You seem to imply that those who have used TikTok know for a fact it's harmless.
It's not, on many levels.
At the very least, it encourages harmful behaviours both while using the app (aka mindlessly hollow crap TV couldn't dream of) and off-app (by showing you stupid shit that gets promoted to the top, therefore implicitly approved by society).
Curiously, the kind of activities that the "TikTok algorithm" promotes in Mainland China are is different from dances, beer basketball or tooth filing.
>it encourages harmful behaviours both while using the app (aka mindlessly hollow crap TV couldn't dream of) and off-app (by showing you stupid shit that gets promoted to the top, therefore implicitly approved by society).
I don't see how TikTok is any different than YouTube, Twitter and Instagram in this regard. The Cinnamon Challenge is almost 10 years old at this point.
>he kind of activities that the "TikTok algorithm" promotes in Mainland China are is different from dances, beer basketball or tooth filing.
Because the Chinese government has regulations against it. If they didn't exist, Bytedance would be happy to shove whatever crap down the throats of Chinese netizens granted it made them money. Gaming companies in China also limit the amount of time teenagers can play games, but that didn't come from the goodness of their hearts.
However try implying that the US Government should take similar steps and see how far you get.
Most of the content on youtube is trash, but some of it isn't. On youtube you can find lectures and talks, historic films, documentaries and instructional videos. Tiktok's short-video format does not support any of that. The videos purporting to be educational are vapid shallow trash, necessarily, because of the short-video format.
> Because the Chinese government has regulations against it.
The same government, convinced such content is harmful, happily allows Bytedance to export it. They view it as revenge for the Opium Wars; they're deliberately exporting poison.
> They view it as revenge for the Opium Wars; they're deliberately exporting poison.
First, do you have any evidence that the Chinese view it this way? Do you have, for example, any statement from a ByteDance executive or a Chinese government official to this effect?
Second, the reason why TikTok and Douyin (TikTok in China) are different is that there's regulation in China about what digital media children can consume. Nothing is stopping the US from passing such legislation, other than its own lack of desire to do so. During the Opium Wars, the British and French forced China to accept opium at gunpoint. China isn't forcing the US to do anything.
> Most of the content on youtube is trash, but some of it isn't. On youtube you can find lectures and talks, historic films, documentaries and instructional videos. Tiktok's short-video format does not support any of that. The videos purporting to be educational are vapid shallow trash, necessarily, because of the short-video format.
>lectures and talks, historic films, documentaries and instructional videos
Please point to such content on Instagram. Instagram has the same qualities you ascribe to TikTok but the only difference is you cannot point to a chinese boogeyman.
>happily allows Bytedance to export it.
This is nonsense. TikTok produced crap is produced locally. It's not Chinese influencers generating "vapid shallow trash"; and if Tiktok were banned Instagram would happily vacuum up those creators onto Reels. Revenge for the opium wars? My friend, we are doing this to ourselves. It's not the CCP's fault that America has resigned itself to algorithmic ad-driven content. We invented those algorithms.
Instagram is not going to be any less vapid just because it's run by Americans.
You are insinuating that I have defended Instagram, but Instagram and the entirety of Facebook can die in a fire as far as I'm concerned. Fuck off with the strawmen; my comment above is a defense of youtube, not instagram. You're trying to change the subject because you have no rebuttal to what I actually said.
You are implicitly defending instagram when you say something like They view it as revenge for the Opium Wars; they're deliberately exporting poison.
And again, just because you can point to a small amount of educational content of youtube doesn't change the fact that a large majority of it is "vapid", and that YouTube is also trying to cash in on that trend (via YouTube Shorts).
Nonetheless you can find educational channel on TikTok as another commenter shows which makes your defense of YouTube quite flimsy.
Userbase dynamics is weird. Instagram is somehow dominated by women seeking attention and has an appropriate audience, facebook doesn't seem to be bent on changing that and dumbing their users down.
Tiktok seems to deliberately promote degenerate behaviour, nothing organic about that.
Curiously, the kind of activities that the "TikTok algorithm" promotes in Mainland China are is different from dances, beer basketball or tooth filing.