
TikTok: Cheerfulness and censorship - loose11
https://netzpolitik.org/2019/cheerfulness-and-censorship/
======
pgeorgi
Their approach to moderation is unusual in that they don't even pretend to be
a neutral platform and as such it's a powerful differentiator to businesses
that are rooted in a "free speech" culture.

Shadow-banning individual posts ("Visible to self") is relatively unusual and
acts as a demotivator to publish controversial content because such content
doesn't drive engagement, as is actively demoting entire classes of content
(like critical commentary on politics) from the start.

This approach seems to help ensure that there won't ever be a subculture on
their platform that grows, becomes controversial and at some point considers
it their right to use the platform for their controversial content, avoiding
all the outrage that late introduction of moderation brings with it. (see
Twitter)

~~~
CPLX
I mean I’m as much a fan of free speech as the next guy, but there are some
pretty key differences between the concepts of “free speech in the culture”
and “a giant collection of unmoderated user generated internet content”.

I mean actual free speech would just be an endless collection of penis videos.
Nobody is actually advocating for free speech.

I don’t think every app has to be about political issues. Where did that
premise come from, just because it has Chinese origins?

It’s ok for there to be an app for kids to make dance videos, and to keep it
light and positive.

~~~
emmelaich
You have a darker view of human nature than most.

I mean, unmoderated, anonymous contents _might_ have more penis vids than you
want, but it doesn't mean that you have to watch them; a user sponsored
moderation / rating would ensure that.

If that wasn't possible, who would use the app except for penis enthusiasts?

~~~
yoz-y
That is how Chatroulette died.

~~~
jarjoura
Well, that's what inspired Evan Spiegel to start Snapchat.

~~~
cmonnow
..cos he couldn't receive dp's anymore ?

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facethrowaway
This is pretty tame and actually sounds pretty pragmatic and well-organized in
a non-threatening manner, especially given the target audience (kids).
Moderating for different countries’ rules is a requirement unless you want to
get kicked out of lots of markets.

The real concern I have is in the fact that things below 50 views don’t get
much moderation attention, which is the same across all platforms, and where
we see the most risk for these platforms to be used to bully people within
small social groups (such as at school).

Anyone who thinks Facebook doesn’t similarly optimize the content within
Explore etc is delusional. It would be interesting to compare the information
these companies offer national security organizations.

~~~
saagarjha
Are you joking? TikTok is absolutely awful at moderating content for (and
generated by) children.

~~~
senectus1
while at the same time marketing and deliberately targeting children.

I'd go as far as describing their behavior as "sexually Grooming" children.

Not a fan here as I guess you can tell.

------
ridaj
Calling this censorship rather than editorial curation implies that content
distribution platforms are somehow expected not to have an editorial line. I
find this very odd and a misuse of the term censorship.

"America's got talent" is a great show too, and they certainly select who gets
onstage from all the people they audition. Is that censorship? I don't expect
that TV show to give me info about protests any more than Tiktok.

Censorship is when the powers of government or the marketplace are such that
nobody could, if they wanted, get their message out. Yes there is actual
censorship in China that filters anything from group messaging apps to movies,
but isn't Tiktok here just defining an editorial line of non-controversial
content?

~~~
chibg10
Did you miss the section about Hong Kong and the blanket ban on
political/protest content?

The latter is very Brave New World-esque in that it both “keeps the app fun”
and acts as a means to suppress dissent. If they have the capability to
identify political/protest content, why not label and allow filtering instead
of blanket removing all of it from the app?

~~~
ridaj
I think it's very reasonable for a content platform to enforce some kind of
norm on speech including against protest content. Back when Tiktok was
musical.ly, ie more explicitly devoted to music-based content, I suppose it
wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.

~~~
chibg10
Sure, I might be okay with that for a niche community. But social networks
tend to be monopolies or oligopolies due to network effects and general
audience social network apps (which TikTok is) empirically appear to be the
main for platform for large-scale organized protest movement in the internet
world we now live in.

I don’t judge it as worthwhile to get rid of such a platform for capitalistic
soma reasons. I’m even more suspicious when the company is from a country with
close government-business ties where the government has openly demonstrated it
uses such apps to suppress political dissent.

~~~
ridaj
It's not clear to me that Tiktok is, or wants to be, a general audience social
network. In any case I really haven't seen it used to advertise or organize
protests... And let's be honest it is by itself in no monopoly situation...

> I’m even more suspicious when the company is from a country with close
> government-business ties where the government has openly demonstrated it
> uses such apps to suppress political dissent.

I agree it's a reason for heightened suspicion but I feel like in this and a
lot of stories around Tiktok, the suspicion is close to the only thing there
is.

What I don't like about this argument that all platforms, even privately-
owned, should be open to political or protest speech, is that the same
argument can be used to criticize the moderation of hate speech, conspiracy
theories, recruitment for fundamentalist religious terrorism networks, and
other toxic social forces. In the US, the law prevents the government from
getting involved, so we are dependent on private actors to moderate speech
online.

Now if there's something in these policies about Tiktok censoring differently
videos of HK protests or criticism of the Chinese communist party vs those of
unrelated protests in the US, that would be different. It's not what I've seen
though....

------
s9w
I can't see how TikTik censors more than facebook or most other social
platforms. This seems only to be a concern since it's the "other" side
(Chinese in this case) doing it.

> the search for keywords controversial from the point of view of the Chinese
> Government [...] did not yield any or only very few fitting content

Yeah I could give you a nice list of words that results in an similar results
page from Google, Youtube or Facebook.

~~~
SebastianKra
> Yeah I could give you a nice list of words that results in an similar
> results page from Google, Youtube or Facebook.

Could you give me some examples?

~~~
12elephant
Alex Jones, for example, has been removed from YouTube and Facebook.

~~~
SebastianKra
He's still the top result on Google.

The parent comment is suggesting that there are topics that there are topics
wich would get him banned just for mentioning them.

~~~
s9w
People have been punished here for answering a very similar question to yours
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19945640](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19945640)).
Even mentioning Alex Jones is very risky. And depending on the answer to your
question might actually get you sued, at least in europe.

It's become impossible to say things you're legally allowed to anywhere but
very fringe places on the web. [inb4 "private company etc etc": Sites can
police speech as they want. Still it's a shame.]

------
ahakki
I recently featured in a music video of a friend who is a rapper. We posted a
clip of it on a new tik tok account he made to promote his music to the
youths. it was deleted within seconds. presumably due to feauring a realistic
prop gun. the audio wasn't a problem (lyrics include "fuck the police" and
"acab") as I could post harmless videos with the same track on my account. But
that clip with the prop gun gets deleted instantly, even if you heavily filter
it (crop, duotone, colorshift). so their ai detector seems pretty good.

------
joeraut
I'm surprised that they moderate _every_ video with over 50-150 views, that
seems quite unique in this market. This is probably largely a good thing
though given the target market of kids/teenagers.

It's already very interesting seeing how this is playing out.

------
fwxwi
TikTok is, as the title says, a social network for cheerfulness and fun. I
don't use it, but I can understand they outright ban politics: 1) they avoid
becoming the vile cesspool Twitter has become, 2) they avoid being asked by
governments around the world to take down posts, 3) they avoid being targeted
in propaganda campaigns.

~~~
conformist
I'm sympathetic to the argument for banning politics outright. However, this
would imply making sure that all politics is banned in practice, and not that
the platform has the right to selectively ban politics. I'm not convinced tic
toc does that.

~~~
fwxwi
Yes you have a point. As I've said I don't use it, so I don't know how it
goes. What I'm saying is that a politics-free social network is not only
possible, but desirable.

~~~
lonelappde
What is the definition of "politics"?

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hohohmm
Try replacing 'TikTok' with Facebook, and replacing 'Chinese with
'American'....

~~~
naringas
Actually, replace with 'google'. Facebook did say they would permit political
advertising without fact checking. Whereas google said they would enforce
factualness

~~~
harry8
Facebook will let you broadcast lies in secret (ie targeted at specific small
groups so you and I don't know what lies are being told) just so long as you
pay facebook to propagate those lies. Nazi party propaganda targeted at those
showing mental health problems, sure, just pay facebook and they'll do that
for you. They've said so.

I really think this is the right way to think about what facebook are and what
they do.

------
kingofpee
It's gonna be interesting to watch TikTok in the next few months.

Other large social medias gonna copy what they do (like what Instagram did to
SnapChat) will be interesting to see them surviving it

~~~
alisonatwork
TikTok has already been surviving it for 3 years. In China the short video
battle already happened and Douyin (TikTok) came out the victor. Kuaishou is
still around in rural areas and amongst the working class, but Douyin is king.

Twitter has got to be kicking themselves that they had Vine and didn't do
anything with it.

------
oefrha
I fail to see why every platform has to become a fucking idealogical
battleground. If I’m in the market for a social network myself (HN
notwithstanding) I’d probably choose a politics-free one if possible.

~~~
_akei
Did you just call Hacker News apolitical? I feel even Reddit is better when
coming to political debates because on Reddit you can find a subreddit that
aligns to your political ideology.

On HN, if you are from China, India, Russia, African country, the best thing
you can do is to avoid articles about those geographical locations because
comments will be mostly negative and any dissenting view will be downvoted
until it becomes unreadable. It doesn’t matter if the view was free from
strong language, it will be treated like it contains strong language.

At least on Reddit you can find a subreddit that aligns with your political
and ideological views. Unlike here where you have to understand that your
political views will be suppressed if it doesn’t align to the majority.

Every social network has a political agenda. If you don’t notice that agenda,
know that it is because it aligns with your own political agenda.

~~~
andrepd
>On HN, if you are from China, India, Russia, African country, the best thing
you can do is to avoid articles about those geographical locations because
comments will be mostly negative and any dissenting view will be downvoted
until it becomes unreadable.

I agree that downvoting for disagreement is bad, but have you considered you
might simply be wrong? I strain to believe that anybody attacked you simply
for being from Russia/China/Africa/whatever. They are attacking the regimes of
those countries, not their population. These are two distinct things, and it's
ridiculous to think that disliking a dictatorial government somehow means
hostility towards the people themselves.

~~~
madiathomas
I feel a downvote must only be used for a comment that has vulgar, strong
language or anything that isn’t in the good spirit of a good debate. Downvotes
must be used only to flag comments violating guidelines, not as a way to
silence those who share differing views. If you disagree, write a comment. I
realised most people use downvotes powers to silence those who disagree with
them.

~~~
yorwba
There's a flag button to flag comments violating guidelines, which actually
silences people (unless you have showdead on). That downvotes exist as a
separate, more easily accessible feature is a strong suggestion that they're
intended to be used for more than just rule-violations.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Facebook will probably become like this (moderating proactively rather than
reactively) eventually when they become too scared of fines under governments'
attempts to regulate it into being good (governments should break it up
instead).

~~~
jessaustin
This is a great plan for governments who don't want problematic speech to be
hosted online.

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macmichael01
"Never before has a platform grown as fast as TikTok" \- LOL that's what they
all say!! I'm not interested in helping someone build out their AI stuff by
freely contributing my data to their platform. But hey highschoolers might
ignorantly willing to do so. I am really looking forward to a new technology
coming out next year that will give power back to the people rather than a
small group of people who think that they know what is best for the masses to
see or not see.

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dehrmann
It's like the Disneyland of social media.

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hackersean
Having just watched this it seems like TikTok is working to solve what is a
real problem for our society.

[https://youtu.be/ymaWq5yZIYM](https://youtu.be/ymaWq5yZIYM)

