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China Media Social Networks Technology

TikTok is China's Most Important Export Right Now (buzzfeednews.com) 61

Silicon Valley may have begun the era of social media, but its future could be in China. From a report: Tensions between America and China are pushing the world's two largest economies into an escalating trade war. President Donald Trump continues to threaten a tariff hike on more Chinese goods. So it's a strange time for one of the most popular social media platforms in the US -- in the world for that matter -- to be Chinese. Eschewing typical forms of Chinese soft power, TikTok could be the arrival of a subtler form of algorithmic influence, with sophisticated Chinese AI controlling what becomes viral content potentially shared among millions of young Americans. Which isn't unlike the global influence Facebook, Google, and Twitter have been exerting for the last decade. Silicon Valley may have begun the era of social media, but its future could be in China.

TikTok, a video-sharing app designed by a Beijing-based tech company called ByteDance, became the first Chinese-owned app to reach No. 1 in the US Apple App Store last November (it's since fallen to below 20th place). And oddly, its success in the States has come by embracing strongly features that fly in the face of American platforms but are central to Chinese social media: It aggressively mines user data, its videos require sound, it is largely oriented around a central recommendation algorithm instead of a network of friends and family, it emphasizes memes and challenges over individual influencers, and it continues to add addictive features to make it impossible to avoid bingeing as Silicon Valley offers dubious tools to curb screentime. TikTok's head of global marketing, Stefan Heinrich Henriquez, based out of its LA office, played down the app's Chinese provenance. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, he said there's nothing particularly different about working for ByteDance as opposed to an American tech company. Yet considering how TikTok's been covered in the US media in the last six months, it seems unlikely it can shake its reputation as a Chinese app.

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TikTok is China's Most Important Export Right Now

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  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday May 17, 2019 @03:28PM (#58610688)

    I wasn't even aware that TikTok was an app. All I see (on some of the more annoying image boards) is posted videos labeled as 'TikTok'. So I guess it's pretty easy for people to download your clips and re-post them. In some places you probably didn't want them posted.

    • I mean, the same is true of YouTube, but most of the videos on tiktok are teens lip syncing to lifted audio from youtube creators anyway.

    • by fazig ( 2909523 )
      For a while I have had it all over youtube on my Android when I wasn't connected through a Pi-hole network. And its ads do come with an install button, which makes it easy enough for people to tap that button.
      There's also been quite a bit of hatred towards TikTok on platforms like Reddit. But in the grand scheme of things, I suppose they're still a fringe group.
    • I have started reading with assuming; Editors in their increasing incompetence let a typo and the story should be about Tic Tac candies. However it turned out another kind of incompetence and an advertisement campaign of an app slipped thru as a news item. So they achieved their goal and I now know there is an app called TikTok. Strangely I also learned from Google that there is a similarly named app with South Korean origin which is (was guess) known in a section of Turkish social media environment among
  • }}} it continues to add addictive features to make it impossible to avoid bingeing {{{ === reminds me of that alien game on ST:NG that caused everyone to play the game continuously.
  • to not let their media be owned and operated by foreign powers, hostile or not (I don't see China as hostile, I'm well aware the folk that run & ruin my life are global and no longer bound to nation states)
  • Silicon Valley may have begun the era of social media, but its future could be in China.

    Right because people around the world love China for being famously tolerant of criticism and not censoring anything they please. *eye roll*

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Silicon Valley may have begun the era of social media, but its future could be in China.

      Right because people around the world love China for being famously tolerant of criticism and not censoring anything they please. *eye roll*

      Or killing them. China has gulags for people who criticize their government and concentration camps for minorities. Asians are notoriously racist and have little problem with killing or persecuting anyone who doesn't share their heritage. There's no concept of a melting pot in China. Is that a culture we really want taking the reigns from the US?

    • How different is the Beijing regime from the powers that be in Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, who happily censor anything that doesn't play along w/ the woke crowd?

      In fact, given the way Facebook and Twitter have abused the public, I won't shed a tear if this segment of the US industry falls to anyone abroad - be it China, Russia, India, Israel or anyone else for that matter

      • How different is the Beijing regime from the powers that be in Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, who happily censor anything that doesn't play along w/ the woke crowd?

        One can enforce their rules by force and one can't.

    • Right because most people choose their social media by matching their ideals with that of the developer. *eye roll*
      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        TikTok would be very ageist, driven by one thing and one thing only, the youth of today having a shorten attention span versus the youth of yesteryear. Interesting how time changes.

        I don't know why the propagandistic think their idiotic schtick will work on slashdot but they keep trying.

        It only works to stick Fear Uncertainty and Doubt into the mind of propagandists, get them to do stupid panicky things, chasing delusions.

    • by AC-x ( 735297 )

      Right because people around the world love China for being famously tolerant of criticism and not censoring anything they please.

      Do you know how China treats its factory workers? Now check the "made in" label on your electronics...

  • *yawn* Block it and tariff it at 4000% who cares?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    "And oddly, its success in the States has come by embracing strongly features that fly in the face of American platforms but are central to Chinese social media: It aggressively mines user data"

    Yes, no US platform would ever mine User data...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    China comes off to some as being so trusting just because the world does a lot of trade with it. But internally China is no champion of freedom for its people and while it gladly does business with the US and other free nations. China does not mirror the belief that its people have a lot of independence. The whole Google search deal with China proves that what China wants China gets.

  • Tik-Tok is a 1983 science fiction novel by John Sladek. It would be nice if their lawyers would crush them in court.

    • John Sladek wasn't crushed in court when he appropriated the name of a robot from L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz" books and turned it into a serial killer, so.. probably not gonna happen.

  • "it seems unlikely it can shake its reputation as a Chinese app."

    That's because it's Douyin for ROW (rest of world). It's not hard to realize why.

  • by unixisc ( 2429386 ) on Friday May 17, 2019 @05:13PM (#58611190)

    It would be particularly ironic if the likes of Facebook, which have been busy pandering to Beijing, found their lunch completely eaten by the likes of TikTok due to public disillusionment w/ their policies and practices

    What would be even more ironic would be TikTok - a Chinese company - not censoring non-Leftist people in the West even while it plays by Beijing's rules within China - and thereby eclipsing both Facebook and Twitter. At a time when Chinese products are falling out of favor in the US given the high profile trade disputes, this is one place where the Chinese could bring a few 'US' social media companies to their knees.

  • Pokemon - was a craze for a while too. ByteDance though getting volume of Info for its AI. This could last longer. Good for them, I donâ(TM)t Tikky Tokky but ok if others enjoy. This is hardly China CP subversion. West is open China is not. Try a Pooh bear meme;).
  • And oddly, its success in the States has come by embracing strongly features that fly in the face of American platforms but are central to Chinese social media: It aggressively mines user data

    Um, are they trying to suggest that American platforms don't aggressively mine user data??

  • TikTok rising up is telling something to the world now, it is the what of changing on marketing, it is the social media channel changing, it is a new way to capture tons of fans. TikTok was known among young people at first, but now, it is the most common social media among mid-age adults. Forget TikTok only making funny videos, besides, many videos about daily life, even more, and more unboxing testing on TikTok now. So, marketer using TikTok doing their business now in China. Get more information https: [vidnice.com]
  • TikTok has grown a lot in the past year. My kids are using Tiktok now although I was really reluctant to allow them to. I'm not sure what Tiktok's future will be. Since it's owned by a big Chinese company it should be able to last and continue to grow. Hopefully, it doesn't end up with the same fate as the popular Vine app. If you do allow your kids to use the app then make sure that the proper security settings have been put in place. Make the account private and don't allow people who aren't their friends

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