I was fine with memes over the past few years ... sure they are a quick dopamine hit that make you laugh or think
But now when my friends send me tiktok videos ... especially when someone has been watching these video streams for hours or days ... they start sending out the most random, inane, mindless content ... it's the kind of material that keep a monkey occupied.
it's the kind of material that keep a monkey occupied.
I think that's kind of the point. There was an article a while back that said the CCP/Bytedance intentionally serve up braindead content to everywhere outside China, while promoting educational and uplifting content at home.
I have one 50 year old friend with very little tech know how and his kids set him up with a good smartphone. I saw his family about a year ago and his kids noted that their dad often sits up until about 2 or 3 in the morning at the kitchen table just scrolling through tiktok videos. He sent them to me about once a day until I had to block him and tell him directly to stop sending me this stuff. He's since become 'aware' of his addiction and stops sending out videos as often as he did before. He still scrolls through thousands and thousands of videos a day.
It would all be funny if it wasn't so frightening at the same time.
50 is still too young. Endless scrolling should only be for old people who literally can't do anything. Kids need to do physically stimulating things like playing outside, adults need to do mentally stimulating things like playing video games. Old people don't need to do anything, they can veg out to short form.
Legitimately, when I was quitting nicotine, I would scroll on my phone when I was getting withdrawal pangs, and it helped.
Nowadays I have to watch myself, or else I'll potentially lose hours. I know exactly what addiction feels like: going without and satisfying what feels like a need - it feels right. And these apps are definitely addictive. I didn't really notice until I tried to stop.
Nice. I'll be honest, I never bothered with tiktok, only Instagram. And even that got to a point where I just gave up and tossed it. Even Reddit was weird like that.
that sounds way too bizarre to believe without seeing a source. and i know there's gonna be people replying saying it's not that bizarre, because China, but really....?
Grep for "Companies like TikTok" to find the relevant portion.
The guy talking isn't exactly a scientist and this ain't a rigourous peer-reviewed study, but it does seem like he knows at least a little about what he's talking about. Take it with a grain of salt.
That’s such a gross misunderstanding of the separation between TikTok and China that it’s very possible purposeful misinformation.
China has no control whatsoever over TikTok, and in fact, there are US intelligence officers on the board for the American company. If anyone is “intentionally serving up braindead content…” it’s the US company, who is under strict control and observation by US intelligence agencies.
Xenophobia and jingoism have so thoroughly riddled most American brains that you require no evidence of anything, and just exist in a “vibes based reality” where you accept entirely false information as truth because it fits your preconceptions. The US government has spent years at this point trying to prove what you’ve said about TikTok, and they’ve been entirely unable to do so, because it’s literally not true. And as I said, their US board is filled with US intelligence spooks, not Chinese ones.
Next you’ll tell me China is pushing pro-Palestinian content on TikTok, instead of the youth just being rabidly pro-Palestine.
This post actually made me look for a solution and I found one! Solution to opening tiktoks without using tiktok app or site, not how to stop ur friends sending u garbage.
It made me think... mpv player can play basically any link you throw at it (thanks to yt-dlp), and we also have mpv on Android, so why can't we do it there as well. And sure enough, I found this https://github.com/mpv-android/mpv-android/pull/58, someone baked yt-dlp in mpv for Android, making it possible to open link in mpv (share >> play in mpv)
While this is useful, it could be even better! If the AndroidManifest.xml also contained support for Facebook, TikTok and Instagram links it could be set to directly open them instead needing to share it to mpv.
That's what literally all social media sites do. It is far more profitable for people to be using your app than your mobile website. Apps make it much easier to harvest data and corral the user into the exact experience you want them to have (ads, suggestions, etc).
I know not many people here are going back to Reddit but just for a second, open your mobile browser, disable the add-ons if it's firefox, and go look at Reddit currently. Within the last few weeks they have absolutely massacred it. Like, truly, it is astoundingly bad now. The original mobile redesign of the site was already terrible, but this new-new-mobile reddit is so painfully bad that the only conceivable reason for its existence is to get people to give up and use the app.
Could I see some pictures of how bad it's truly gotten?
I've occasionally browsed Reddit with Firefox private browsing plus uBlock origin, and while the website is quite crappy (Much nagging to use the app and to sign in), it hasn't gotten any worse in the last few weeks.
I refuse to install their app(Facebook) phone on my phone. They have basically broken the mobile site once again, so I've just stopped using it. Much easier.
Mine's been doing it too even though she knows how much I absolutely despise tiktok... There's a reason I don't have that app... Lol
And the fucking fake voices... Ugh.... Such shit.
Like, usually I use my phone with the volume completely off and I don't even want to turn it on for most of the videos I see on here or wherever but it seems like for all this tiktok garbage you need sound to even determine why the hell someone shared it with you.
PSA: If it's links on Discord, you can prefix the link with vx to make it natively embed so you don't have to click through (e.g. vxtiktok.com). This also works with twitter links (vxtwitter.com). People out there hosting these domains doing the lord's work
I dunno man, my TikTok algorithm is about the wokest, most informative news feed amongst them all.
Sometimes they try something new, and I have to train the algorithm a little again, but nothing too annoying.
I just checked and the tiktok app has no access to anything on my phone lmao. It literally cannot access any of this data, unless you're uploading videos then it will use your pictures.
Plus, even IF youre right and the app is somehow circumventing all of the rules the app stores require to even be on it, AND somehow Google and Apple are incapable of figuring out that the app is malicious AND they also for some reason don't remove it for breaking those rules, I'm just some dude looking at stupid memes. China isn't getting anything I care about.
though I disagree that you're seemingly implying it's harmless - I too do not care if some dude in China knows about my hobbies. I'm the safest type of person out there - I'm a nobody - the worst they can do is shove more targeted ads in my face, and guess what I have an adblocker.
What is it about short vertical video that makes people froth insanely at the mouth? Don't "china" me on it, people whine over youtube shorts, instagram reels, they poopoo on snapchat, loathed twitter stories, and thought vine was a stupid idea. It feels like an ancient redditor thing, but I was in the 11 year club too and it's just a different type of format for media, media which can be used in many different ways, as always. Like how internet video generally is different to TV.
it's addictive, and hard to pack helpful good information into a video that short, and so it just ends up being an infinite stream of completely pointless content. it cannot be good for young children to be swiping through endless shortform content all day, either.
honestly, i've mostly stopped using reddit, and it was kinda shocking switching to lemmy, where i can consume all of the content i am interested in that was posted today, and theres just, no more. it is certainly a healthier way of using social media though.
It's not about vertical video. It's not even about China.
It's about the obscene amount of tracking that TikTok does. It makes Instrgram's privacy violations look tame. It collects data on basically anything you can think of, and then uses it to show you exactly what you want, making it more addictive than most drugs while simultaneously having all of your data sold off.
The fact that it's vertical video is bad enough on its own.
The fact that it's short means you can't actually do anything meaningful with it. Can't meaningfully set up a scenario to tell a good joke. Can't explain the context behind the educational fact you're sharing. Can't develop characters in a story. It can never be anything more than basic spectacle.
But the worst bit is the fact that it's pure algorithm. YouTube at least shows you a screen of 10+ videos for you to choose from. Or you can go to your subscriptions page and see videos from people you've specifically said you want to watch. Or use search and find videos on a specific topic (though recently YouTube has made changes that make this significantly worse than it used to be). TikTok is "watch the video we want you to watch, or skip to the next video we want you to watch" on repeat. It's incredibly patronising, and far less valuable as a user.
I just ignore them because the videos are a mess of graphics and popups outside the app. It has literally made some videos unwatchable for me as they kept getting interrupted and breaking.
It's the worst mobile website I've ever seen, which is impressive considering Facebook and Reddit have been intentionally breaking their mobile websites for years now.
As always I like promoting open source frontends for these pages. For tiktok I use proxytok. For changing any tiktok link to one of these instances use the libredirect extension for firefox, it also works in mobile
Are you actually this ignorant? There have been exposés in multiple international newspapers on the source code after it leaked.
If you're so stupid that you've entirely missed one of the largest spyware scandals in recent history, then I don't think there's a source I can give you that's going to cure your other stupidity.
Trying to jaq off here like you are just makes you look like pathetic.
Could you link to any source that talks about this spyware or are you just going to insult me for not knowing about every single thing that is going on? Clearly this is an important issue for you, so I would love to gain some knowledge from you on this subject.
This is why I wrote a Telegram bot that uses yt-dlp to convert videos and send them directly to people. My friend group all use different socials, Facebook, tiktok, Twitter, Lemmy, etc., and the bot will take the link, download the video, then send it back to the person, and then they can forward it to whatever chats they want.
It's been pretty fucking handy. That is, if your friends use Telegram.
I thought I was getting okay at the basics, but actually visiting Japan taught me that I definitely was not. But I'm starting classes later this year, hope to become fluent eventually.
I've certainly been trying to get people into the fediverse and off the corporate side of things but yeah, I'm currently sitting at 0 conversions. It's made for some fun conversations though.
We've got the culture and to put it simply a place to go to. The barrier for new entry is just that we are all, put simply, nerds with our communities focused around that. The fediverse's main problem overall is honestly just that the majority of the population are corporatists whether they know it or not.
Tiktok sucks so hard, but then occasionally I find a minor nugget of wisdom or a piece of information so helpful that it makes me keep the app. Just the other day, some said he applies antiperspirant to his feet in order to keep them warm, because then they'll sweat less, and will get less cold in the socks. I didn't even really know that was a problem I was really having, but now, I will never have cold feet again. There's also always eelfeel, so I'm alright with it as a whole.
More broadly I do hate how kind of walled off the app is. I try to share videos on snapchat, oof, snapchat cuts it off so it's only the first five seconds of a video. Best to send the link, but then, if you don't have tiktok downloaded, it takes you either to the app store, or it hits you with the shitty web browser. Maybe fine for seeing a single tiktok, on mobile, but it's pretty bad on desktop since it's not formatted for it, and overall it, just is kind of ass to deal with, especially on repeat. Hate the modern internet.
Edit: Sorry, nvm, I guess I didn't understand that we were fearmongering about the evil chinese technology brainwashing our youths with their wiles in this comments section.
Putting antiperspirant on your feet sounds deeply unnatural, chaotic and satanic. It's the kind of thing that will result in a sock-related early death.
Sorry, nvm, I guess I didn't understand that we were fearmongering about the evil chinese technology brainwashing our youths with their wiles in this comments section.
Did something about Lemmy make you think we avoid the truth here?
This shit is Vine. We had this same social media platform in 2013, basically. Everyone's just freaking out about it now because it's owned by china, and everyone's been made to worry about threats to national security, even though we can all kind of agree that the american government also sucks and is heinous. It's giving me some "Only I can bully my little brother!" kinds of vibes. It's like the same shit as when europeans get brought up, at any point, anywhere, and then americans start making fun of british people having bad teeth and knife crime and stuff, even though they have basically all of that but worse. Nobody's a nationalist until another country gets brought up, and then suddenly everyone's the most patriotic proud to be an american motherfucker. It's cringe. It reminds me of when we started calling them "freedom fries".
It's so silly. Lol like Google can hand over everything to the feds and they can harass you, arrest you for dumb shit, fuck with your family, jobs etc. China can't do much to me over here. Plus if they wanna spy on me they can just see what's already public. I've never seen evidence TikTok actually gathers or sends anything off that Meta/Facebook or Google does. I mean, can't these people run a packet capture program? Jeez. Smartphones are corporate controlled spy devices already, so if you're using one you're already pretty blown. The problem isn't TikTok, or the CCP spying on Americans. It's the spying itself no matter who's doing it. Plus fucking Blackrock owns 40% of Bytedance. We got our hands in everything. Anyone who thinks the US government can be trusted more than China, and lives in the US is insane. Unless you're Chinese and have family over there. Then it's a real problem.
Anyway. Who's more likely to give the feds everything? China or Google. I don't think China will give them shit. It's a moot point anyway because most of US TikTok is handled by servers in the US by a legal US corporation (owned by Bytedance of course). When Blackrock owns 40% though why are we even talking about this stupid shit. It's a distraction from all the companies and gov here in merica' fucking us. The CCP sucks ass, they're horrible, I don't really trust Bytedance with my data, but I don't trust Google either.
I don't get it. Just seems like a bunch of grumpy old millennials. I'd hoped we would be different.
Yeah I think that would be cool. I think we should all be spied on. I think we should all submit everything we've ever done to every authority. Every time I'm taking a shit, I record a small video and save it to my publically active telegram channel that's full of dead al-qaeda members and federal agents posing as them. So dictates the holy doctrine.
I dunno, it's moreso the fact that people don't bring up how every other web service is spyware whenever they get brought up. You get a fair number of those complaints, and more on lemmy, where everyone is a linux focused privacy psycho, sure, but I think the disproportionate level of shit flung at tiktok isn't really organic, and people aren't judging the app on the actual merit of the thing. If you wanted to, you could pretty easily fling shit at tiktok on the basis that you can't really control what it is you're watching at all, and so it can very easily take advantage of people who have no self control. You could judge it on the basis that they implement policies to curate their content pretty heavily to be more attractive (eliminate the uglies). You could judge it on the basis that the platform basically has no active moderation to police speech and will allow very obviously white supremacist and conspiratorial content to flourish. All of those are pretty true criticisms.
But instead, people don't know what the fuck they're talking about, and they just want to fearmonger about chinese invasion some more. What I'm saying is that the claims spiral into shit like all the kids being brainwashed, on the basis that china has it's own tiktok, doyun or whatever, you know, when that doesn't make any fucking sense and those two ideas aren't really logically connected. China has it's own everything, for the most part, they exist behind a curtain. Obviously, if they have their own tiktok, which no duh they will, it's gonna be controlled by the chinese government, and then the chinese government is gonna spin that so their censorship is for the good of the people and for the good of the kids. But then instead, people will accept that claim at face value, and use it to turn around and say that the chinese are brainwashing our kids, when ironically they've just bought chinese propaganda. That's the type of shit I'm talking about. There's no like, measurement, or self-awareness, of what actually there is to hate about china, people just end up kind of talking shit based on the points that they've been fed by propagandists who benefit from their ignorance. People would just as easily hate tiktok if it was censored by the chinese on the basis that "this content isn't beneficial to society, this content is" type shit, and people actually do already criticize tiktok for that because they're full of shit and can't make up their mind and believe the app to basically just be controlled by some foreign red menace government.
Do you see where I'm coming from? People that aren't willing to actually understand the shit they're talking about, they just hear a surface level narrative and then decide to parrot that unflinchingly, and then, duh, of course that narrative is gonna be a tool to, in this instance, try to take a bite out of a foreign company in order to get them more tapped into US intelligence, and allow US intelligence more access to their data, while at the same time providing US business interests with a neat and shiny new toy.
No, I don't want to see that brainwashing garbage. It's curated to wreck the brains and society of Western democracies.
Everyone should have heard about this by now, but China's version of TikTok is vastly different than ours. It is limited to mostly educational content and has built-in screen time limits. They know what is bad about our version of it, and it's on purpose.
I'm not in TikTok or anything but isn't that something China would of course do? Like they are trying to push their app to a country that loves FREEDOM. Why would they limit content based on their controls in place in their country?
You can go ahead and point out where I mentioned Lemmy in my prior comment. But I will address that now, and of course TikTok is not better than Lemmy.
But what my prior comment was about is that the content from TikTok is unhealthy for the mind. Therefore Lemmy should not host it at all.
I already downvote the porn posts that are just dancing hoes from TikTok. Or anything with that watermark on it. Everyone who cares about mental health and reducing propaganda and misinformation should join me in doing so.
There are a few reasons I can think of that Lemmy is a better platform than ticktock.
ticktock uses an algorithm to drive engagement and keep users on the platform for as long as possible, recommending posts that it thinks the user will like or hate. Lemmy doesn't do this.
I've never actually used ticktock so I'm not sure if it's possible to block content in the same way but the ability to block users, communities, and entire instances is I think one of Lemmy's best features.
there are no ads on lemmy.
Now for the content in question, my understanding is that it's entirely user generated. Just like Lemmy, reddit, YouTube, Etc. It's not like the Chinese government is making American women film themselves dancing and then forcing them to post it on ticktock. That's just what that person wanted to make and post and ticktocks algorithm is recommending it.
With that being said, there are potentially useful, funny, or important content that might be uploaded to ticktock by a user, the same way that girl dancing video was. If that happened, wouldn't make sense to move that content to a platform without many of the down sides of the ticktock platform?
Yeah but they're just distracting from the domestic surveillance that is oppressively bad. I've never seen a compelling argument TikTok is somehow more dangerous to use than Facebook. At least for a US Citizen with no family in China. But you go out explaining how you'll assassinate Xi on any platform they could send somebody to take you out. Anyone who trusts any company or government with their data is naive.
I think it's more in that each platform has their differences as far as consumption, and possible behavior setting/modification, in which they're both detrimental. It's not secret that algorithms are used to keep the user engaged, and that so-called ragebait is a huge engagement driver. Facebook is somewhat of a link aggregator meets microblogging (ie status updates), while tiktok just feeds an endless loop of short videos. I would imagine (though I don't have stats or sources) that videos keep people glued to their screens more effectively (easier than reading), and could be more troubling.
I think you don't really grasp the concept of a hivemind, where users of a platform tend to have collective set of views deemed acceptable and unacceptable by the community. It doesn't necessarily make them wrong, it just means that it is a view or opinion that runs contrary to that of the community. Reddit was a shit show for that (and I know you came from there due to your use of karma), and Lemmy has it too. The entire purpose of the up vote/downvote system is to increase/decrease comment ranking based on users perception of comment quality, though people tend to use it to show disapproval (as you did with my previous comment). There is no "normal' when it comes to this, as it is entirely dependent on the instance and subcommunity's collective views.
Furthermore, let me introduce you to the actual definition of gaslighting, per Merriam Webster:
1
: psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one's emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator
2
: the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one's own advantage
If you choose to share that information, and your statement is highly inaccurate. Tiktok does not have access to any of that stuff by default and you have to explicitly allow it access. They also do not have access to 'whatever they want'. IOS and Android both use a containerized model and API to only allow access to approved APIs and only explicitly grant the permission. Same goes for the browser, you have to give it explicit access to geo location, camera, etc. Yeah they'll have a browser string and IP like every other website on the planet.
Your understanding of the technically seems deeply flawed.
Without being signed in to tiktok any link will poad and start playing the video without sound and with a huge popover prompt to sign in. I have to dismiss the sign in, unmute the sound, and then restart it. Same with facebook links.
I don't care if a meme started on tiktok or facebook, but being linked to them is a dog shit experience.
I get it to an extent for privacy reasons, but most of the people making that type of comment are just going "oh no, that's what the kids are into so it's Bad". Personally I'm too apathetic about the privacy aspect to care too, bug companies are spying on us all and manipulating us all the time anyway and I just can't be bothered to get worked up about one particular one
most of the people making that type of comment are just going "oh no, that's what the kids are into so it's Bad".
I've seen almost none of that, so no idea where you're getting that from. Most people are against it because either a) China b) it known to cause mental issues and decrease patience or c) spying. No one gives a fuck about what kids are into.
Definitely, it's not hard to just see shit you want to see on there if you're using it, if someone is seeing enraging stuff I have to assume it's their fault
Fair, though to my mind that's all social media, so I can't get worked up about one particular one. The reason I'm glad I was pushed off reddit is because I'd end up in a doomscroll trance there too
There's degrees to be sure though - ticktock is the absolute worst, because it has a lot of content and a good algorithm... Plus, short form video is the easiest to get lost in
I think it's an individual thing, and probably also dependent on said individuals state of mind. I dropped off TikTok ages ago because of its tendency to get me lost, with reddit I didn't entirely know how bad it was until the blackout happened and I noticed how often I would just compulsively reach for my phone to open reddit when I wasn't doing anything else
Well that's just capitalism. Just like the rise of sugary drinks and booze cigs etc. We're not optimizing for the well-being of people. It's all about that dough. China is the same, but instead it's just one big extra shitty company.
I was fine with memes over the past few years ... sure they are a quick dopamine hit that make you laugh or think
But now when my friends send me tiktok videos ... especially when someone has been watching these video streams for hours or days ... they start sending out the most random, inane, mindless content ... it's the kind of material that keep a monkey occupied.
I think that's kind of the point. There was an article a while back that said the CCP/Bytedance intentionally serve up braindead content to everywhere outside China, while promoting educational and uplifting content at home.
I have one 50 year old friend with very little tech know how and his kids set him up with a good smartphone. I saw his family about a year ago and his kids noted that their dad often sits up until about 2 or 3 in the morning at the kitchen table just scrolling through tiktok videos. He sent them to me about once a day until I had to block him and tell him directly to stop sending me this stuff. He's since become 'aware' of his addiction and stops sending out videos as often as he did before. He still scrolls through thousands and thousands of videos a day.
It would all be funny if it wasn't so frightening at the same time.
No kidding. I just find it ironic that the generation that kept saying "TV will rot your brain" is now completely consumed by social media.
50 is still too young. Endless scrolling should only be for old people who literally can't do anything. Kids need to do physically stimulating things like playing outside, adults need to do mentally stimulating things like playing video games. Old people don't need to do anything, they can veg out to short form.
Legitimately, when I was quitting nicotine, I would scroll on my phone when I was getting withdrawal pangs, and it helped.
Nowadays I have to watch myself, or else I'll potentially lose hours. I know exactly what addiction feels like: going without and satisfying what feels like a need - it feels right. And these apps are definitely addictive. I didn't really notice until I tried to stop.
I've had no trouble curating my feed to mostly professionals, psychologists and pet behaviorists. Occasional cute animal videos
Nice. I'll be honest, I never bothered with tiktok, only Instagram. And even that got to a point where I just gave up and tossed it. Even Reddit was weird like that.
that sounds way too bizarre to believe without seeing a source. and i know there's gonna be people replying saying it's not that bizarre, because China, but really....?
60 Minutes did a spread on it way back when, it's on YouTube I believe
thank you
Absolutely reasonable thing to ask.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tristan-harris-social-media-political-polarization-60-minutes-2022-11-06/
Grep for "Companies like TikTok" to find the relevant portion.
The guy talking isn't exactly a scientist and this ain't a rigourous peer-reviewed study, but it does seem like he knows at least a little about what he's talking about. Take it with a grain of salt.
I want to see a sampling of this "educational and uplifting" content.
Just don't forget Blackrock owns a very sizable portion of Bytedance. Just saying.
That’s such a gross misunderstanding of the separation between TikTok and China that it’s very possible purposeful misinformation.
China has no control whatsoever over TikTok, and in fact, there are US intelligence officers on the board for the American company. If anyone is “intentionally serving up braindead content…” it’s the US company, who is under strict control and observation by US intelligence agencies.
Why are you lying? Every Chinese company is under the CCP's boot, as made evident by the one time Tencent tried to fight it
Xenophobia and jingoism have so thoroughly riddled most American brains that you require no evidence of anything, and just exist in a “vibes based reality” where you accept entirely false information as truth because it fits your preconceptions. The US government has spent years at this point trying to prove what you’ve said about TikTok, and they’ve been entirely unable to do so, because it’s literally not true. And as I said, their US board is filled with US intelligence spooks, not Chinese ones.
Next you’ll tell me China is pushing pro-Palestinian content on TikTok, instead of the youth just being rabidly pro-Palestine.
I'm not even American, bot. Go suck CCP cock somewhere else.
And that's what Ten Forward is for!
Oh shit!
This post actually made me look for a solution and I found one!
Solution to opening tiktoks without using tiktok app or site, not how to stop ur friends sending u garbage.
It made me think... mpv player can play basically any link you throw at it (thanks to yt-dlp), and we also have mpv on Android, so why can't we do it there as well. And sure enough, I found this https://github.com/mpv-android/mpv-android/pull/58, someone baked yt-dlp in mpv for Android, making it possible to open link in mpv (share >> play in mpv)
It works for instagram and all other shit.
Can't wait to try this out. Thanks for sharing.
I have just moved to mpv from mx player due to this comment. Thanks!
Well that's pretty cool
If you are sending the links through discord/chat with embed add vx in front of tiktok and it becomes playable in discord itself. (https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8b81Gu1/ -> https://www.vxtiktok.com/t/ZT8b81Gu1/)
In a removed move, a normal tiktok link will have a play button on the icon like it should play, but can't. This one actually will.
So do we need to download something from your link to make that work? Or is it already part of MPV?
Gotta download the APK from the link
While this is useful, it could be even better! If the AndroidManifest.xml also contained support for Facebook, TikTok and Instagram links it could be set to directly open them instead needing to share it to mpv.
I felt this way with instagram. My phone can barely handle the web app and you can't even replay the video without an account. Truly garbage UX
Im pretty sure that meta purposefully makes the mobile websites for all their products as shit as possible to get people to use the real apps instead
That's what literally all social media sites do. It is far more profitable for people to be using your app than your mobile website. Apps make it much easier to harvest data and corral the user into the exact experience you want them to have (ads, suggestions, etc).
I know not many people here are going back to Reddit but just for a second, open your mobile browser, disable the add-ons if it's firefox, and go look at Reddit currently. Within the last few weeks they have absolutely massacred it. Like, truly, it is astoundingly bad now. The original mobile redesign of the site was already terrible, but this new-new-mobile reddit is so painfully bad that the only conceivable reason for its existence is to get people to give up and use the app.
Man i really miss old reddit, what a shame. I hope lemmy continues to grow, none of my hobbies have active communities yet like they do on redddit
same, idk what to talk abt with you all lol
But I'm here and we're chillin
Could I see some pictures of how bad it's truly gotten?
I've occasionally browsed Reddit with Firefox private browsing plus uBlock origin, and while the website is quite crappy (Much nagging to use the app and to sign in), it hasn't gotten any worse in the last few weeks.
I refuse to install their app(Facebook) phone on my phone. They have basically broken the mobile site once again, so I've just stopped using it. Much easier.
That's why I use desktop mode on most websites
Any phone can barely handle the web app
I'm pissed when ppl send me links for it and they don't play in mobile firefox and I'm forced to open chrome.
Wait until you are on a clever chinaphone OS that unloads the previous app while you play this.
I just shared this with my wife, since she has started sharing TikTok lately.
Sorry to hear your marriage is on the rocks mate. Hopefully it's just a phase.
https://giphy.com/gifs/moodman-Rh4vxHtcmVyHUyugXP
She sent this as a reply:
It's too late for me. Save yourselves!
Mine's been doing it too even though she knows how much I absolutely despise tiktok... There's a reason I don't have that app... Lol
And the fucking fake voices... Ugh.... Such shit.
Like, usually I use my phone with the volume completely off and I don't even want to turn it on for most of the videos I see on here or wherever but it seems like for all this tiktok garbage you need sound to even determine why the hell someone shared it with you.
This but it's instagram
It's both. So annoying when the first bit is muted and you can't replay.
My wife created an Instagram account in my phone so she can send me videos.
PSA: If it's links on Discord, you can prefix the link with
vxto make it natively embed so you don't have to click through (e.g.vxtiktok.com). This also works with twitter links (vxtwitter.com). People out there hosting these domains doing the lord's workPlot twist: the people hosting those are datamining the shit out of people
My thoughts exactly.
I dunno man, my TikTok algorithm is about the wokest, most informative news feed amongst them all.
Sometimes they try something new, and I have to train the algorithm a little again, but nothing too annoying.
I just checked and the tiktok app has no access to anything on my phone lmao. It literally cannot access any of this data, unless you're uploading videos then it will use your pictures.
Plus, even IF youre right and the app is somehow circumventing all of the rules the app stores require to even be on it, AND somehow Google and Apple are incapable of figuring out that the app is malicious AND they also for some reason don't remove it for breaking those rules, I'm just some dude looking at stupid memes. China isn't getting anything I care about.
though I disagree that you're seemingly implying it's harmless - I too do not care if some dude in China knows about my hobbies. I'm the safest type of person out there - I'm a nobody - the worst they can do is shove more targeted ads in my face, and guess what I have an adblocker.
you're angry
lol
What is it about short vertical video that makes people froth insanely at the mouth? Don't "china" me on it, people whine over youtube shorts, instagram reels, they poopoo on snapchat, loathed twitter stories, and thought vine was a stupid idea. It feels like an ancient redditor thing, but I was in the 11 year club too and it's just a different type of format for media, media which can be used in many different ways, as always. Like how internet video generally is different to TV.
it's addictive, and hard to pack helpful good information into a video that short, and so it just ends up being an infinite stream of completely pointless content. it cannot be good for young children to be swiping through endless shortform content all day, either.
honestly, i've mostly stopped using reddit, and it was kinda shocking switching to lemmy, where i can consume all of the content i am interested in that was posted today, and theres just, no more. it is certainly a healthier way of using social media though.
It's not about vertical video. It's not even about China.
It's about the obscene amount of tracking that TikTok does. It makes Instrgram's privacy violations look tame. It collects data on basically anything you can think of, and then uses it to show you exactly what you want, making it more addictive than most drugs while simultaneously having all of your data sold off.
The fact that it's vertical video is bad enough on its own.
The fact that it's short means you can't actually do anything meaningful with it. Can't meaningfully set up a scenario to tell a good joke. Can't explain the context behind the educational fact you're sharing. Can't develop characters in a story. It can never be anything more than basic spectacle.
But the worst bit is the fact that it's pure algorithm. YouTube at least shows you a screen of 10+ videos for you to choose from. Or you can go to your subscriptions page and see videos from people you've specifically said you want to watch. Or use search and find videos on a specific topic (though recently YouTube has made changes that make this significantly worse than it used to be). TikTok is "watch the video we want you to watch, or skip to the next video we want you to watch" on repeat. It's incredibly patronising, and far less valuable as a user.
Traitor to mankind? Don't you think you're being just a little bit dramatic?
I just ignore them because the videos are a mess of graphics and popups outside the app. It has literally made some videos unwatchable for me as they kept getting interrupted and breaking.
It's the worst mobile website I've ever seen, which is impressive considering Facebook and Reddit have been intentionally breaking their mobile websites for years now.
I just don't respond but she's not getting the hint.
Lol people don't know their friends are platform snobs 😅
Platform purist ty
Tyvm
I've told them repeatedly though? If they're not aware at this point it's on them.
As always I like promoting open source frontends for these pages. For tiktok I use proxytok. For changing any tiktok link to one of these instances use the libredirect extension for firefox, it also works in mobile
Have you heard about our lords and saviors the alternative frontends?
Do memes stop being memes when they're on tiktok?
Once they hit TikTok, they're purely Chinese spyware.
Facebook is just American spyware. The Chinese gov can't exactly send the feds to my house. You better bet the US gov can though!
Forget countries, if Facebook is like having a prying eye spy on you, TikTok is like having 100 prying eyes spying on you.
And that's different than American spyware in several important ways, such as...
Such as...
Well shit.
What sort of spyware do they employ?
The worst kind.
Any actual information on the spyware or nah?
Are you actually this ignorant? There have been exposés in multiple international newspapers on the source code after it leaked.
If you're so stupid that you've entirely missed one of the largest spyware scandals in recent history, then I don't think there's a source I can give you that's going to cure your other stupidity.
Trying to jaq off here like you are just makes you look like pathetic.
Could you link to any source that talks about this spyware or are you just going to insult me for not knowing about every single thing that is going on? Clearly this is an important issue for you, so I would love to gain some knowledge from you on this subject.
Eh, I used to think this too, but TikTok isn't closely associated with chinese companies, any more than TakeTwo or anything made in Shenzhen.
I still abhor it for what it is though, alongside YTShorts.
i shall retaliate with fediverse links
Suddenly glad all of my friends are old people like me.
The person who sends me far more TikTok videos than anyone else is my boomer dad.
This is why I wrote a Telegram bot that uses yt-dlp to convert videos and send them directly to people. My friend group all use different socials, Facebook, tiktok, Twitter, Lemmy, etc., and the bot will take the link, download the video, then send it back to the person, and then they can forward it to whatever chats they want.
It's been pretty fucking handy. That is, if your friends use Telegram.
Brian is that you?
Are you any good at Japanese yet?
Indeed.
I thought I was getting okay at the basics, but actually visiting Japan taught me that I definitely was not. But I'm starting classes later this year, hope to become fluent eventually.
Why don't they just actually send the video file?
Those apps purposely don't make it trivial to download the files do they? You probably could but someone who swipes Tiktok all day can not.
Lots of tiktoks can be downloaded easily, but still, they can be large, why send those around when you can just send a link
For better user experience for the person receiving it.
Ugh… I can feel this in my bones.
I'll usually tell him that the sound isn't working when I open it in the browser and I'm not downloading the app. But he keeps... on... trying...
Share -> Save Video
Facebook videos for me
Copy link, paste into browser incognito
I've certainly been trying to get people into the fediverse and off the corporate side of things but yeah, I'm currently sitting at 0 conversions. It's made for some fun conversations though.
It feels like we've reached a critical mass to maintain, which was important, but now it's just a matter of getting the word out.
We've got the culture and to put it simply a place to go to. The barrier for new entry is just that we are all, put simply, nerds with our communities focused around that. The fediverse's main problem overall is honestly just that the majority of the population are corporatists whether they know it or not.
This is my wife in a nutshell after Reddit died.
Tiktok sucks so hard, but then occasionally I find a minor nugget of wisdom or a piece of information so helpful that it makes me keep the app. Just the other day, some said he applies antiperspirant to his feet in order to keep them warm, because then they'll sweat less, and will get less cold in the socks. I didn't even really know that was a problem I was really having, but now, I will never have cold feet again. There's also always eelfeel, so I'm alright with it as a whole.
More broadly I do hate how kind of walled off the app is. I try to share videos on snapchat, oof, snapchat cuts it off so it's only the first five seconds of a video. Best to send the link, but then, if you don't have tiktok downloaded, it takes you either to the app store, or it hits you with the shitty web browser. Maybe fine for seeing a single tiktok, on mobile, but it's pretty bad on desktop since it's not formatted for it, and overall it, just is kind of ass to deal with, especially on repeat. Hate the modern internet.
Edit: Sorry, nvm, I guess I didn't understand that we were fearmongering about the evil chinese technology brainwashing our youths with their wiles in this comments section.
Putting antiperspirant on your feet sounds deeply unnatural, chaotic and satanic. It's the kind of thing that will result in a sock-related early death.
Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I myself am intrigued!
At least patched with ReVanced or something similar.
Did something about Lemmy make you think we avoid the truth here?
This shit is Vine. We had this same social media platform in 2013, basically. Everyone's just freaking out about it now because it's owned by china, and everyone's been made to worry about threats to national security, even though we can all kind of agree that the american government also sucks and is heinous. It's giving me some "Only I can bully my little brother!" kinds of vibes. It's like the same shit as when europeans get brought up, at any point, anywhere, and then americans start making fun of british people having bad teeth and knife crime and stuff, even though they have basically all of that but worse. Nobody's a nationalist until another country gets brought up, and then suddenly everyone's the most patriotic proud to be an american motherfucker. It's cringe. It reminds me of when we started calling them "freedom fries".
It's so silly. Lol like Google can hand over everything to the feds and they can harass you, arrest you for dumb shit, fuck with your family, jobs etc. China can't do much to me over here. Plus if they wanna spy on me they can just see what's already public. I've never seen evidence TikTok actually gathers or sends anything off that Meta/Facebook or Google does. I mean, can't these people run a packet capture program? Jeez. Smartphones are corporate controlled spy devices already, so if you're using one you're already pretty blown. The problem isn't TikTok, or the CCP spying on Americans. It's the spying itself no matter who's doing it. Plus fucking Blackrock owns 40% of Bytedance. We got our hands in everything. Anyone who thinks the US government can be trusted more than China, and lives in the US is insane. Unless you're Chinese and have family over there. Then it's a real problem.
Anyway. Who's more likely to give the feds everything? China or Google. I don't think China will give them shit. It's a moot point anyway because most of US TikTok is handled by servers in the US by a legal US corporation (owned by Bytedance of course). When Blackrock owns 40% though why are we even talking about this stupid shit. It's a distraction from all the companies and gov here in merica' fucking us. The CCP sucks ass, they're horrible, I don't really trust Bytedance with my data, but I don't trust Google either.
I don't get it. Just seems like a bunch of grumpy old millennials. I'd hoped we would be different.
Oh also shout out for the amazing MPV and yt-dlp lol. Fuck em all. Get yer' ships ready lads.
Yeah I've heard all this before. Basically you're advocating for people to opt into spying because their own government does it. No thanks
Yeah I think that would be cool. I think we should all be spied on. I think we should all submit everything we've ever done to every authority. Every time I'm taking a shit, I record a small video and save it to my publically active telegram channel that's full of dead al-qaeda members and federal agents posing as them. So dictates the holy doctrine.
If you want to have a lot of fun, you can let the chinese government and the US government spy on you at the same time!
I dunno, it's moreso the fact that people don't bring up how every other web service is spyware whenever they get brought up. You get a fair number of those complaints, and more on lemmy, where everyone is a linux focused privacy psycho, sure, but I think the disproportionate level of shit flung at tiktok isn't really organic, and people aren't judging the app on the actual merit of the thing. If you wanted to, you could pretty easily fling shit at tiktok on the basis that you can't really control what it is you're watching at all, and so it can very easily take advantage of people who have no self control. You could judge it on the basis that they implement policies to curate their content pretty heavily to be more attractive (eliminate the uglies). You could judge it on the basis that the platform basically has no active moderation to police speech and will allow very obviously white supremacist and conspiratorial content to flourish. All of those are pretty true criticisms.
But instead, people don't know what the fuck they're talking about, and they just want to fearmonger about chinese invasion some more. What I'm saying is that the claims spiral into shit like all the kids being brainwashed, on the basis that china has it's own tiktok, doyun or whatever, you know, when that doesn't make any fucking sense and those two ideas aren't really logically connected. China has it's own everything, for the most part, they exist behind a curtain. Obviously, if they have their own tiktok, which no duh they will, it's gonna be controlled by the chinese government, and then the chinese government is gonna spin that so their censorship is for the good of the people and for the good of the kids. But then instead, people will accept that claim at face value, and use it to turn around and say that the chinese are brainwashing our kids, when ironically they've just bought chinese propaganda. That's the type of shit I'm talking about. There's no like, measurement, or self-awareness, of what actually there is to hate about china, people just end up kind of talking shit based on the points that they've been fed by propagandists who benefit from their ignorance. People would just as easily hate tiktok if it was censored by the chinese on the basis that "this content isn't beneficial to society, this content is" type shit, and people actually do already criticize tiktok for that because they're full of shit and can't make up their mind and believe the app to basically just be controlled by some foreign red menace government.
Do you see where I'm coming from? People that aren't willing to actually understand the shit they're talking about, they just hear a surface level narrative and then decide to parrot that unflinchingly, and then, duh, of course that narrative is gonna be a tool to, in this instance, try to take a bite out of a foreign company in order to get them more tapped into US intelligence, and allow US intelligence more access to their data, while at the same time providing US business interests with a neat and shiny new toy.
What if there were a service to convert ticktock videos into Lemmy posts? Would that be a good thing?
No, I don't want to see that brainwashing garbage. It's curated to wreck the brains and society of Western democracies.
Everyone should have heard about this by now, but China's version of TikTok is vastly different than ours. It is limited to mostly educational content and has built-in screen time limits. They know what is bad about our version of it, and it's on purpose.
I'm not in TikTok or anything but isn't that something China would of course do? Like they are trying to push their app to a country that loves FREEDOM. Why would they limit content based on their controls in place in their country?
Look at how their app captures every keystroke of every user, and you'll have your answer.
I'm not asking if any platform is better than Lemmy.
I'm asking if it would be good to facilitate the ability to post the user generated content from a terrible platform to Lemmy.
No. That'd be like having your family owned restaurant cook Mr Beast burgers.
Wouldn't it be more like having your family owned restaurant cook dishes using user posted recipes from food.com?
It's user generated content in both analogies. It's still valid content no matter which platform it was originally posted too.
If a Lemmy user posts a ticktock video to Lemmy then how would it be different then a Lemmy user posting a YouTube video to Lemmy?
You can go ahead and point out where I mentioned Lemmy in my prior comment. But I will address that now, and of course TikTok is not better than Lemmy.
But what my prior comment was about is that the content from TikTok is unhealthy for the mind. Therefore Lemmy should not host it at all.
I already downvote the porn posts that are just dancing hoes from TikTok. Or anything with that watermark on it. Everyone who cares about mental health and reducing propaganda and misinformation should join me in doing so.
There are a few reasons I can think of that Lemmy is a better platform than ticktock.
Now for the content in question, my understanding is that it's entirely user generated. Just like Lemmy, reddit, YouTube, Etc. It's not like the Chinese government is making American women film themselves dancing and then forcing them to post it on ticktock. That's just what that person wanted to make and post and ticktocks algorithm is recommending it.
With that being said, there are potentially useful, funny, or important content that might be uploaded to ticktock by a user, the same way that girl dancing video was. If that happened, wouldn't make sense to move that content to a platform without many of the down sides of the ticktock platform?
You're literally insane
I would like inane content. I will not be installing tiktok, but I would click it on it on lemmy
You are well beyond reefer madness levels of fear and paranoia.
This was verified by a number of independent researchers. 60 Minutes even did a full segment on it.
Yeah but they're just distracting from the domestic surveillance that is oppressively bad. I've never seen a compelling argument TikTok is somehow more dangerous to use than Facebook. At least for a US Citizen with no family in China. But you go out explaining how you'll assassinate Xi on any platform they could send somebody to take you out. Anyone who trusts any company or government with their data is naive.
I think it's more in that each platform has their differences as far as consumption, and possible behavior setting/modification, in which they're both detrimental. It's not secret that algorithms are used to keep the user engaged, and that so-called ragebait is a huge engagement driver. Facebook is somewhat of a link aggregator meets microblogging (ie status updates), while tiktok just feeds an endless loop of short videos. I would imagine (though I don't have stats or sources) that videos keep people glued to their screens more effectively (easier than reading), and could be more troubling.
This user is a troll, so you can safely ignore them
You're better off pointing out where they said inaccurate things than just saying "troll!"
Look at their comment history
I don't see any overly trolly comments. What'd they say?
calling people names is not the same as disapproving their claims
Yeah I'm not interested in your opinion
I didn't ask
From what I can see, it seems like their opinions go against the grain of the Lemmy userbase. They don't seem to be intentionally antagonizing people.
Right, normal people have negative thousands of karma. Thanks for the gaslighting brah
I think you don't really grasp the concept of a hivemind, where users of a platform tend to have collective set of views deemed acceptable and unacceptable by the community. It doesn't necessarily make them wrong, it just means that it is a view or opinion that runs contrary to that of the community. Reddit was a shit show for that (and I know you came from there due to your use of karma), and Lemmy has it too. The entire purpose of the up vote/downvote system is to increase/decrease comment ranking based on users perception of comment quality, though people tend to use it to show disapproval (as you did with my previous comment). There is no "normal' when it comes to this, as it is entirely dependent on the instance and subcommunity's collective views.
Furthermore, let me introduce you to the actual definition of gaslighting, per Merriam Webster:
Now, in what way did I gaslight you?
Nope, you are in denial about it or lying about it on purpose. As the other replies mentioned, what I said was independently verified as true.
Waaaaaaah waaaaah it's fine. Tiktok isn't gonna kill you.
maybe not, but why risk it?
Meh, I use tiktok, and that's fine. You'll use lemmy and get the content a week later after it's been in reels for a bit.
Insert family guy you think you're better than me meme.
I'm good having my data stolen by one country, don't need to involve a second lol
Oh no, they see I'm watching Gaffigan and watch cars! Horrors!
And whatever you're texting, and your geolocation, and your contacts, and anything else they want off your device.
Plus good luck if you like psychedelics and shit. China can't arrest you for DMT in the US, but the feds and local police sure as hell can.
If you choose to share that information, and your statement is highly inaccurate. Tiktok does not have access to any of that stuff by default and you have to explicitly allow it access. They also do not have access to 'whatever they want'. IOS and Android both use a containerized model and API to only allow access to approved APIs and only explicitly grant the permission. Same goes for the browser, you have to give it explicit access to geo location, camera, etc. Yeah they'll have a browser string and IP like every other website on the planet.
Your understanding of the technically seems deeply flawed.
I'm from Hong Kong. People have been sentenced to prison for wearing shirts with some of the words I have said. lol.
And I should be concerned as someone outside of China because? The vast majority of users here have absolutely zero chance of reprisal.
Free Hong Kong, Taiwan #1
Without being signed in to tiktok any link will poad and start playing the video without sound and with a huge popover prompt to sign in. I have to dismiss the sign in, unmute the sound, and then restart it. Same with facebook links.
I don't care if a meme started on tiktok or facebook, but being linked to them is a dog shit experience.
Just watch the TikToks, nobody cares
You can maybe use mailinator or some other temporary email service to make an account. Or did they block those services?
I get it to an extent for privacy reasons, but most of the people making that type of comment are just going "oh no, that's what the kids are into so it's Bad". Personally I'm too apathetic about the privacy aspect to care too, bug companies are spying on us all and manipulating us all the time anyway and I just can't be bothered to get worked up about one particular one
I've seen almost none of that, so no idea where you're getting that from. Most people are against it because either a) China b) it known to cause mental issues and decrease patience or c) spying. No one gives a fuck about what kids are into.
It's almost like we have different experiences of things ¯\(ツ)/¯
ikr, ppl complain openly about all the enraging shit they see on tiktok and like bruh...
all i see are cute animals and clips from music videos. wtf?
Definitely, it's not hard to just see shit you want to see on there if you're using it, if someone is seeing enraging stuff I have to assume it's their fault
I care. Short form video is extremely addictive. It's dangerous to open it up, if you watch a second video you just end up in a doomscroll trance
Fair, though to my mind that's all social media, so I can't get worked up about one particular one. The reason I'm glad I was pushed off reddit is because I'd end up in a doomscroll trance there too
There's degrees to be sure though - ticktock is the absolute worst, because it has a lot of content and a good algorithm... Plus, short form video is the easiest to get lost in
I think it's an individual thing, and probably also dependent on said individuals state of mind. I dropped off TikTok ages ago because of its tendency to get me lost, with reddit I didn't entirely know how bad it was until the blackout happened and I noticed how often I would just compulsively reach for my phone to open reddit when I wasn't doing anything else
Well that's just capitalism. Just like the rise of sugary drinks and booze cigs etc. We're not optimizing for the well-being of people. It's all about that dough. China is the same, but instead it's just one big extra shitty company.