[cangeroo]

I think anyone talking about TikTok's content is doing themselves a disservice, because it fails to understand that the content is heavily curated by the algorithm.

I tried installing TikTok on a blank developer phone, and the content was vastly different from what I was used to. Absolutely appalling content, the worst that humanity has to offer.

But my own feed is nothing but serious and mature content.

The question is rather how those algorithms can have a negative influence on people's perception of reality.

Who decides what is bad content? Sociologists? Should we suppress it, to save democracy? Or does that kind of censorship lead to fascism?

[joshstrange]

I haven't used TikTok in 3-ish years now but I always found that funny. "All I see are underage girls dancing", you're outing yourself... Skip a few of those videos or long-click to say you're not interested and your feed will change. When I was on TikTok I saw a few curated witty/humor accounts, accounts related to a few TV shows I liked, and some news that I cared about.

[el-salvador]

> I tried installing TikTok on a blank developer phone, and the content was vastly different from what I was used to. Absolutely appalling content, the worst that humanity has to offer

I've had similar experiences with new TikTok installs. One thing I've noticed is that I get lower quality content with new installs using mobile network shared IP addresses, while better content with residential IP addresses.

[danlugo92]

They will also not show you certain content if you register it in an untraceable manner, e.g. they detect you run inside a sandbox with a non-american phone number they will just outright now show you certain channels, if you go to these channels they will show up as banned, but if you were to open that same channel in some kind of incognito web browser they will show up.