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TikTok hits 1.5B downloads, outperforming Instagram

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298 points elorant | 3 comments | 19 Nov 19 14:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.855s | source
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komali2 ◴[19 Nov 19 16:04 UTC] No.21574384[source]▶
Aight, conspiracy theory time.

I'm becoming concerned about PRC influence in my country (USA). From my perspective the PRC (government) is blatantly evil, and happily engaging in cultural warfare, and nobody seems to be fighting back.

I see absurd astroturfing and shilling on social media here (Reddit, Twitter, Facebook). It's always obvious - whereas a genuine criticizer of the Hong Kong protestors might ask about violence, the shills will always use the word "ISIS" somewhere in their message.

It's everywhere and we don't seem to be fighting back. I browse Chinese social media and while my Mandarin isn't great I'm not seeing any level of AstroTurfing at all. So am I just a crazy conspiracy person? Is the PRC astroturfing not a big deal? Maybe my concerns are valid but that doesn't justify further concern about the influx of PRC messaging vectors to the USA, i.e. tiktok?

When I worked in the PRC I got to see first hand the strong-arm of the Party. Every business involved in communication had a government official whose entire job was to ensure the company "protected the social wellbeing of the people of the PRC" or similar. I can only assume tiktok has the same and I can only assume it's a matter of time before the Party starts directing the company to leverage their access to a massive US audience in a way that benefits the "social wellbeing," i.e. by disseminating PRC propaganda.

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oarabbus_ ◴[19 Nov 19 16:22 UTC] No.21574656[source]▶
Reddit is overrun with pro-PRC shills and trolls, it's pretty eye-opening on any thread about Uyghur genocide, Hong Kong protests, or throwbacks to Tiananmen Square.

edit: And HN too, apparently. Like clockwork, downvotes galore. I'm willing to hear someone on the other side out on the Uyghur genocide if they'd like to offer their perspective on it.

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1. pingyong ◴[19 Nov 19 16:39 UTC] No.21574930[source]▶
I honestly wonder how people get this perception when both reddit and HN are so overwhelmingly pro-HK and anti-China. The only way you would ever see a pro-China comment on reddit is by explicitly searching for it, either by sorting by controversial on China-related topics, or by searching for pro-China subs (which are super small compared to reddit, or even just r/HongKong).
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2. dang ◴[19 Nov 19 20:00 UTC] No.21577584[source]▶
I believe it's because painful experiences are more memorable than pleasurable ones and make deeper impressions. Running into hostile comments and opposing views is painful: they are like verbal smacks in the face. We remember these more, and they quickly accrete into our overall impression of a site.

It doesn't matter how infrequent the comments we dislike are relative to the whole. What matters is the absolute number of them that an individual reader encounters. If it's more than some threshold value N, they will conclude that the entire place is hostile, even if the hostile comments are a tiny minority. At a psychological and even a biological level, that makes sense: once a place has generated N painful experiences, it's dangerous. Percentage of the total is irrelevant. Indeed, it makes a place even more dangerous if most experiences there are pleasurable, since one will be inclined to stay—exposing oneself to future smacks—and to let one's guard down, making the next smack even more painful. We all have a version of this, and though N may vary per person, I bet it's lower than most of us would predict.

This phenomenon has some interesting consequences. One is that it enables you to guess with high confidence what someone's views on a topic are, based on how strongly they believe HN (or whatever forum) is biased against them. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but the feeling that it is shows what they find painful and therefore what they disagree with. Also, the intensity of the belief in bias grows with the intensity of their view on the topic. That is, the more passionately you believe X, the more pain an anti-X comment causes, the more strongly you will believe that the forum is anti-X.

Another consequence is that the closer a forum gets to being unbiased, the more all sides will believe that it's actually hostile to their views. That seems weird in the wild, but it's simple: the more diverse the comment stream is, the more likely all sides are to notice disagreeable comments and thus receive painful impressions.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

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3. stevenhuang ◴[20 Nov 19 22:04 UTC] No.21589075[source]▶
I think you nailed it; painful experiences are more memorable. I had the same sentiments but felt what I wrote wasn't eloquent enough to share :).

It's always a joy reading your thoughts on moderation and communities in general--keep up the awesome work!