
Reddit CEO: TikTok Is ‘Fundamentally Parasitic’ - ykm
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/26/reddit-ceo-tiktok-is-fundamentally-parasitic/
======
russellbeattie
Heh. This sounds like a business person that doesn't understand their
competition, so they self-righteously trashed them as a way of avoiding the
question. I mean, I sure as hell don't know the reason for TikTok's success,
but I'm not the CEO of reddit. TikTok has a billion+ users, despite it's
crappy reputation as surveillance-ware, so there must be something to learn
from them.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
> I sure as hell don't know the reason for TikTok's success

I do. Simple service that came up with a massive user base to keep it propped
up and focused around funny, cute, or stupid Vine replacement clips, then US
kids flocked to it.

Annoyingly; my favorite tiktok and comment about it were found on Reddit

 _When I went to college to study TV and stuff, nobody, and I mean nobody, had
any inkling that this was the future of entertainment._
[https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f3syl1/duck_throws_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/f3syl1/duck_throws_it_back/)

~~~
chairmanwow1
Tiktok first blew up in China, but currently biggest in India.

------
whoisjuan
Personally, I found TikTok to be a funny, light-hearted app, but there's
definitely an overaggressive approach when it comes to pushing content and re-
engaging users.

Besides what he is saying, the app and platform are designed to spread content
fast, with quick feedback loops of brand re-engagement through other
platforms. If you use Reddit you will notice that content coming from TikTok
gets shared constantly and it's designed in a way that drives indirect traffic
back to them. There are even a handful of subreddits just dedicated to TikTok
videos like r/TikTokCringe which got so popular that it is not for "cringe"
anymore.

Not only the videos have a TikTok watermark, but also when they end they have
a prominent display of the creator username (which presumably drives people
who found the content funny to search for them).

This makes me think that he is actually upset about the fact that TikTok
thrives on Reddit and there's nothing they can do about it.

Just look at TikTok itself. Have you seen their user experience when it comes
to sharing content? It's a super highly optimized sharing experience that even
remembers your preferred sharing channels, plus it has a significant number of
features for soft sharing like downloading as a live photo or gif. I mean
there's zero friction between TikTok and posting a gif to Reddit or any other
platform because they make it incredibly easy.

This seems diametrically opposed to Reddit's sharing experience which is
constantly tinkered to create a walled-garden (for example in iOS they
disabled the ability to share videos directly into messages because this
effectively made visiting Reddit unnecessary.)

The other super crazy part about TikTok is how their algorithm presumably
works. It's really an incredible engineering accomplishment but one that is
definitely transgressing the "creepy" line. They really analyze absolutely
everything about your content in order to classify it and rank it. This
article gives a good explanation: [https://veed.io/grow/reverse-engineering-
how-tiktok-algorith...](https://veed.io/grow/reverse-engineering-how-tiktok-
algorithm-works/)

------
seibelj
> _”Maybe I’m going to regret this, but I can’t even get to that level of
> thinking with them,” Huffman said. “Because I look at that app as so
> fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting
> technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to
> install an app like that on my phone.”_

That’s rich coming from the guy who turned Reddit into the Dark Lord of Dark
Patterns. Can’t use Reddit web on mobile anymore without 50 nags to install
the app, and sometimes it simply won’t load a page until you do. Guarantee
they track every last thing you do, every subreddit you visit. Hypocrisy in
the extreme.

~~~
pilif
tracking and privacy violations are only a problem when other people are doing
it.

"We're protecting your data" means "we make sure nobody but us gets to profit
from your data". That's not just true for Reddit and TikTok but for every tech
company these days.

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dingdongding
How different is the tracking that TikTok does compared to what Facebook and
Google does? Except may be TikTok might be shipping this data off to the
Chinese?

~~~
mschuster91
Exactly this is the point. It's one thing to allow companies in _your own_
country/influence sphere (NATO/western world) to build massive data piles
about your citizens, but an entirely different thing to allow a national enemy
(or at the very least, competitor) such as China to do the same.

Given that there are many young soldiers, policemen, politicians or employees
in security-critical environments it's not far fetched that a social media app
such as tiktok which has cam/mic access is able to serve as a remote
controlled bug for its owners. For what it's worth, _ordinary_ tracking of
location data is already an interesting data pile - a bunch of phones that for
half a year only appear on a US military base and then suddenly appear
somewhere remote in Afghanistan? Most likely they're deployed soldiers. Then
look at what they post and suddenly you have names, ranks, specializations...
and as said, all of that is possible with ordinary tracking, the dangers of an
actual bug are magnitudes larger.

~~~
mwilliaams
This app specifically is getting mobile phones banned in sensitive military
areas/buildings.

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suby
Not that I disagree, but for some context, this is coming from the man who
said "We know all of your interests. Not only just your interests you are
willing to declare publicly on Facebook - we know your dark secrets, we know
everything"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCnZqrJE24&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PCnZqrJE24&feature=emb_title)

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paxys
While it may be true, saying that in front of Silicon Valley investors, while
sitting next to a Facebook executive, is pretty rich.

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pnako
TikTok: get in trouble if you criticize the Chinese president

Reddit: get in trouble if you praise the American president

~~~
foogazi
in China TikTok will get in trouble with the government if the president of
China is criticized

Do you think Reddit gets in trouble with the US government if the president of
the US is praised?

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wintorez
The pot calling the kettle...

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throwaway122378
“I’m confident that Reddit could sway elections. We wouldn’t do it, of course.
And I don’t know how many times we could get away with it. But, if we really
wanted to, I’m sure Reddit could have swayed at least this election, this
once.”

-Reddit CEO

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rexreed
Hello pot, here's kettle. Silicon Valley tech is really gonna eat itself

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shaan1
if tiktok is parasitic, whats reddit then ?

~~~
tus88
Sewage treatment plant. That doesn't work.

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threatofrain
> “Because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always
> listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I
> could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone.”

> “I actively tell people, ‘Don’t install that spyware on your phone,'” he
> later added.

Does that mean Reddit doesn't track users? Or just that TikTok is extra good
at it?

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pts_
Geezus the day Reddit userbase becomes the same as TikTok is the day I'm fully
migrating here.

~~~
hajhatten
There's room for a competitor. Digg v4 2.0!

~~~
dehrmann
I always forget Digg was a thing.

[https://phaven-
prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/...](https://phaven-
prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/image_part/asset/52825/YR1rBBeMFYU9vWtZnPvefOrPQxk/medium_0633covdc.gif)

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mesaframe
Look at the irony. This discussion is taking place at Hacker News. Most
wholesome place all over the internet.

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samstave
Reddit is now banning folks for upvoting content!

Im on mobile, but there is a screenshot of huffman promising for life to not
delete content by users.

Reddit is a propaganda tool 100% now.

(There is another post by him saying as so, they removed both)

~~~
hu3
You're not wrong:

[https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-
policy/](https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-policy/)

and

[https://old.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/f9fox2/reddit_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/f9fox2/reddit_is_now_banning_people_who_upvote_content/)

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theferalrobot
I'll take TikToks 'parasitic' over Reddits toxic negativity any day of the
week.

Go look at the front page of Reddit, then look at what's trending on Tiktok...
From my humble perspective tiktok is a pretty positive place. Reddit on the
other hand seems to have been overrun with political fighting and cynicism
about literally everything.

It may not be popular among the tech crowd but for where I am in my life that
is far more important to me than what permissions an app needs.

~~~
kick
TikTok banned pro-LGBT content (until they were called out on it?), TikTok
bans a bunch of things in countries that aren't illegal there (or in any
civilized country, for that matter), TikTok bans criticism of certain
political figures in some regions, so forth.

Positive, but at what price?

I don't like reddit, either, to be fair.

~~~
rapsey
The front page of hacker news is heavily moderated and political discussions
are quickly gone.

You can either have productive interesting discussions (or in TikTok's case
fun videos) or you can have free speech.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
Its ridiculous to suggest that lgbt content prevents fun videos. Also there is
a lot of political content on HN. Its just shit flinging and random off topic
rants that get removed.

~~~
wanderingjew
The president was impeached, and there was no mention of it on HN. To say
there is political content on HN is absurd.

~~~
minimaxir
Tech-adjacent politics is allowed, and given current politics it has been
happening more frequently.

There isn't really a tech angle for the impeachment.

~~~
kick
Not just tech-adjacent political content, but intellectually-stimulating
political content, too.

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betoharres
don't worry guys, I'm creating the new reddit. It's called fuckkit

