.
|
| > At the end of the livestream, the balance of the Syrian
| test account was $33. TikTok had taken 69% of the value of
| the gifts.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Yes, I read TFA. None of that disputes what I said.
|
| UYFM.
| filoleg wrote:
| What exactly is "a TikTok-affiliated agency"?
|
| Because to me it sounds just like a publishing label that
| takes a massive cut between the actual content producer
| (tiktok user) and the platform (TikTok).
|
| If that's the case, that's just another situation just like
| what happened between Spotify and the artists. I heard a
| lot of noise about it, but turns out Spotify only takes a
| 30% cut. Why do artists complain about their 70% cut? Oh,
| that's because artists signed to a label only get a
| fraction for it, while their label gets the rest. That has
| nothing to do with Spotify and all with contracts between
| artists and labels. None of that applies to independent
| artists with no label, who all get their full 70%.
|
| Is "a TikTok-affiliated agency" basically acting as a music
| label here?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| No. The numbers and article make it clear it's something
| that happens after they withdraw the money. These are
| outside the realm of TikTok.
|
| And again, TT isn't taking 70%. Anyone suggesting that is
| wrong. They are taking 38% vs 31% that the creators take.
| rvz wrote:
| Sounds like a theatrical live streamed griftopia with TikTok
| being the middle person at the top of the pyramid scheme
| dictating who gets paid or not and even if you, they keep 70%
| and you take the rest with taxes and other fees.
|
| As long as the algorithm glues many of its users to their
| screens as much as possible with the money coming in, the
| grifting show must go on.
| etblg wrote:
| Yep. It's like an advanced version of Twitch, with the
| begging for subs replaced with stickers, the payout being
| different, and the pretense of playing games or building a
| community cut out because it's based off of the
| recommendation algorithm and virality instead.
| tus666 wrote:
| Still lower than what actual charities pocket when taking
| expenses, wages, etc into account.
| jstanley wrote:
| Other than "proxy charity" (where they just pass on money),
| would you not expect that 100% of charitable donations go
| towards expenses and wages? What else would they be doing with
| the money? Presumably you're donating precisely _because_ you
| want them to do the work that you 're paying for?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Well, I think the grandparent is thinking of charities whose
| owners rake in millions; the expectation is that people
| working for a charity do it for charity, moreso than making a
| lot of money; everyone should get a fair wage, of course, but
| it does seem like a lot of the people at the top of a charity
| earn exorbitant wages.
|
| Then there's where the money goes to. Is it a charity that
| does good work, or is the money going into people lining
| their pockets? I believe famously that relief funds for
| Haiti, New Orleans, or the tsunami were mismanaged, stories
| like millions being donated but only a dozen houses being
| built. I found [0] which breaks down where the record 6+
| billion dollar that went to the tsunami relief ended up at.
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/2014/dec/25/w...
| kmonsen wrote:
| Not really, let's say the charity is for providing mosquito
| nets against malaria. The expectation is that any donation
| goes to providing more nets and not to pay for expenses and
| wages.
| kube-system wrote:
| Much of the value in such a charity would be getting the
| nets to the correct people, who are often thousands of
| miles away from the donor.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Imagine two charities.
|
| One receives money and then pays a 3rd party organization
| to install mosquito nets. This charity has very low
| "overhead" in that a huge portion of their income
| immediately leaves.
|
| One receives money and then pays employees to manufacture
| and install mosquito nets. Even if this charity installs
| _more nets_ it 'll have higher overhead than the other
| charity since things like wages are considered overhead.
| kmonsen wrote:
| First, no your statement is not true. You cannot hide
| expenses in third party companies and suddenly they are
| not overhead.
|
| Second imagine two companies: - (a) One uses all the
| extra money on providing nets and delivering them to
| users in a low cost way so perhaps 0 overhead with the
| extra contribution. - One uses all the extra money to
| give it to pay staff, so perhaps 100 overhead for the
| extra contribution.
|
| Both might be needed, but in general the reason overhead
| numbers exist is that people are more willing to give
| when their money goes directly to something they need.
|
| See for example https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-
| charities
| jstanley wrote:
| But expenses and wages are what is providing the nets!
|
| If you want 100% of the money to be spent on nets, just buy
| nets yourself, but that isn't enough to provide mosquito
| nets to the people in foreign countries who need them.
| kmonsen wrote:
| But I don't want nets, I want people to be helped by nets
| and that requires a lot of work. So the efficiency of a
| charity is a way of saying that if you give $10, that
| means $10*efficiency nets in hands of people that need
| them.
|
| Although I partially agree with you, it is easy to show
| why your reasoning doesn't work. Let's say I create a
| charity to provide nets. I pay myself 99.99% of all
| donations and use the rest to fly somewhere myself and
| hand over 10 nets so I get a free vacation as well. And
| this is not a wholly theoretical discussion, I am sure
| there has been a charity like this.
| hey2022 wrote:
| Clearer terms are "overhead" and "programs". Overhead
| includes salaries, fundraising, marketing, general
| expenses, etc. Program spend is how much they spend on
| programs from the stated mission. Providing nets would
| fall into the latter category.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| I guess OP means that very little of donated money gets to
| actual help to those suffering - materials, food, clothing
| etc.
|
| I previously saw estimates between 85-95% is spent just on
| salaries of these NGOs and expenses related with their
| offices, cars, travelling to meetings etc.
|
| I live in Geneva, the mecca of all these NGOs, there are
| hundreds of them. They even have NGOs grouping other NGOs. We
| are talking about one of the most expensive places on earth
| that they keep renting offices, often good flats too (at
| least the big ones do this) and paying employees swiss
| (untaxed) salaries. Its extremely ineffective way to do some
| good.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Not for any legit charities.
|
| As an example Oxfam spend over 70% on humanitarian work and
| development programs. Some of that will likely include expenses
| of things like tents and food and also wages for medical staff
| and lorry drivers etc. But most charities don't just hand out
| cash
|
| They spend 6% on management and administration.
|
| https://www.oxfam.org/en/what-we-do/about/our-finances-and-a...
| tyrust wrote:
| Perhaps some garbage charities. Puppeting this sort of thing as
| a general truth is damaging to the charities that are doing
| good work. I suggest you do a little bit of research (charity
| navigator, giving what we can, effective altruism, etc.) before
| you say this sort of thing again.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| True, but not necessarily nefarious, as implied by the title.
|
| The ease with which begging can be done on mobile livestream is
| part of the reason why people do it on TikTok.
|
| Not everyone has the wherewithal to set up a GoFundMe and the
| existing distribution network to effectively market such a
| campaign. TikTok gives people with nothing but a phone a chance
| at an audience, a chance at virality and therefore a chance of
| raising funds.
|
| This is an outcome from lowest barrier to entry, not perverse
| profit seeking from big tech
| [deleted]
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _This is an outcome from lowest barrier to entry, not
| perverse profit seeking from big tech_
|
| Both can be true.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| indeed. can also be true that they are decoupled from each
| other, whereas the implication of this article is that one is
| driving the other.
| tomp wrote:
| So do the internet providers. Hardware producers. Hardware
| sellers. Mobile phone companies. Governments. BBC.
| yibberish wrote:
| and the top rungs of society profit from poor people existing
| (allows for lower wages by the desperate need for any work)...
|
| i.e. I'm calling out the hypocrisy and straw escape goat to point
| that this piece is just another salvo in the ongoing culture war.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| Cyberbegging came way before like Badoo livestreams, TikTok
| nailed picking features of so many apps and put it well together
| and you get stuck to it. You got to taste your own dog food and
| food of other to see what people really like and get hooked.
| Magi604 wrote:
| TikTok livestreaming reminds me of Mojoworld (from the X-men). A
| TV with infinite bizarre channels. One channel is a boy endlessly
| flipping through papers and then randomly stacking them. Another
| is a man asking for donations so he will eat a spoonful of
| maggots. People playing all sorts of video games, instruments
| doing weird and random things...
| ok123456 wrote:
| Cyberbegging has existed as long as sending money and other
| fungible things online has existed.
|
| TikTok allows you to put a URL in your profile. If they really
| wanted to, they could put a Paypal or CashApp link there.
|
| This article is yet more 'china bad' yellow peril.
| Zanneth wrote:
| Where in the article did it specifically criticize China?
| oefrha wrote:
| 70% cut is surprising, I thought it's 50% like Twitch. Indeed,
| Googling "tiktok streaming gift cut" still tells me TikTok takes
| 50% commission on multiple sites. I wonder if there are withheld
| taxes or something.
| qjx wrote:
| > I thought it's 50% like Twitch.
|
| it's not the best comparison imo. For twitch's own gifting
| system(Bits), streamers get 100% of the bits when streamers
| cash out(100bit = $1 but when purchasing it, 100bit costs
| ~$1.3). the 50/50 split for the subscriptions(when a viewer
| subscribe to a streamer - 3 tiers, the cheapest being $4.99,
| and streamers would get half of that)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| So they take roughly 30% of the bit value, and I believe bits
| cost more if purchased from their app to offset the Apple
| tax, meaning in comparison they'd take roughly 60% in a
| comparative setting. Slightly better as you can avoid the
| mobile store's chunk, but still an apt comparison.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| lol, what an ingeniously evil way to steal tips: invent your
| own currency (so you have a monopoly) and then keep a huge
| spread between the buy and sell prices. If restaurant owners
| could figure out a way to do this, they would.
|
| Ugh, how long until those tip screens start offering
| "gamification" like this?
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Unfortunately it's a meme that you can't make any money on
| tiktok compared to other platforms. The money comes from
| sponsored content and Amazon affiliate links. Tiktok itself
| pays out very little, especially vs YouTube.
| ravel-bar-foo wrote:
| Foreign exchange fees, perhaps?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Is it 70%?
|
| App stores are taking 30% off the top. The article doesn't talk
| about that, so I wonder if they are taking the total and
| working from there.
|
| $1000 in donations means $300 to the app store, which would
| leave $400 for TikTok and $300 for the streamer. While that
| still doesn't look as good, 40% is significantly less than 70%.
|
| Edit: In the test they performed, it's clear they are ignoring
| the app store fee. Simply put, this is a really misinformed
| article at best.
| hey2022 wrote:
| App cut is taken at the time of purchase not at time of
| donation or withdrawal. So on iOS it costs 30% more to buy a
| coin precisely because they give a cut to Apple. But once the
| coin is in the system, the cut has been paid and gifts do not
| have an additional 30% cut.
| qjx wrote:
| Also people compare this to twitch, but for twitch's own
| gifting system(Bits), streamers get 100% of the bits when
| they cash out. the 50/50 split for the subscriptions(when a
| viewer subscribe to a streamer - 3 tiers, the cheapest
| being $4.99)
| jasonlotito wrote:
| You don't buy bits 1 for 1. You pay a premium for bits.
| if someone spends $100 on bits and sends them all to
| someone, you don't get $100 in bits.
|
| The default ratio is $1.40 for 100 bits.
|
| And the 50/50 split for subs is only on the web. In the
| app, it's not a 50/50 split as the subs cost more.
|
| Yes, the streamer gets 100% of the bits, but it's not
| equal to the $$ amount.
| protoc wrote:
| Its pretty clear that anything about China will always have
| some negative aspect to it in western media. Like there are
| literally articles like "China has made xx% adoption of green
| energy, but at what cost?"
| azinman2 wrote:
| So you think it'd a good thing to have virtualized begging
| as an industry while the platform takes a huge cut with no
| disclosures? Or that it's not worth reporting on?
| protoc wrote:
| TikTok isn't promoting the begging industry and does not
| offer "charity" type services. There is lots of cost
| structure around the OMG tiktok took 69$ that the
| reporter has no insight on such as "app store" fee,
| possibly bandwidth fees, or whatever. If tiktok was heavy
| handed in moderation of content, the article would of
| been written "Evil CCP censors refugees attempting to
| make money via streaming"
| markdown wrote:
| 70% of every dollar you donate to a beggar goes to
| Tiktok. It's understood that Tiktok, like every other
| business, has costs. What they do with the money (pay 30%
| to X, 20% to Y) is irrelevant.
|
| Some % of the 70% is profit, therefore the evil CCP is
| profiting off begging refugees.
| protoc wrote:
| Are these refugee begging because your evil country color
| revolution them and cause them to be in that situation?
| That should be the real story which is missing... like
| propaganda
| risyachka wrote:
| Not sure about Apple but Google doesn't take fees from
| charitable donations.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Are these actually considered charitable donations though
| in Google's eyes? The article talks about "digital gifts"
| so it's not "donations" in the legal sense.
| kristjansson wrote:
| However well intentioned the gifts in this article are,
| it's be hard to convince me that most gifts sent through
| TikTok are "charitable", and sorting that out on the App
| Store side seems like a nightmare.
| [deleted]
| SilverBirch wrote:
| Ah I see the Meta PR team have been busy. It's pretty clear that
| Tiktok actively doesn't want this on their platform, and not in a
| passive "Well, we say we don't want it, but we let it happen".
| They don't want it and are actively working against it. But
| instead of hitting the "Report" button, the Beeb decided to write
| an article.
| cheriot wrote:
| I don't see Tiktok refunding the money they made from these
| channels.
| fleddr wrote:
| You might try and read the article.
|
| They reported it, it did nothing. Only when the BBC got
| involved did they take any action.
|
| "Don't want it" -> they have middlemen directly connected to
| Tiktok actively helping to set this up.
| zac23or wrote:
| New technology to modernize an old way of making money:
| Exploitation of desperate humans
| nomel wrote:
| Or, streaming platform helps struggling families connect with a
| diverse audience, for donations. :)
|
| I don't mean to defend them, but for some of these people,
| perhaps the perspective is positive.
|
| And, for comparison, Tik-Tok takes 50%, while the Salvation
| Army takes 20%.
| zac23or wrote:
| >Tik-Tok takes 50%
|
| 70%
|
| > for some of these people, perhaps the perspective is
| positive.
|
| For desperate people, anything can be positive, but it's
| still exploitation.
| biggerbio wrote:
| avelis wrote:
| More reason to never be on TikTok. oof.
| deepspace wrote:
| I was surprised to see so many comments here from people who
| apparently use TikTok. The HN audience tends to be familiar
| with the technology ecosystem and the ways it can be abused. I
| cannot fathom why anyone here would willingly go anywhere near
| something as obviously bad as TikTok.
| WHA8m wrote:
| Sometimes it's just fun to see what all this fuss is about
| and delve into it. I used TikTok for a couple days and paid
| the zoo a visit. Like most people here (I'd assume), I
| closely observed myself using this app and wondered how it
| would effect my behavior. After a few days I got the feeling
| that I've seen everything this platform has to offer and
| left. Everything for the experience!
| urmish wrote:
| Umm its a private platform and free to do so?
| mickael-kerjean wrote:
| That's very much the same as the AWS marketplace. I have an image
| that should be getting 1000$ per month but Amazon sent 362$ this
| month. The actual payment is always very far from what the daily
| reports tells you and it's not like they've withheld the taxes
| from it...
| BonoboIO wrote:
| Typical Amazon ;-)
| mannykannot wrote:
| If they were withholding taxes, I would guess that, in most
| jurisdictions, they would be required to notify you formally,
| and quite possibly the taxing authority as well.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| AWS is also withholding infra fees, which seems fair depending
| on the cost of the software vs cost of underlying infra.
| view wrote:
| It's funny how these journalists spend all this time researching
| these stories but miss a very important point - Google and Apple
| take a 30% cut off in-app purchases. Governments take sales
| taxes/VAT as well - up to 25% in some European countries.
|
| It's not TikTok pocketing 70%.
| hey2022 wrote:
| I don't think that's correct.
|
| Apple's cut is taken at the time users buy TikTok coins, not at
| time of donation/withdrawal. You get more TikTok coins for the
| same amount of money on web because they don't have to give
| Apple/Google a cut. So once your fiat is converted to a TikTok
| coin it's already "clean", meaning all app cuts have been
| accounted for.
| protoc wrote:
| The giver buys 100tiktok coin for 100usd. The receiver gets
| 100tiktok coins from the giver. For google/apple to get there
| 30% cut, the 100tiktok coin can't convert back to 100usd.
| view wrote:
| I think their system works like this:
|
| You buy two coins for $0.02 and they give one diamond or
| $0.01 to the recipient. This looks like a 50% cut but after
| App Store fees and taxes it's more like 25%.
|
| Still bad but not 70% as implied in the article.
| [deleted]
| risyachka wrote:
| This point is not important.Not even comparable.
|
| One is a purchase in the shop, another one is a _charitable
| donation_. And google _does not take 30%_ from charitable
| donations.
| view wrote:
| TikTok gifts are not charitable donations. They are in-app
| purchases. For every gift you buy, streamers earn "diamonds"
| which can be withdrawn for cash.
|
| You cannot built this kind of functionality without giving
| Google/Apple a 30% cut, plus they collect sales tax and VAT
| on your behalf.
|
| I'll give you an example. If I sell an in-app purchase for a
| price of PS1 in the UK, PS0.17 go to the government, and
| PS0.25 to Apple/Google. I'm left with PS0.58!
| WHA8m wrote:
| That's the point and the title is misleading. If you buy
| goods from an organization because you'd like to support
| their cause, that's not a donation but a simple purchase.
| Even though 'donation' is not mentioned here, it is implied
| in many of the comments I read in this thread. But that's
| far from what it actually is and how the transaction is
| worked. The story would actually be outrageous if some
| vendor took x % from a 'donation'. But that's not the case
| here. These are 'purchases' with the intention of helping
| someone. Nevertheless, the intention doesn't matter at all
| here. If you want to donate, you'll have to look for a
| place to 'donate'. And then your transaction will be
| handled accordingly (hopefully).
| sneaky_verily wrote:
| trash3 wrote:
| Kukumber wrote:
| > TikTok clearly states that users are not allowed to explicitly
| solicit gifts, so this is a clear violation of their own terms of
| services, as well as the rights of these people
|
| Why does the headline want to suggest otherwise?
|
| To me it sounds like users want to profit from the donations,
| they get 30%
|
| If they used proper infrastructures to encourage people to
| donate, they'd get 0%
|
| BBC yet again is using and spreading the "TikTok bad" propaganda
|
| Instagram scam:
|
| https://dailytargum.com/article/2021/11/its-time-to-call-out...
|
| It's a systemic problem in the west from western users, where is
| journalism?
| markdown wrote:
| LOL, I wonder if HSBC tried to make that claim. "Money
| laundering is against our TOS, so clearly we aren't money
| launderers."
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...
| GaylordTuring wrote:
| I totally agree. If we (for the sake of argument) were to
| assume that TikTok allowed this, obviously there's nobody
| offering these people any better alternatives. So why should
| TikTok be demonized? The people who critizise TikTok are free
| to build a better and cheaper platform themselves.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Plus the article mentions middle men; does tiktok take 70%, or
| do the mediators?
| yojo wrote:
| TikTok. They post the full math toward the bottom. TikTok
| took 69% off the top, the money transfer shop took 10% of the
| remainder, and the middleman got a 35% cut of what was left,
| leaving the family with $19 of the original $106 donation
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > TikTok took 69% off the top
|
| So, is the App store not taking 30% off the top (29.68)?
|
| TikTok would end up with $43, and the result is $33.
| Withdrawing from the Local Money transfer shop is outside
| of TT, and then after that, I don't know what "TT
| middlemen" are, but that happens after the withdrawal
| happens to get the numbers they are sharing.
|
| The shop and the middleman are outside the control of
| TikTok.
|
| But you can't ignore the app store's cut.
| yojo wrote:
| You're right. I didn't consider the AppStore.
|
| From the article, a $103 donation ended up as a balance
| of $33 in the TikTok account. If we assume TikTok has not
| negotiated a better rate (doubtful), then the math looks
| like:
|
| Donation: $106
|
| After App Store 30%: $74.20
|
| After TikTok: $33
|
| Which puts the TikTok commission at a (still egregious
| IMO) 55%
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| This pales in comparison to the 100% of nothing they'd
| receive if they didn't use TikTok.
| protoc wrote:
| Considering the amount of video bandwidth a person
| watches and the lack of obvious ads, 55% isn't egregious
| in the big picture of things.
| yojo wrote:
| Fair point. I guess Twitch takes 50% from their streamers
| (and runs ads for the folks who don't sub). YouTube takes
| 30%. So TikTok is at the high end, but the number is not
| as insane as it first appeared to me.
| rednerrus wrote:
| TikTok does the heavy lifting here of getting people to
| your stream.
| computerfriend wrote:
| Not at all doubtful. Apple isn't in a weak negotiating
| position here.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| 45% vs 55% of the remaining 74.
|
| A 100% diff. You can argue whether that is fair, but it's
| a 10% difference.
|
| Or 38% and 31% of the total $106.
|
| So, when comparing the 70% number, we have to look at the
| actual comparative percentage, or 38%.
|
| So, not 70%, but 38%.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > But when the BBC used the in-app system to report 30 accounts
| featuring children begging, TikTok said there had been no
| violation of its policies in any of the cases.
|
| Why the headline is suggesting otherwise.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Having an under-the-table way for users to beg and skimming 70%
| of the proceeds is bad in my book. This isn't just Tiktok
| allowing scams, it's Tiktok profiteering as middleman in the
| scams.
|
| Instagram scams are also bad, however I don't any place in your
| link Instagram is active participant, they lazily fail to crack
| down. Claiming these prove "the West" is ganging up on TikTok
| is the worst form of "what-about-ism".
| 99_00 wrote:
| >Why does the headline want to suggest otherwise?
|
| Because TickTock isn't following its own stated policy as the
| article demonstrates without a doubt. But you kYounow this
| because you obviously read the article since that quote is from
| it
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| This really is a story for our age:
|
| Rather than giving money to organisations and charities that can
| distribute donations cheaply and fairly to those that need it,
| people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most
| harrowing channel on a social media app and even then most of the
| donation ends up in the pockets of middlemen and for profit
| corporations.
| russdill wrote:
| There's a great book discussion this problem
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy
| roywiggins wrote:
| > people give direct to the prettiest/most entertaining/most
| harrowing channel
|
| Donors have always liked this sort of thing, that's why
| organizations invented "sponsor a child" to give people the
| experience of direct giving to particular recipients. Mediating
| it through an organization is probably fairer than this totally
| disintermediated giving (especially if, in reality, the money
| is pooled and spent on needy communities), but the impulse has
| always been there.
| hello_friendos wrote:
| jkeat wrote:
| Adding to the spectacle, we have westerners displeased with a
| Chinese platform siphoning off too much of their direct aid,
| which is being sent to displaced Syrians who likely wouldn't be
| in this situation were it not for the US.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
| floor2 wrote:
| That's one heck of a stretch, essentially anti-American
| propaganda.
|
| The US was one of a dozen countries which supported Syrian
| citizens standing up for human rights against a murderous
| dictator's violent suppression of the Arab Spring. The pro-
| freedom Syrians would likely have been successful with less
| violence if not for Russian backing of the Assad regime.
|
| Granted, without US support the rebels would have just been
| rounded up and killed by Assad without the conflict really
| reaching the point of civil war, so if you squint at it
| enough, ya you can kinda see that technically some of the
| displaced people wouldn't be displaced, they'd just still be
| living a terrible oppressed life under Assad.
| cm42 wrote:
| > TikTok said it would take prompt action against "exploitative
| begging".
|
| > The company said this type of content was not allowed on its
| platform, and it said its commission from digital gifts was
| significantly less than 70%. But it declined to confirm the exact
| amount.
|
| Did they find the people responsible for this outrageous grift?
|
| Is it safe to use TikTok again without the danger of seeing
| poors?
| rvz wrote:
| Hardly surprising. No different or in fact worse than the
| alternatives then for monetisation and pleasing the algorithm. So
| once again TikTok screwing over their billions of users.
|
| Why would anyone expect anything different or better, when the
| same privacy violations, monetization leeching is happing again
| as this time it is competing to be worse than the rest?
| gubernation wrote:
| fleddr wrote:
| "The middlemen said they worked with agencies affiliated to
| TikTok in China and the Middle East, who gave the families access
| to TikTok accounts. These agencies are part of TikTok's global
| strategy to recruit livestreamers and encourage users to spend
| more time on the app."
|
| Fascinating and rare insight (to me) on how they acquire some of
| their users. Recruiting high value livestreamers isn't new (see
| Twitch) but the target here is radically different: people that
| don't even have a phone. That's one desperate (or at the very
| least aggressive) rollout. Like a Jehova's witness for social
| networks.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > But when the BBC used the in-app system to report 30 accounts
| featuring children begging, TikTok said there had been no
| violation of its policies in any of the cases. After the BBC
| contacted TikTok directly for comment, the company banned all of
| the accounts.
|
| > It said in a statement: "We are deeply concerned by the
| information and allegations brought to us by the BBC, and have
| taken prompt and rigorous action.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Which is what every single company would say when caught red-
| handed.
| [deleted]
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| These companies don't care about banning people because it's
| more profitable not to - unless you upset someone about a
| trendy topic like gender.
|
| This week I reported someone on Twitter for telling me to kill
| myself ("Kill yourself" was their exact words). Twitter said
| they found this "Doesn't violate our rules".
|
| Part of the problem is that TikTok appears to have relied far
| too heavily on automation for moderation. I was suspended for
| saying "America is worse" and also for saying "God isn't real".
| Many girls have been banned for showing their shoulders. But I
| guess those users aren't bringing in money like the ones taking
| donations.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I was suspended for saying "America is worse" and also for
| saying "God isn't real"_
|
| What is it about TikTok that makes you go back to it at least
| twice after being suspended?
|
| If I was suspended from a platform for doing something
| innocuous, I don't think I would go back, only to be
| suspended again, and then presumably return once more.
|
| I'm not on TikTok, so I don't understand its value. But is
| the content really so good as to subject oneself to that kind
| of arbitrary treatment?
| lmm wrote:
| You're saying this on HN, which has explicitly opaque
| moderation and a history of arbitrary soft-banning people
| on moderators' whims.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| >- unless you upset someone about a trendy topic like gender.
|
| I am very active in the online trans sphere and let me tell
| you, they don't care about that either. The situation is not
| that any topic has a focus, the online moderation of sites of
| this size is simply flawed. Only clear hate speech is grounds
| for banning and muting. And even then, when I say clear, it's
| about keywords that trigger algorithms.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| But "kill yourself" isn't a keyword?
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Well, if "Please dont kill yourself" triggered the "kill
| yourself" algorithm, that might be a problem too.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| An automated moderation system should be smart enough to
| detect sympathy. And if it's in doubt, it should leave it
| to a person - a native speaker of the given language,
| because a lot of these systems are trained on English and
| western language and sentiments.
| bmacho wrote:
| "Please don't kill yourself" can mean "kill yourself"
| depending of the original post and poster.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > An automated moderation system should be smart enough
| to detect sympathy.
|
| That sounds like a _super_ hard natural language
| understanding task.
|
| > And if it's in doubt, it should leave it to a person -
| a native speaker of the given language, because a lot of
| these systems are trained on English and western language
| and sentiments.
|
| That costs lots of money that could be going to the
| shareholders or executive compensation instead.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I know that my comment is a trivial observation, but an
| automated moderation system capable of detecting sympathy
| sounds like science fiction. Frankly it seems like humans
| struggle at it.
| criley2 wrote:
| KYS has traditionally been a one way ticket to a twitter
| ban for sure.
|
| With the impending Musk acquisition, perhaps the staff
| have lost their zeal and are preparing for more "free
| speech", as violent language and calls to violence online
| is often labeled.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Calls to violence aren't free speech under any reasonable
| definition. At the same time, "violent language" feels
| like a contradiction in terms.
| miroljub wrote:
| martin_a wrote:
| In Germany we have a saying "Steter Tropfen hohlt den
| Stein", which seems to be translated to "Little strokes
| fell big oaks".
|
| Hear it often enough, without any consequences for the
| people telling you that, and it will hurt you.
| collegeburner wrote:
| yeah it is but "k1ll your$self" or whatever got through
| for a while, then it was "unalive", then "un@1ive" or sm
| when that got filtered, i've even seen "commit queen
| elizabeth".
|
| trying to filter automatically based on message is a
| retarded strategy.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect the majority of the "AI" for these moderation
| systems is "has this been reported by X number or Y%
| percentage of post viewers? then ban".
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| In my experience, the same string can result in different
| moderation based on unknown factors. For example, I used
| to report the trans slur of the "t" word and Facebook
| would remove the content. Now, when I report it, the
| comment stays posted. Maybe it has something to do with
| the age of the post or the number of positive reactions
| to it. Maybe I reported too much and the false positives
| resulted in my account being banned from reporting
| comments. Similar behaviors on other platforms.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > For example, I used to report the trans slur of the "t"
| word and Facebook would remove the content. Now, when I
| report it, the comment stays posted.
|
| Isn't that also a slang term for a transmission? An
| automated rule for that that would probably result in far
| too many false positives: merriam-webster.com has the
| transmission sense as the first meaning, and has
| collected many very recent usages from auto magazines:
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tranny.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| To be clear, I reported it under photos of people who are
| trans while it was used as a slur in comments that were
| derogatory. Usually, this would result in the comment
| being deleted.
|
| This is only an example to show there is no conspiration
| about moderation of gender related topics. You get the
| same issues with other slurs and other topics.
| 83 wrote:
| I couldn't actually think of what the 't' word was until
| you said transmission - that's the context where I hear
| it FAR more often.
| jwond wrote:
| > Many girls have been banned for showing their shoulders
|
| I don't use TikTok, but I thought TikTok was known to have a
| lot of videos of scantily clad women and girls dancing. Is
| that just a meme?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I don't use tiktok and haven't seen the videos so this is
| just a guess, but my first thought is they were doing the
| old hollywood trick of showing bare shoulders with the rest
| of their body out of frame, maybe covered with a bubble
| bath, to _imply_ nudity without actually being nude.
| adwww wrote:
| It's strictly no nudity, but with as much sexually charged
| activity as you can get away with.
|
| Presumably automated tools just see skin, but are useless
| against innuendo.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's more of a meme, but people are always looking for the
| boundaries.
|
| There was one weird one that featured a teenage girl
| getting all kinds of wet things thrown on her to make the
| shirt cling (followed by some guy coming into view yelling
| and falling over for some reason?).
|
| Keep in mind that there's a lot of teenagers (mostly boys)
| on there who really don't need much to get excited.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| pc86 wrote:
| Good
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _or what it 's worth, i have two strikes against my
| twitter account for variations on "kill all boomers"._
|
| My it's just me, but I see "kill yourself" and "kill <other
| people>" as completely different in terms of severity.
|
| By the way, what kind of person says something like "kill
| all boomers" repeatedly? Is that supposed to be witty?
| remram wrote:
| I got a temporary bans for the classic joke "old people
| should be killed at birth" some time back, MONTHS after I
| posted it. I really can't understand how it works.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| You're pushing an extremist view that promotes age-based
| genocide, of course you should be removed from the
| platform.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Completely fair. Not saying twitter was in the wrong.
| Just acknowledging that I received a moderation action
| for something that was somewhat similar to "kill
| yourself".
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I've seen people pushing extremist views promoting
| gender-based genocide: "kill all men". Not only did they
| not get banned, they actually went on reddit to laugh at
| all the "virgins" reporting and denouncing them. They
| were that certain of their own untouchability.
|
| If they're gonna police free speech, the least they can
| do is be consistent about it.
| stopagephobia wrote:
| I don't understand how this bigoted person (madeofpalk)
| thinks that agephobia is acceptable. Why does anyone feel
| the need to continue perpetuating hatred against PoA?
| 7952 wrote:
| It can be a bit like black people using the N word, OK in
| context.
|
| We are all getting older, we have elderly relatives who
| we love and aging is just an obvious part of life. In
| that context people won't take it personally and
| understand the nuance. I can bitch about boomers to my
| boomer parents without contradiction. And I don't get
| offended if the kids in my family call me an old person.
| It is funny because it is so universal.
|
| Obviously that does not justify anything exactly and we
| should be respectful. But there is good sense in being
| generous and not taking offence.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It is _extremely_ difficult to get people banned from Twitter
| even for repeated harrasment and clear hate speech. There are
| also lots of reports of people getting banned for trivial
| things. Two possibilities are widely believed:
|
| - mass-reporting works even if somebody is innocent, if you
| get enough reports
|
| - poor quality control: decisions are made by single
| individuals, and mistakes or even just a misclick may result
| in a ban. Remember that these people are working 8+ hour days
| just clicking on offensive tweets the system shows them.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _These companies don 't care about banning people because
| it's more profitable not to_
|
| That's why they banned (and continue to ban) Donald Trump,
| one of the most notorious Twitter users of all time (who
| singlehandedly kept CNN in business).
|
| > _This week I reported someone on Twitter for telling me to
| kill myself ( "Kill yourself" was their exact words). Twitter
| said they found this "Doesn't violate our rules"._
|
| Sounds reasonable, no? Just saying "Kill yourself", which is
| a colloquialism for "f@uck off" or "get bent", shouldn't
| result in a banning in my opinion. If, in fact, the person
| was trying to convince you to do so, that's evil, and is a
| totally different story.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Companies aren't consistent internally. At least Twitch had
| a list of 'do not ban' users leaked, and they also banned
| some high earners while defending others. Rationality is
| not a given.
| eru wrote:
| Applying different standards to different folks seems
| perfectly rational to me.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > which is a colloquialism for "f@uck off" or "get bent"
|
| It's not; fuck off tells someone to go away, get bent means
| they want to have sex with you; kill yourself is... self
| explanatory.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| To be fair, "fuck you" is a bit rapey-- but the phrase is
| obviously acceptable in degree.
|
| In contrast, "I hope someone rapes you" is generally
| considered over the line.
|
| "Go jump off a bridge" is ok to say in person, but not
| online. Go figure!
|
| There is a morality to it all. Still trying to figure it
| out.
| jeromegv wrote:
| > Sounds reasonable, no? Just saying "Kill yourself", which
| is a colloquialism for "f@uck off" or "get bent", shouldn't
| result in a banning in my opinion.
|
| That's where we are on social media. Making the good faith
| argument that telling someone to kill themselves is not
| harassment or death threat.. just a normal thing to tell
| each other.
|
| Free speech absolutism is absolutely bonkers
| catiopatio wrote:
| It's not normal or healthy, but said once by an
| individual in isolation, it's also _clearly_ not
| harassment or a death threat.
|
| What's bonkers is this genuinely childish trend of
| lobbying authority figures to limit what others are
| allowed to say or hear, and who is allowed to speak,
| instead of just blocking and moving on.
| [deleted]
| falcolas wrote:
| TikTok is notoriously inconsistent in the application of its
| TOS. One person I follow was set up as a partner (which
| includes things like bank accounts and drivers licenses), yet
| their account was banned for the personality being under 13
| (she's 31). The remedy? Send a picture of the drivers license
| TIkTok already has associated with the account to prove her
| age.
| collegeburner wrote:
| there's literally a whole genre of live trolling where you
| try to get people who are obviously under 13 or close enough
| to say so and they get banned hella quick usually.
| px43 wrote:
| Turns out that TikTok, like many other companies, is made up
| of individual humans, and not some all powerful uni-mind.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> TikTok is notoriously inconsistent in the application of
| its TOS. One person I follow was set up as a partner (which
| includes things like bank accounts and drivers licenses),
| yet their account was banned for the personality being
| under 13 (she's 31). The remedy? Send a picture of the
| drivers license TIkTok already has associated with the
| account to prove her age.
|
| > Turns out that TikTok, like many other companies, is made
| up of individual humans, and not some all powerful uni-
| mind.
|
| Though you'd think in a case like this, they'd have the ID
| on file or be able to easily infer from their account
| metadata that the person is over 13. It seems like more of
| a case of dumb one-size-fits-all processes or laziness on
| the part of the moderator.
| johndfsgdgdfg wrote:
| s0teri0s wrote:
| I don't get the TickTock.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| And that's okay, you're allowed to not care or have an opinion
| on things.
| azinman2 wrote:
| It's another leap in TV. What's not to get?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-10-13 23:01 UTC)