Tiktok

[mikbone]

Watching the local news this AM.

”One quarter of Americans get their news from Tiktok.”

And the Senate banned Tiktok from government hardware.

 

I’ve never use Tiktok.  Get most of my news from Thirdhour.org

[LDSGator]

18 minutes ago, mikbone said:

”One quarter of Americans get their news from Tiktok.”

I think it’s a generational thing. A lot of people my age get their news from Twitter.
 

[mikbone]

Only thing I’ve received from tiktok is patients requiring fracture care relating to injures while filming challenges.

[NeuroTypical]

I'll be honest, I do 30 min a day on TikTok.  Even though it's basically a spy tool for China, it does indeed match up citizen journalists with folks who want to hear news.  I've lost track of all the breaking news I found out about first on TT.  It's hardly a one-stop shop for all news, and for every true gem there are a hundred non-news or fake news stories, but it's still consistently useful and timely.

Good source of cute & fuzzy animals, and healthy recipes, and lost gems from Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell and Reagan and anyone else you want hidden gems from.  The high points of all the StarTrek series just show up in 30 second bytes.  Current gems from a growing list of current names/thinkers/personalities.  From Jordan Peterson to Patrick Stewart to Joe Rogan.

I follow half a dozen black conservatives, just to tick off my woke buddies who are big on lifting up black people.   Need to find more gay Trump supporters - those guys were a hoot.

You have to be savvy enough to force the algorithm to give you the content you want.  Or you'll end up on FlatEarthTok, or FamilyFriendlyDragQueenTok, or whatever.  Be careful or your teen daughter will come away with depression and bulemia.  It is not for people who only want edification, or in-depth analysis of certain topics.  It is for people who want to experience the breadth of humanity.

Here - learn from a crazy chicken lady, talking to other crazy chicken ladies, about how the 'crossbeak' defect works on chickens, and why common solutions like bracing the beak doesn't work:  

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by NeuroTypical

[LDSGator]

23 minutes ago, mikbone said:

Only thing I’ve received from tiktok is patients requiring fracture care relating to injures while filming challenges.

That’s fine, but Tiktok is what you make of it. I like seeing the short videos of couples making fun of each other, sports updates, news, etc. 

 

80% of the anti Tiktok movement is just grouchy old people complaining about those darn kids and technology they don’t understand. My parents whined about Facebook, my grandparents whined about computers. My great grandparents probably did the same with television…

Edited December 15, 2022 by LDSGator

[LDSGator]

16 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Even though it's basically a spy tool for China

This might shatter some dreams, but virtually no one who uses Tiktok is interesting enough for China to spy on. Could they be spying on us? You betcha, but no in China cares about the 87.00$ in your checking account and the cat videos you share. 

[Traveler]

2 hours ago, mikbone said:

Watching the local news this AM.

”One quarter of Americans get their news from Tiktok.”

And the Senate banned Tiktok from government hardware.

 

I’ve never use Tiktok.  Get most of my news from Thirdhour.org

Tiktok is not really bad or a sin unless the Church takes a stand against it - Right?

 

The Traveler

[Traveler]

1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

This might shatter some dreams, but virtually no one who uses Tiktok is interesting enough for China to spy on. Could they be spying on us? You betcha, but no in China cares about the 87.00$ in your checking account and the cat videos you share. 

They might be interested if you own a fire arm and purchase ammunition.   As I understand – you do not have to reference things on Tiktok for China to know what you own or purchase – just have your phone with the tiktok app when you shop, purchase or reference.

 

The Traveler

[LDSGator]

9 minutes ago, Traveler said:

They might be interested if you own a fire arm and purchase ammunition.   As I understand – you do not have to reference things on Tiktok for China to know what you own or purchase – just have your phone with the tiktok app when you shop, purchase or reference.

 

The Traveler

1) welcome back my friend. We missed you here. 
 

2) uh, no. My brother is literally in China right now. We’ve had long, in depth conversations over Facebook about Chinese politics, their Covid shutdowns, Taiwan, you name it.  They aren't spying on him-an American in China. They aren’t spying on us either. 

[LDSGator]

To be clear, they are certainly spying on us, just not your average American. This paranoia we have isn’t healthy. 

[mikbone]

If every single US Senator voted to ban the application it means something nefarious is going on.

They almost never vote unanimously.

[scottyg]

It's not about the spying as much as it is the indoctrination and degradation of today's youth.

[LDSGator]

8 minutes ago, scottyg said:

It's not about the spying as much as it is the indoctrination and degradation of today's youth.

You know that people have said that since the dawn of time right? 
 

https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-about-the-younger-generation/amp/

[Vort]

9 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

You know that people have said that since the dawn of time right? 
 

https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-about-the-younger-generation/amp/

It has probably been true since the dawn of time. Hunger for power and the corruption of the next generation are hardly new concerns.

[LDSGator]

7 minutes ago, Vort said:

It has probably been true since the dawn of time. Hunger for power and the corruption of the next generation are hardly new concerns.

I’m sorry, I just think it’s silliness. It’s human nature to get to a certain age, flip a switch and complain about things without self awareness or historical awareness. Are certain things gross and immoral? Of course, but it’s been that way since we crawled out of the primordial ooze 😉 

[Vort]

2 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

It’s human nature to get to a certain age, flip a switch and complain about things without self awareness or historical awareness.

Perhaps. But it's also human nature to discount the wisdom of those older than you as being out-of-date foolishness, only to discover in later decades that those old geezers just might have been right after all. It's also human nature to finally become aware of things that were around you all the time, but that you had been too callow to identify as anything but The Way Things Are And Have Always Been.

[LDSGator]

Just now, Vort said:

Perhaps. But it's also human nature to discount the wisdom of those older than you as being out-of-date foolishness, only to discover in later decades that those old geezers just might have been right after all. It's also human nature to finally become aware of things that were around you all the time, but that you had been too callow to identify as anything but The Way Things Are And Have Always Been.

If it works for someone, great-but I pray to God that I never end up a walking cliche like that. 

[Ironhold]

1 hour ago, mikbone said:

If every single US Senator voted to ban the application it means something nefarious is going on.

They almost never vote unanimously.

The issue is that Byte Dance, the owner of TikTok, is basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the mainland Chinese government.

There is concern that China could be using the app as a tool of espionage, accessing everything from GPS coordinates to personal information stored on whatever device it's being used on. 

The United States military has already prohibited service members from having or using it, and I think a number of contractors have already implemented similar bans. 

So I'm not initially surprised by this, no. 

[NeuroTypical]

5 hours ago, LDSGator said:

5 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Even though it's basically a spy tool for China

This might shatter some dreams, but virtually no one who uses Tiktok is interesting enough for China to spy on. Could they be spying on us? You betcha, but no in China cares about the 87.00$ in your checking account and the cat videos you share. 

Right - 'virtually no one'.  That's correct.  And TikTok doesn't collect or move data about finances, or even personal data really.

What it does do, is provide location information.  And again, 99.5% of Americans being in America isn't useful.  The intelligence value comes from our military and folks overseas using the app.  It gives China decent intelligence as to where our people are, and how many there are.  

It's not sexy like the cool spy stuff you see in the movies.  But you can't call it nothing. And when all it cost is a team of app developers and a bunch of servers, holy crap where can a nation get cheaper and better location data on our troops and boats?

[LDSGator]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

Right - 'virtually no one'.  That's correct.  And TikTok doesn't collect or move data about finances, or even personal data really.

What it does do, is provide location information.  And again, 99.5% of Americans being in America isn't useful.  The intelligence value comes from our military and folks overseas using the app.  It gives China decent intelligence as to where our people are, and how many there are.  

It's not sexy like the cool spy stuff you see in the movies.  But you can't call it nothing. And when all it cost is a team of app developers and a bunch of servers, holy crap where can a nation get cheaper and better location data on our troops and boats?

All great points. 

[JohnsonJones]

18 hours ago, LDSGator said:

This might shatter some dreams, but virtually no one who uses Tiktok is interesting enough for China to spy on. Could they be spying on us? You betcha, but no in China cares about the 87.00$ in your checking account and the cat videos you share. 

 

I think it is more of influencing rather than simply just spying. 

From what i understand, TikTok in China for youth and children focuses on upping the amount of educational videos shown.  The algorithms for the US are the opposite. 

I suspect China has a HUGE presence on social media in general (Tik Tok, reddit, etc) to try to disrupt the United States and the Western World.  If they can make people unhappy enough with their governments and Democracy they can destabalize the free world to the point where they may be able to make inroads of their own. 

I see an awful lot of sentiment from youth who spend an inordinate amount of time on these social media platforms (instagram, Tik Tok, reddit, Imgur, etc) that indicate there is a much higher number of far left commentary, far more atheists or those who claim atheism and anti-religion, and who disparage democratic institutions on these platforms than what I see in everyday society or even in polls of what Americans actually think, believe, and feel.

If they are spying on you it is probably connected to an algorithm that tries to figure how to play content that best makes you upset and disgruntled with the society around you and the emphasize those feelings so that you get angry at society around you.

It can work for both sides, both right and left politically speaking.  I think that may also be part of why we see such extremist views arising on the both the left and the right over the past decade as China has gotten more involved with buying up or being involved with social media in the background. 

They are the serpent in the grass and we aren't paying attention.

[scottyg]

54 minutes ago, JohnsonJones said:

 

I think it is more of influencing rather than simply just spying. 

From what i understand, TikTok in China for youth and children focuses on upping the amount of educational videos shown.  The algorithms for the US are the opposite. 

I suspect China has a HUGE presence on social media in general (Tik Tok, reddit, etc) to try to disrupt the United States and the Western World.  If they can make people unhappy enough with their governments and Democracy they can destabalize the free world to the point where they may be able to make inroads of their own. 

I see an awful lot of sentiment from youth who spend an inordinate amount of time on these social media platforms (instagram, Tik Tok, reddit, Imgur, etc) that indicate there is a much higher number of far left commentary, far more atheists or those who claim atheism and anti-religion, and who disparage democratic institutions on these platforms than what I see in everyday society or even in polls of what Americans actually think, believe, and feel.

If they are spying on you it is probably connected to an algorithm that tries to figure how to play content that best makes you upset and disgruntled with the society around you and the emphasize those feelings so that you get angry at society around you.

It can work for both sides, both right and left politically speaking.  I think that may also be part of why we see such extremist views arising on the both the left and the right over the past decade as China has gotten more involved with buying up or being involved with social media in the background. 

They are the serpent in the grass and we aren't paying attention.

I saw a video a few weeks ago that I will try to find again, but it was from an American guy who speaks Chinese, and often visits China. While there he was asking to look at young people's phones who used tiktok. The feeds that these young adults were getting were all the same...videos of Chinese people doing great achievements in athletics and musical performances, quick strategies to solve difficult math problems, cool science and space exploration videos, and there was also the occasional cute kitten video.

Meanwhile...here in America multiple phones he displayed had completely different videos popping up - you have to search for that other good stuff. What comes up in the algorithm automatically here are videos that mess with young kids brains. It could be dangerous physical stuff like the tide pod, ice salt, or bird box challenge. Other videos were about the best ways to transition your gender in your early teens without your parents knowing, how to "properly gamble" to make a profit, or college students screaming for the death of supreme court justices while waving gay pride flags and twerking on top of cars. Big difference what is being peddled to our kids vs their own.

[LDSGator]

3 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

 

I think it is more of influencing rather than simply just spying. 

From what i understand, TikTok in China for youth and children focuses on upping the amount of educational videos shown.  The algorithms for the US are the opposite. 

I suspect China has a HUGE presence on social media in general (Tik Tok, reddit, etc) to try to disrupt the United States and the Western World.  If they can make people unhappy enough with their governments and Democracy they can destabalize the free world to the point where they may be able to make inroads of their own. 

I see an awful lot of sentiment from youth who spend an inordinate amount of time on these social media platforms (instagram, Tik Tok, reddit, Imgur, etc) that indicate there is a much higher number of far left commentary, far more atheists or those who claim atheism and anti-religion, and who disparage democratic institutions on these platforms than what I see in everyday society or even in polls of what Americans actually think, believe, and feel.

If they are spying on you it is probably connected to an algorithm that tries to figure how to play content that best makes you upset and disgruntled with the society around you and the emphasize those feelings so that you get angry at society around you.

It can work for both sides, both right and left politically speaking.  I think that may also be part of why we see such extremist views arising on the both the left and the right over the past decade as China has gotten more involved with buying up or being involved with social media in the background. 

They are the serpent in the grass and we aren't paying attention.

I understand that, and even though I’m sympathetic to that view, I do still see it differently. In a few years Tiktok will be totally normal, people will forget about the China thing, and they’ll move in to worrying about something else. 

[NeuroTypical]

9 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I see an awful lot of sentiment from youth who spend an inordinate amount of time on these social media platforms (instagram, Tik Tok, reddit, Imgur, etc) that indicate there is a much higher number of far left commentary, far more atheists or those who claim atheism and anti-religion, and who disparage democratic institutions on these platforms than what I see in everyday society or even in polls of what Americans actually think, believe, and feel.

Speaking only for TT, you can now find plenty of everything on the app.  It will always throw you something new, and it's up to you to hit the "not interested" button if you're not interested.

Kids and people who don't know what they believe or why, are absolutely vulnerable to wandering into areas that will poison them.

TT is pretty much this video, packaged into 30 second vids

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BneeJTDcU

(There are several bad words in this vid, which is also anyone's experience on TT.  The singer does an excellent job of portraying lucifer.)