[mtc010170]

I'm not a TikTok user.. or really a fan or user of any social media (and yes I realize I'm on HN).. but I find it silly that people are saying TikTok is somehow "better" for society or peoples' psyches than any of the alternatives.

Do you remember when Facebook wasn't considered terrible? Twitter? Reddit? Instagram? Snapchat?

This is just the latest one to rise to the top.. following very predictable patterns. It's got something novel (in this case I guess a better algorithm and UX).. an attracts an early community (which largely always seems like the youth rebelling against the current top dog). Then the masses come. Pretty soon.. that original spirit and thing that makes it "better" is taken away by greedy advertisers or "influencers" and the party's basically ruined. And then the next one comes along.

So consider me skeptical of TikTok being any fundamentally different. In another 2-3 years, the next social network will emerge and take over the zeitgeist. Rinse. repeat.

[rvz]

Indeed. That is the pattern. This is yet another social network doing the same typical social network things found on other networks with:

   * Far more invasive tracking
   * Designed to be addictive as possible.
   * Manipulation of content - seen and unseen
   * Feeds are gamed by larger creators
   * Lots of privacy violations and getting sued for it.

Every other social network has all of these properties and TikTok isn't any different. The users here commenting about how great it is like 'TikTok is the best thing to have happened to the Internet' [0] maybe forgot when Facebook was once seen as 'the best thing to have happened to the Internet' Until the larger influencers, companies, large corporations come in and ruin it.

When ByteDance eventually IPOs, it will be in the interests of the investors and the big money and not the users who still work for the algorithm even when it is already gamed. Another fast growing social network will take their place.

Rinse and Repeat.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28135484

[xvector]

> Far more invasive tracking

False. It's actually not worse than any other social media platform. [1] It doesn't even try to exploit your browser and device, like Reddit does. [2]

[1]: https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/tiktok-logs-logs-logs-e93e81626...

[2]: https://smitop.com/post/reddit-whiteops/

[rvz]

So you are showing me that both Reddit and TikTok do fingerprinting on their users? There is no difference in any of the posts you have linked. You might need to read both of those posts again.

So this is not far more invasive tracking in TikTok as of 2021 then? [0] [1]

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/03/tiktok-just-gave-itself-pe...

[1] https://www.wsj.com/video/series/inside-tiktoks-highly-secre...

[xvector]

No, biometric prints are used by every major social media company.

[rvz]

> used by every major social media company.

Substantiate your comment with concrete, up-to-date sources otherwise your claim can be dismissed as baseless.

For example, in TikTok's own privacy policy: [0]

   > "We may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information as defined under US laws, such as faceprints and voiceprints, from your User Content. Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection."

Given that it has been admitted after a privacy lawsuit [1] which confirmed that all of this was the case, How is this not worse than the other social media companies that already collect your data, but in this case it also includes voiceprints?

On top of that, they were sued for billions for abusing under-age children's data of this year [2]. Then I asked you how long until they screw with their users again? [3]. No response or evidence from you obviously but after that question, it turns out it took them 22 days to do it again. [4]

So actually 'Yes'. My point still stands.

[0] https://www.tiktok.com/legal/privacy-policy?lang=en

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/25/22301704/tiktok-92-millio...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56815480

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27553242

[4] https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/en/news/tiktok-fined-v...

[rc_mob]

I've followed facebook from day one and I can assure you there never existed a day when it was not terrible. it started off as dudes creeping on girls

[imbnwa]

Gotta love that hacker problem solving spirit

[sorry_outta_gas]

Facebook was usually considered pretty terriable especially in the early farmville days

[mdorazio]

I have to disagree pretty strongly with this. The early Farmville days were 2009-2010, at which point Facebook was already fairly mainstream (300M users) and trending toward the garbage content, advertising, and outrage bandwagon. For the first few years when it came out (2005-2008), Facebook was the shit for everyone in the demographic groups currently targeted by TikTok.