[realYitzi]

I think the truth is pretty dark. Until TikTok most recommendation engines placed the most weight on your declared preferences.

TikTok doesn't seem to care about what you "say" you like." They watch your behavior to see what you actually like.

So you can "want" to be shown math videos and like tons of math videos and follow dozens of professors. But if TikTok observes that you are more likely to watch a professional wrestling video to the end, then that is what you'll be shown.

What you want to watch and what you actually "feel" like watching are not the same thing. Other engines show you what you want to watch but don't feel like watching, TikTok shows you what you feel like watching but not what you want to watch.

This same philosophy is observable when you try to exit the app. If you are on the screen the app opens to, the expected behavior of the back button is to exit the app.

TikTok however, doesn't care that you "want" to leave.

They know that it's important for you to leave so now is the time to show the video that they know you will find most irresistible. So when you try to leave they give you the "ultimate" video which you have been conditioned to expect to be "perfect".

In order to leave, you must fight this conditioning and reaffirm your desire to leave within a tiny span of time (feels like less than a second). If you miss the window and try to exit again, TikTok tries to hack your brain again by changing the video for the next video it thinks you'll stay for, and so on...

[fooblat]

It's not dark at all.

It seems from the comments that most people think the only way to interact with tiktok is the fyp (main feed) but if you jump over to any hashtag you get a curated list of content on that topic. Some are much better than others of course. Many are replete with interesting content and discussion.

I think most commenting here would be surprised by the wide variety of topics to be found.

If you want to watch math content you go to #mathtok (or whatever) and that's what you see. The app doesn't try to stop you.

As a hint, when you see a video you particularly like, try out all hashtags on it. Using hashtags is how you find, join, and interact with communities on tiktok.

[okasaki]

None of this seems dark and you're using some very charged language. Showing you a video when you tap back isn't "hacking your brain". It even says "tap twice to exit". Get a grip and give humans more credit.

[johnnyanmac]

> Get a grip and give humans more credit.

I started doubtinng that around... 2017 or so. by 2020 is was a complete wrap and I'm 99% convinced that humans truly do need to be told that companies aren't providing a free app for their amusement, and that companies don't care about them.

On top of that, I don't see it productive to cricitize someone for charged language and then say "get a grip". That seems to betray you message. Debate the content, not the user.

[relaxing]

The priors say humans should not in fact be given more credit.

[ohgodplsno]

>This same philosophy is observable when you try to exit the app. If you are on the screen the app opens to, the expected behavior of the back button is to exit the app.

>TikTok however, doesn't care that you "want" to leave.

It widely depends. A lot of apps do override the back button behavior too, (especially ones that have lots of state, to avoid you exiting the app when you've filled 9 fields or are deep in a scroll) at the very least, ask if you want to exit. TikTok doesn't display a message, but a second back press closes it anyways.

>What you want to watch and what you actually "feel" like watching are not the same thing. Other engines show you what you want to watch but don't feel like watching, TikTok shows you what you feel like watching but not what you want to watch.

Hilarious. Youtube has been convinced for the past few months that I really want to watch Nurburgring laps because I watched a single F1 reel, and occasionally suggests Jordan Peterson throughout whenever there's even just a single, accidental click on an edgy video. Netflix recommends its own dogshit. Absolutely no engine has good recommendations. At the very least, TikTok is heavily influenced by both their guesses, and by what I do. When I tell tiktok to fuck off with the videos about X, I truly will not get X videos. So, between a shit engine that believes it's better than me at knowing what to watch, and Tiktok's that at least listens when I tell it it's wrong, I4ll take the one I can actually influence.