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.
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.
Learned something new (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
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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.
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Addictive... (Score:2)
China and India have the good sense (Score:1)
Re: China and India have the good sense (Score:1)
I'd rather get a gram than give a damn.
Yeah right! (Score:2)
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*
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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?
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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
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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.
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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.
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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...
never heard of it (Score:2)
*yawn* Block it and tariff it at 4000% who cares?
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I would have thought tariffing something free at 4000% made it clear my statement wasn't to be taken in such a pedantic fashion. The message should be clear enough. I don't really have any objection to any measures they want to use to hinder an addictive and malicious tool of a hostile foreign power here. The negative impact domestically is essentially zero.
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Save us US social media (Score:1)
"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...
Can't trust China (Score:1)
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.
Copyright? (Score:2)
Tik-Tok is a 1983 science fiction novel by John Sladek. It would be nice if their lawyers would crush them in court.
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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.
Duh.. (Score:2)
"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.
Potential for conquest (Score:3)
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.
That's interesting (Score:2)
I didn't know China owned Kesha's song catalog. [wikipedia.org]
Pokemon (Score:1)
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"Oh bother!" said Poo, while chambering another round.
Datamining flys in the face of American platforms? (Score:2)
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 in China (Score:1)
TikTok (Score:1)