alt Hacker NewsTikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social media app ever created. The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive.
There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger, more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction.
Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.
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> The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive.
Source? I could only find this.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/08/1069527/china-ti...
It’s not about the algorithm but about the owner of the platform.
The same algorithm in US possession isn’t a problem.
The government doesn't care about addictive anything, this is about control and access. If they cared about life or citizens in general they would fix healthcare and maybe introduce any kind of gun control. This is the same government that was slanging cocaine in the 1980's...
> The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive.
Source?
You could substitute anything you don't like (gambling, alcohol, gacha games, convenience foods, televised sports, reality TV) for "social media" in the above and it makes as much sense.
Note that the Supreme Court decided the argument based on national security grounds, not content manipulation grounds.
Justice Gorsuch in his concurrence specifically commended the court for doing so, believing that a content manipulation argument could run afoul of first amendment rights.
He said that "One man's covert content manipulation is another's editorial discretion".
China doesn't need Tiktok for opium. They have the real thing as well.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-fentanyl-pipeline-and...
Maybe it was just a genuine outlet for interconnected entertainment compared to other platforms. American's have always sought similar entertainment since the dawn of the 'couch potato.' Now we can go back to consuming curated narratives/influence on our good ole traditional grams and tubes.
"Too addictive" is such a nonsensical way of saying "accurate".
Nicotine being legal but TikTok is not tells you everything you need to know about government wanting to control the "addictiveness" of social media.
What needs to happen is that all of these platforms need to be straight up banned. TikTok is getting picked on because of its ties to China, but why is it better for Zuckerberg or Musk to have the capabilities that are so frightening in the hands of the CCP?
The US social media billionaire class is ostensibly accountable to the law, but they're also perfectly capable of using their influence over these platforms to write the law.
One plausible theory for why the politicians talk about fears of spying instead of the real fears of algorithmic manipulation is because they don't want to draw too much attention to how capable these media platforms are of manipulating voters, because they rely on those capabilities to get into and stay in power.
I am surprised someone has not attempted to reverse engineer it or make something very similar.
The symmetry for opium is fentanyl which China senda to the US by the ton.
> beginning to scrutinize these platforms.
I think the government could fix it with a screen time limit. 30 mins for under 18's, and 1 hour for everyone else, per day.
Maybe allow you to carry over some.
After that, it's emergency calls only.
I'm with you except for the last sentence.
What's happening to TikTok is not a good proxy for the trajectory of social media companies in the US, esp Meta. They've got plenty of tailwind.
> Geopolitics aside, I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is a vice, and like it or not, this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.
Come on. We all know that TikTok was banned because the US regime couldn't control it.
If they really wanted to ban vice, they would have banned Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and their kin a long ago.
Does anyone have any link to some docs explaining how it works?
That's a great analogy.
I disagree that social media is a vice. There's nothing inherently wrong with better communication. Although it's hard for me to see the value (or appeal) in TikTok.
> I think everyone is kind of aware that social media is a vice
I don't think this is true. Everyone that is reading this forum might even be too strong. The majority of people happily eating the pablum up as the users of TikTok can't even tell the blatantly false content from just the silly dancing videos.
Americans have faced so little strife domestically that they're unironically comparing social media addiction to the Opium Wars
I think that’s besides the point given the entity that is banning it. It’s because it’s Chinese. An equally addictive Western-made app would not have been banned.
And generally speaking as a culture we are too liberal to ban things for being too addictive. Again, showing that it is not relevant in this case since it will not inspire bans of other addictive (pseudo) substances on those grounds.
That might be true but it's irrelevant. Why? Because that's not the issue the government tackled. Arguing "national security" with (quite literally) secret evidence is laughable. Data protection too is a smokescreen or the government would've passed a comprehensive Federal data protection act, which they'd never do.
It's hard to see how the government would tackle algorithmic addiction within running afoul of First Amendment issues. Such an effort should also apply to Meta and Google too if it were attempted.
IMHO reciprocal market access was the most defensible position but wasn't the argument the government made.
That being said, the government did make a strictly commerce-based argument to avoid free speech issues. As came up in oral arguments (and maybe the opinion?) this is functionally no different to the restrictions on foreign ownership of US media outlets.
I wish it were a reckoning for social media, but reading here shows there's plenty of people here who are passionate about "China bad" and see this only through that one lens. And they seem to think it is strictly about TikTok.
> this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.
I think politicians have scrutinized american social media and they're 100% fine with the misery they induce so long as they are personally enriched by them.
> There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China
TikTok isn't anywhere near as destructive as opium was. Hell, purely in terms of "mis/disinformation" surely facebook and twitter are many times worse than TikTok.
Surely the appropriate modern parallel is fentanyl.
I think TikTok and social media in general is much more insidious than opium, because it is hard to know if you are using an addictive product, or what product you’re even being sold (like if you are being sold a subtly manipulated information diet). For example, it just came out that TikTok staff (in the US) were forced to take oaths of loyalty to not disrupt the “national honor” of China or undermine “ethnic unity” in China and so on. TikTok executives are required to sign an agreement with ByteDance subsidiary Douyin (the China version of TikTok) that polices speech and demands compliance with China’s socialist system. That’s deeply disturbing but also undetectable. It came out now because of a lawsuit.
See this for more https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42739855
EDIT: the link above doesn’t work for others for reason, so here is the source story: https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths...
> this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.
Could not be more wrong. "Society" is not deciding anything here. The ban is entirely because of idelogical and geopolical reasons. They have already allowed the good big tech companies to get people hooked as much as they want. If you think you are going to see regulation for public good you will probably be disappointed.
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I remember trying out TikTok and realizing in horror that it was a slot machine for video content.
> The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive.
Apparently?
What's the obvious about it?
I don't understand the argument here, Tik Tok would maximize their monetization in US but not in other markets?
I don't buy it.
> TikTok is perhaps the most impressively addictive social media app ever created.
What nonsense.
> The algorithm used in the US was apparently banned in China for being too addictive.
"Apparently"? Tiktok was forced to separate itself into a chinese version and the non-chinese version by the US because we didn't want "da ccp" controlling tiktok.
> There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China, then Britain introduced stronger, more disruptive versions, forcing a stronger social reaction.
There is no historic symmetry. Unless china invades the US and forces americans to use tiktok. Like britain invaded china ( opium wars ) and forced opium on china's population.
What's with all the same propaganda in every tiktok/china related thread? The same talking points on every single thread for the past few years.
From a geopolitical perspective, this issue about 3 items:
1) Influence- TikTok gives the CCP significant direct influence over the views of Americans.
2) Data- TikTok collects massive amounts of data on 100s of millions of Americans. Opens many avenues for spying, extortion of influence, etc.
3) Reciprocity- Foreign tech companies are essentially banned from operating in China. Much like with other industries, China is not playing fair, they’re playing to win.
Insofar as TikTok has offered a “superior” product, this might be a story of social media and its double edge. But this far more a story of geopolitics.