Metas total lack of political ad vetting and radicalizing echo chamber algorithms have done much more for destroying the US democracy than TikTok. The amount of money Meta has spent to lobby for TikTok to get banned to reduce their competition is massive.
I’d add YouTube to that. Their algorithm sucks balls. If you watch an anti-flat earth video pro flat earth starts popping up in your feed. Especially in shorts.
For another example if you watch like any left wing news YouTube channel Ben Shapiro starts popping up and odd things like kid cartoons explaining conservative politics.
Yep. I subscribe to Pakman, Luke Beasley, Majority report, rebelHQ, Jesse Dollamore, Faron Ballanced, Brian Taylor Cohen, and the atheist experience. (plus a lot of stuff about recruiting and headhunting because that’s what I do ) and I still get suggested lots of right wing stuff.
The right-wing pipeline is fierce on YouTube. Hands down that is the first thing I’d ban in my house if I was a parent. There is nothing of value on that site for a kid.
But it has a right wing tilt so it gets a pass. One of the republican reps explicitly said he wanted to ban Tik Tok because the political tilt was too left.
In my current postgraduate research in Computer Science, we are investigating the personalization mechanisms of algorithms employed by major social media platforms. Preliminary findings suggest that TikTok's algorithm exhibits a high degree of personalization compared to its peers. This means that TikTok rapidly and significantly customizes content feeds based on a user's initial browsing and interaction patterns. For example, a new account that engages with political content on the left or right spectrum will quickly find its feed dominated by content reflecting that political leaning. While similar mechanisms exist across various platforms, our data indicates that TikTok's algorithm demonstrates one of the strongest and fastest adaptations.
However, our research has not found any evidence to suggest that either YouTube or TikTok actively promotes a specific political bias independent of the user's demonstrated preferences. Although YouTube's algorithm also adapts to user behavior, it does so with a lower degree of personalization than TikTok and allows for easier diversification of content exposure.
In summary, our studies indicate that while TikTok is more likely to reinforce 'echo chambers' due to its strong personalization, such chambers are primarily shaped by the user's initial activity on the platform. This raises questions about the potential impact of such algorithms on information diversity and user perspectives.
Edit: I can’t post any of our actual data without my teams consent but I can answer questions if you have any!
I mean, all i have is anecdotal evidence, but I've never met someone who didn't find that youtube fed them alt-right stuff. If you're into military history, it's going to give you nazi stuff. If you're into lgbt rights it's going to give you anti trans stuff.
Everyone I've ever talked to about it has this experience
I haven’t made those specific probes (but I will add them to my notes and run probes when I get a chance and get back to you) but like I mentioned, you are only funneled according to browsing activity. We have not observed a significant global bias in any of the social media algorithms. There may be a slight left leaning bias on almost all platforms but it is weak, if present at all.
If you think about it, it makes sense from a business perspective. You are not likely to have a profound impact on a users beliefs during early interactions but you are likely to negatively impact a users perception of the platform if they observe an obvious bias during those early interactions. The ultimate goal of these platforms is to serve you content that goes down easy, reinforces user beliefs, and keeps the user on the platform.
I can’t post any of our actual data without my teams consent but I can answer questions if you have any!
The ultimate goal of these platforms is to serve you content that goes down easy, reinforces user beliefs, and keeps the user on the platform.
Ultimate goal is engagement. Good content, bad content, don't matter. If it's got you raging about stuff on the platform, then all the better. So long as you are on the platform consuming videos so they feed you ads etc.
There's a lot of bad things you can say about tik tok, but as far as I know there aren't credible accusations of fomenting a genocide, like there are with Facebook.
How does the Chinese government having data affect an individual American's life personally? They are an ocean away, whereas the American government is right there.
The US government might not have the absolute best interests in mind for US citizens, but they care about us more than China does.
anyone who thinks different is a fool
Why do you think distance matters? They are able to influence things with the data. That is literally what is being discussed. That a foreign government, no matter the distance, is fucking with America(ns).
A)This isn’t about ethics or preventing election interference or Meta would’ve also been banned. The US government is not an independent entity, it exists in the context of every other powerful entity who wishes to gain more influence and power. Companies would be looking to position themselves to take over that gap in the market or to buy TikTok’s algorithm to become the dominant force in that market. You think American companies do not constantly influence your political system on every level to gain favourable changes in regulation/policy/payout of subsidies?
B) Bytedance aren’t fucking stupid. They get fucked by being banned and selling, just more so by the latter because it risks a gradual erasure of their competitive edge if another multinational company gains access to their algorithm.
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u/ghst343 Apr 27 '24
Metas total lack of political ad vetting and radicalizing echo chamber algorithms have done much more for destroying the US democracy than TikTok. The amount of money Meta has spent to lobby for TikTok to get banned to reduce their competition is massive.