[glonq]

It is definitely part of TikTok's mission to sow dissent in free western countries. And considering that the majority of people in those countries have lousy critical thinking skills, they'll readily believe stuff like this.

That's why TikTok should be banned outright.

[potato3732842]

Any those who did their little, blameless, or so we're led to believe, parts to create the situation in which such a message resonates so broadly bare no fault?

Every person who was blanket dismissing legitimate concerns about the macroeconomic implications of immigration policy as racist has some fault here too. Though obviously that's a much tougher pill to swallow than "china bad" (edit: note, I didn't say china wasn't bad).

[observationist]

The West can be fraught with flaws and weaknesses and there exist bad actors taking advantage of this. This doesn't excuse the active and malicious exploitation of those flaws and weaknesses by other nations, and it doesn't somehow make continuing with the situation the logical outcome.

TikTok is worse than fentanyl. Merely by using it, you're making it better at destroying time, exploiting minds like yours, and becoming more effective at the malignant uses to which it is put, whether by China, trolls, or marketing departments.

YouTube isn't much better. We need regulation banning the adtech global surveillance system from harvesting data, and strict regulation limiting what can be done with data that is voluntarily shared, and how that data is secured and discarded. We've been dealing with terrible outcomes from the status quo for more than ten years; it's past time to fix it.

If a company can't abide by the regulation, either due to scaling compliance or technological dependency on protected data, then the company should fail.

With a sane system, the doom spiral of hyperpersuasion content factories tailoring attention sinks to individuals wouldn't be possible.

[delfinom]

>It is definitely part of TikTok's mission to sow dissent in free western countries.

How?

Because YouTube and other social media is the same as TikTok.

The feed algorithms have a inherent bias by the human audience. Outrage and clickbait draw human eyeballs more than plain content. Advertisers pay more for more eyeballs. The algorithms job is to maximize eyeballs to get more advertiser money.

If anything, Western (lack of education) and degenerating society is leading to more outrage and clickbait working.

[klipklop]

Agree. But also I feel Instagram is the exact same. They just hope to make a quick buck off the outrage engagement along the way.

[deepfriedchokes]

You’re probably right but isn’t it fairly easy for foreign agents to do the same with any social media platform?

[happytoexplain]

You believe only people with lousy critical thinking skills can be tricked by genAI?

[nozzlegear]

I believe that only people with lousy critical thinking skills will readily believe a TikTok video about a white guy being rejected from a Tim Hortons job interview because he doesn't speak Punjabi.

[bryanlarsen]

It's a stretch, but not a big stretch. Almost all Canadians have likely experienced Tim's where all/most workers are of a single ethnicity. Pretty much all small businesses prefer to hire people referred or recommended by people they trust. If the owner of the local Tim's franchise is Punjabi, it's quite likely most of the people they trust are also Punjabi, and most of the people they get recommendations for are Punjabi. Almost all of the networking they do is through the temple.

Rejected for not speaking Punjabi? Not likely. Rejected for not having a recommendation from one of the franchise owner's network, all of whom happen to be Punjabi? Quite likely. The difference between one and the other might be subtle.

[metalman]

ok, lets riff on the timmys pujabi coffee slinging thing, first up is that it is not an easy job to make money at, the pace can be brutal, the customers ARE brutal, I have seen people get slugged in.the head for ordering a doughnut in the coffe only line, twise.keeping staff and filling shifts is just going to be a 24 hour a day 365 days a year, never get clear of it all consuming job, and saying that you cant make a shift, makes someone, no one. all that said, the "middle" or "soft" shifts are much smaller and have a lot more "white" k8ds to help the mostly senior customers who go to meet there friends as to not getting a minimum pay job in Canada right now, you must be jokeing, the add boards are constantly full, quite litteraly sit on the curb AT timmys, and someone will hire you, and DRIVE you to work and pay you cash many fucks not given for people complaining about getting a job

[ryandv]

The implication here then is that a stupefying proportion of Canadians have "lousy critical thinking skills", because even an associate professor of marketing from the article was, quote:

    [...] initially taken in. "I was convinced that this was a real character and had
    a real story that he was trying to tell in his little eight-second videos,"
    he said.

I don't disagree with your assertion; rather, I find it an understatement.

[happytoexplain]

This is unrealistic and dangerous. The "lacking critical thinking skills" is the liberal version of the conservative's "lazy" accusation. I.e. it's used as a scapegoat that downplays human nature by characterizing a problem as a personal fault that needs not be respected because either: 1. It's your fault, so why should I care (the conservative opinion); or 2. Should simply be fixed, with education (the liberal opinion). Both are un-pragmatic and harm society by implying we can simply alter or ignore the average person, who is the victim of the problem, rather than address the problem directly. As a reminder, the average person is what civilization is composed of.

[antisthenes]

> The "lacking critical thinking skills" is the liberal version of the conservative's "lazy" accusation

No, it's not. Lacking critical thinking skills is a real thing. Just because you pointed out it can be used as an insult by a political party doesn't invalidate the entire concept.

Now THAT is unrealistic and dangerous.

[shanecoffe]

i'd be surprised if even 1% who saw these videos believed them to be real

[AlecSchueler]

1% fallacy? They only need to influence a handful of people each time for network effects to begin doing their thing.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

No one ever went bankrupt underestimating the intelligence of the american public

[danielspace23]

So, a marketing video made by a random guy and uploaded to TikTok, which was then removed from TikTok as they found it to be in violation with their policies, is somehow TikTok's fault?

Don't you think they would have kept the video up if they really had a "mission to sow dissent in free western countries"?

Do you have any source that can prove this kind of video exists not because people like dark humor, but because of a deeper conspiracy?

[AlecSchueler]

There are disinformation networks operating on every social media platform, including this one.

[maxglute]

>TikTok's mission to sow dissent

You mean a western/Canadian marketting firm run by an Indian?

This comment is definitely part of CIA's mission to sow anti TikTok dissent in propagandized western countries.

>lousy critical thinking skills

Amplified by Canadians with basic critical thinking skills from having eyes and a brain.

In last 20 years, Canadian immigration went from 10% -> 25% Indians, 25k to 125k.

Indian (and Pakistani) operated western franchises are notorious for hiring their own in Canadian urban areas. Disproportionately so. They're also the diasphora that now disproportionately, visibly runs timmies, pizza pizza, popeyes etc... aka western franchises. Almost every other diasphora, i.e. East Asians, now mostly visibly operates their own ethnic franchises (bubble tea etc). 10/20/30 years ago everyone was running subways, convience stores, gas stations, but immigration rate was less, and you still had teens working summer jobs at many of these places.

No minority group has peaked Canadian immigration like Indians. PRC at second highest was only 30k per year. No other diasphora had numbers to sweep entry level hiring in franchises historically.

And this isn't even a knock on Indian ran operations - TBH quality tends to go up when Timmies switch to Indian ownership that replaces workforce with Indians. But let's not pretend there's not (at least very obviously percieved) biased in hiring. I know people in social services that work with youth in at/risk diasphora communities, there's pervasive complaining that they're locked out of a lot of entry level jobs because Indian businesses won't hire them.