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by toddmorey·1y ago·view on hn ↗
Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably upset about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me why it will sting for you? I was really surprised that my daughters (avid teenage TikTok users) are much more relieved than mad. Both said they wasted too much time on TikTok and were hoping life will now feel better. Seems the very thing that made the platform sticky puts it in a guilty pleasure category perhaps.

(I'm asking about the lived experience outside of the political questions around who should decide what we see / access online.)

EDIT: Thank you for the replies! Interesting. I'm still wondering if most people use TikTok just for passive entertainment? I don't love Youtube, but it's been a huge learning and music discovery resource for me.

The only thing I get sent from TikTok are dances and silly memes but I don't have an account.

21 comments
They'll be on RedNote within 2 weeks.

Other's have said it; but TikTok was such a nice format for media. It emphasized what the creator can provide its users; what content was legit; entertaining, informative, etc.

Whereas Instagram and FB are more about personal "branding". You post the best version of yourself and it's rewarded with engagement. Where on TikTok the emphasis is on the content; even creators I follow and have seen dozens of videos on I couldn't tell you what their account name was.

On TikTok you put up or you were shut up.

The experience, in the end, was always on point for shortform content. Nothing else like it exists; and I don't think American tech can make it because they benefit too much from being ad networks. Maybe YouTube shorts.

I've heard the algorithms for YouTube shorts are much worse. Most people have said the best thing about TikTok is how well it learns the content you want to see.
I never used tiktok. You don't follow accounts? You just open and scroll and hope eventually you get something? There's a nothing being done intentionally by the user to find content?
Rednote is a fascinating experiment in T and C blindness. Just how far can you go in the terms? Put them in Mandarin worldwide? Apparently OK. Include a commitment to uphold the "12 core socialist values" of the Chinese government? OK. Include rules against criticizing the Chinese government, Chinese socialism, or Chinese interests? I guess that's OK too.

At what point will there be a reaction from industry? From government? I guess there's no reaction point for users. Would China or RedNote try to enforce any of this?

> The experience, in the end, was always on point for shortform content. Nothing else like it exists; and I don't think American tech can make it because they benefit too much from being ad networks.

How does TikTok make money?

Bring back Vine, I guess
> what content was legit

scrolls past 10 temu adds for clearly pirated retro game consoles, same comment 9 times "oh if you bought X last week I feel sorry its not 50% off!!!"

>Nothing else like it exists

Have you used Instagram Reels? It's nearly the exact same thing.

Reels surely will be the winner. That’s surely why Zuckerberg has courted Trump.
I have a lot of Japanese friends and travel between Japan and here frequently. TikTok is huge in Japan and a lot of my For You Page is content trending in Japanese spheres. I don't live in Japan so being able to plug into Japanese media is a very, very convenient thing.

I'll probably continue trying to use the app if possible since I mostly connect with Japanese content, but I will say there's also a fun world of Japanese creators who straddle the English and Japanese speaking words who are about to lose an outlet to the English speaking world, and I feel really bad for that too.

The "algorithm" is also just so much better than Reels and others. I spent an afternoon of PTO training my algorithm a couple years ago and it's been great ever since. My partner and I share TikToks with each other all the time and. we shape each other's algorithm and interests. Reels fixates too much on your follows and Youtube Shorts is honestly a garbage experience. Both platforms really reward creators building "brands" around their content rather than just being authentic or silly. I treat Reels as the place for polished creators or local businesses who are trying to sell me something and TikTok as the place for content. I find that I get a lot less ragebait surfaced to me than I do on other platforms, though I admit my partner gets more than I do. We both skip those videos quickly and that has helped keep this stuff off our FYP.

An important thing to remember is TikTok was one of the first platforms that was opt-in for short-form content. Both Reels and Shorts was foisted upon users who had different expectations of the network and as such had to deal with the impedance mismatch of the existing network and users who didn't want short-form content. TikTok's entire value proposition is short-form content.

I second this. I spend a few minutes each evening watching random people out and about in Japan, Korea, China as it is fascinating to learn about foreign cultures in such a direct way. Just yesterday I learned about the palm scanners some stores in China have as a payment system.
I don't create for TikTok, I have never had a TikTok account, and I don't use TikTok, outside of being exposed to videos on other sites, or occasionally clicking a link.

I had been exposed to DouYin before, but my first experience of TikTok in real life was someone at a party, holding their phone, exclaiming something along the lines of "I can't look away, it's so addictive." It was uncomfortable, and I'm aware of how fake this sounds, but it happened.

But I think this is very bad.

With Section 230 in crosshairs, EARN IT being reintroduced every year or two, and access to books and sites being fragmented across the US, things are very already bad, and have the potential to get much worse. TikTok being banned is censorship, and presents a significant delta towards more censorship.

Congress didn't just "ban TikTok", Congress banned its first social media. This is case law, this is precedent, this is a path for banning other social media apps.

I think this is bad because I think this is the start of something new and something bad for the internet.

> TikTok being banned is censorship, and presents a significant delta towards more censorship

I don't see it that way. I'm not American and I've never used TikTok.

I don't see any censorship here.

This is more of an ongoing power struggle between the US and China, tit for tat after they banned American apps.

Censorship would mean that they're banning actual content. That's not what's happening here. Any of the short form videos from TikTok can be hosted on several other video platforms, if the creators care to upload it.

Banning a platform is not censorship. It's like banning a book publishing house but allowing any other publisher to continue publishing their books.

It does appear that there is actual censorship, in the form of book banning, happening in several US states recently. But this ain't that.

What's being targeted is TikTok's algorithm. User's videos are still legal US speech and can be posted and shared freely.

The specific rationale upheld by SCOTUS and unenumerated in the law itself (it's only like two sentences, I would recommend just reading it) was based on national security concerns and level of scrutiny.

TikTok failed the criteria. US companies do not, and laws to ban them would have to use entirely separate methods which would face a far tougher SCOTUS test. (It's not like the Justices are falling over themselves to always agree on things, especially the current court.)

Banning US companies is just politically infeasible. But the Chinese issue is pretty bipartisan (right now).

I'm pretty upset about it honestly. TikTok's algorithm has always done a fantastic job of providing interesting clips in a way that Facebook and Instagram has never been able to provide. I will say that upon a new account, it's mostly garbage, but it quickly learned what I was interested in and what I would tend to engage with. It also does this while showing me considerably fewer ads than the meta platforms.
Seconded. My experiences were similar.

That said, the algorithm got noticeably worse after 2021. Maybe because of the TikTok shop. I’ve categorized around 3,000 clips into different collections (with 600+ being in “educational”) but that fell off over the last few years. I would be a lot more upset about the ban if they had maintained quality, but now I’m like well, whatever.

Serious question: Why is the back end learning of so many human habits not creepy to you? It was weaponized once with how they created armies of teenagers who called their local representatives and made threats.
All the other content recommendation systems force you into a ghetto and are highly auto-regressive. They only show you content like they already showed you, so you will never be exposed to new things. This hampers discovery, and you end up with only a few winner-take-all accounts with mass appeal and mass distribution (e.g., "Mr. Beast") who are broadly not interesting or specialized.

TikTok is more stochastic and is more likely to give wider circulation to niche and esoteric subjects. Booktok could never happen on YouTube shorts or Instagram.

Using those other platforms is like shouting into the wind. You could have videos up for years and not get 50 views. With TikTok, a random video could be seen by 250k people.

A corollary to other systems being so auto-regressive is that they are much more dangerous for vulnerable people. If Instagram decides to start showing you extremist or otherwise political content, that is all you will see. This is the "rabbit hole" effect that people have commented upon. This doesn't happen to the same degree with TikTok; while this content can be recommended, it's not all that will be recommended.

Think you nailed TikTok's magic sauce, that algorithm finely balances the ghettoization of most traditional social networks and the "you might like this" randomness that feels like it's two-steps of interest away from your usual feed. Any regular user will see that pattern of 10-15 things that fit a pattern, and then a couple of very clear pieces of tracer content that expands and reinforces your own FYP.

It shows an understanding and adoption of risk that most western social networks don't have, while they're too invested in supporting and reinforcing the status quo, TikTok has always felt a little more willing to find the edges of/expand your interests.

Each and every time I open youtube I think "there surely must be other stuff on here", but yt has me so doggedly pigeonholed they won't let me ever see anything outside of what I've watches in the last two days. The algorithm is so ridiculously over fitted.
TikTok provides the "human" element that IG and YouTube do not.

On IG and YouTube the algos are shoving "creators" in my face, which is fine sometimes. But TikTok surfaces randos whose only followers are their own family members, and they happen to be talking about something unique or funny in one video out of dozens that got only 2 views.

On IG and YouTube, the algos give me brightly lit faces, brightly lit homes, professional editing. On TikTok, I get people speaking quietly from their bed, or their recliner in what is obviously a trailer, or in the passenger seat of their car at Safeway, double-chinned and sleepy-eyed, saying something hilarious or just talking about their day or maybe sharing something they just realized.

On IG and YT, I get a video of someone falling on their face plastered with poorly worded captions and one or more logos for some social media company. On TikTok, I see the original video of that person falling on their face from the original account, and if you go to their account it's obviously just a real person who made a funny video by accident one time.

All the things that IG and YT force on me certainly exist on TikTok too, and you can surround yourself with that content if you like. But if you don't want that kind of content, TikTok lets you choose.

IG and YT don't give you that choice.

Not a content creator, but a TikTok user for several years. I really feel like the app changed my life. It opened my world to new cultures and ideas, brought me out of my comfort zone, introduced me to several real life friends. I made big changes in my life as a direct result of TikTok and have improved my life and health significantly as a result. I’ll be really sad to see it go.
Just out of curiosity, how did the app improve your life?
I've found something like a very efficient sorting into communities of shared interest, and something egalitarian in being able to see people with 0 views and get reactions from them.

It's by contrast to say, Youtube and X, where The Algorithm (tm) sustains a central Nile river of dominant creators and you're either in it or you're not.

That said, I think the political questions are rightly the dominant ones in this convo and those color my lived experience of it.

You’re right about youtube shoving the main river on you but recently discovered a lot of niche youtubers with very few views in my areas of interest. I just wish I had more control in what the feed returns, for example if im irked by a certain content I should be able to escape it with a click. But thats not how youtube or facebook/instagram work. Content is targeted at you behind the scenes based on an accidental encounter you had in the past with some content and there’s no way to disable that. Don’t recommend this channel/page doesn’t work because there’s an army of channels/pages that push the same content on you. This is very powerful for paid propaganda
I personally like the stupid time wasting app. There is a little pig on there that they dress up in little outfits and you can watch it eat treats
Sigh…
My wife, well into her 30s, initially got an inkling that she might be on the Autism spectrum after being exposed to TiKTok videos of high masking, high functioning women who talked about their Autism.

After many years and dozens of tests and questionnaires and appointments with speech pathologists, occupational therapists and psychiatrists, she was formally diagnosed last year with Level 2 Autism (there are 3 levels here in Australia).

After years of being misdiagnosed with various forms of anxiety or depression (and none of those drugs or treatments being helpful for her), this has been life changing. So much of her early childhood and past life now suddenly makes sense.

We used to be very bad at diagnosing autism in girls

technology changed our life. especially internet and smart phone impact a lot on social engagement between peoples. if people spend much time on internet or smart phones daily, if it is not tiktok, it will be something else. should we go back to non smart phone time? or even roll back to no internet time? maybe no electricity time.

technology is just like a tool. how people use it matters not the technology itself can be evil. tiktok's algorithm helps speed up information delivery to the people who likes it. eventually it helps to form a community of people online who like similar thing or have similar options. people needs to be aware of the content on any platform has "survivorship bias". seeing couple of examples is not representing the whole.

Not a content creator and use it regularly. My algorithm is mostly silly stuff, music, etc. I'm not convinced there's a discernible risk to national security, and as someone with a lot of libertarian views, I think the ban is an overstep by the US government.

The "sticky"-ness is real, but many will flock to the TikTok copies in other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, X, anyway.

Regardless, I enjoy the platform. It's fun to reference the viral sounds/trends on the platform with other friends that use it.

I don't have an account, but how about this: I don't want the government to ban websites or apps in general, and certainly not for who owns them.

The internet was supposed to be a global thing, where it didn't matter who you were and everyone could connect to everyone. That is the internet I grew up with.

As a millennial, I use TikTok as a “normie” version of Reddit. The algorithm has a similar vibe. It puts content in front of me that I’m likely to be interested in, exposing me to quite a diverse set of content. The instagram/youtube algorithms don’t come anywhere close in comparison.

It’s a guilty pleasure in the dopamine sense, but also surfaces a lot of informative content if you bias towards that! I suppose it depends how you use it.

Reddit is normie.
> Anyone here who's not a TikTok content creator reasonably upset about losing access to the platform? Can you tell me why it will sting for you?

I like living in a country where the government does not get to decide what I'm allowed to read/watch/see. The TikTok ban chips away at that in a meaningful way.

I value this above most other concerns, including vague worries about "Chinese spying".

I'm pretty upset about it and I am not a creator.

I'm not just upset because I have a general dislike of being told I'm an idiotic, addicted, communist stooge who is easily brainwashed. I am used to folks telling me that- it started when I was writing anti-war editorials in the early oughts, so there is nothing new in that.

What I regret is that I have been following a number of quite-good political discussions on the platform, with a nicely diverse group of interlocutors.

While the discussion generally leans far left, there are many flavors of that left:

not a lot of tankies, mostly just people between "dirt bag left" and "black panther party", lots of women, BIPOC, trans folks, academics, working people, indigenous folks, queer folks of all stripes, activists, and folks who just don't like authority.

Those conversations had been very hard to come by on Yt, Ig, or Fb.

I think it's the response format for videos. I don't think it's worth bothering to speculate about other reasons, though I did note that several legitimate left news sources were shuttered in 2020 when Meta and Tw started their political purge.

Anyhow, I know that folks in the US have very little regard for political autonomy, so I am not surprised that this happens, and compared to the carceral state and the happy ecocide of the planet this is a very little thing. But I will still miss it.

My fyp was very similar. I'm going to miss having so many like minded folks to hear from and interact with. I don't think any other app has given me this same sense of community and to some degree empowerment. I am very left leaning in my politics, I also happen to be a POC who is surrounded by apolitical friends. TikTok showed me that there are other folks just like me - that is a powerful and reassuring feeling.
I'll try to directly relate this to something you are familiar with.

> Can you tell me why it will sting for you?

Imagine Hacker News without the comments.

> The only thing I get sent from TikTok are dances and silly memes

That's like saying Hacker News is just old links about useless stuff from other parts of the internet.

Hacker News without the comments sounds pretty lame
> I was really surprised that my daughters (avid teenage TikTok users) are much more relieved than mad.

A sense of relief may be a coping mechanism. I've heard laid-off colleagues inform me they felt relief in the immediate aftermath; granted, the lay-offs were pre-announced before they communicated who would be "impacted", and it was at a high-pressure environment; but the human mind sometimes reacts in unexpected ways to loss outside of one's control. Rationalization is a mechanism for ego defense.

It doesn't occur to you that they may be relieved because they know they're addicted and are glad that someone is going to step in and give them the help they can't give themselves?
It's annoying to have to take the time to train my recommender on a different platform. I'm sure I could get YouTube Shorts to eventually give me an equivalently pleasant experience, it's just a pain.
I don't really care either way. I used TikTok and uninstalled it since I found myself watching more than doing. Even if you curate your algorithm to 'good' stuff, it's still just consuming.
TikTok has replaced Reddit for me (I can expand more on why I stopped using Reddit, but it's not related to TikTok) in terms of "checking what's up on the internet" or as Reddit would put it "Checking the homepage of the internet".

I trust TikTok's "algorithm" to give me quick and entertaining short-bits about what's going on, what's interesting, etc. It learns what I'm into effortlessly, and I appreciate how every now and then it would throw in a completely new (to me) genera or type of content to check out. Whenever I open it, there is a feed that's been curated to me about things I'm interested in checking out, few new things that are hit or miss (and I like that), and very few infuriating/stupid (to me) things.

Its recommendation engine is the best I have used. It's baffling how shitty YouTube's algorithm is. I discover YouTube channels I'm into form TikTok. Sometimes I'd discover new (or old) interesting videos from YouTube channels I already follow from TikTok first. For example, I follow Veritasium and 3Blue1Brown on YouTube but I certainly haven't watched their full back catalog. YouTube NEVER recommends to me anything from their back catalog. When I'm in the mood, I have to go to their channel, scroll for a while, then try to find a video I'd be interested in from the thumbnail/title. And once I do, YouTube will re-recommend to me all the videos I have already watched from them (which are already their best performing videos). Rarely would it recommend something new from them.

On TikTok, it frequently would pull clips from old Veritasium or 3Blue1Brown videos for me which I'd get hooked after watching 10 seconds, then hob on YouTube to watch the full video. It's insane how bad YouTube recommendation algorithm is. Literally the entire "recommended" section of youtube is stuff I have watched before, or stuff with exactly the same content as things I have watched before.

Here is how I find their recommendation algorithm to work:

YouTube: Oh you watched (and liked) a brisket smoking video? Here is that video again, and 10 other "brisket smoking videos". These are just gonna be stuck on your home page for the next couple of weeks now. You need to click on them one by one and mark "not interested" in which case you're clearly not interested in BBQ or cooking. Here are the last 10 videos you watched, and some MrBeast videos and some random YouTube drama videos.

TikTok: Oh you watched (and liked) a brisket smoking video? How about another BBQ video, a video about smokers and their models, some videos about cookouts and BBQ side dishes, a video about a DIY smoker, another about a DIY backyard project for hosting BBQ cookouts, a video about how smoke flavors food, a video about the history of BBQ in the south, a video about a BBQ joint in your city (or where ever my VPN is connected from), etc. And if you're not interested in any of those particular types, it learns from how long you spend watching the video and would branch more or less in that direction in the future.

Another example is search. Search for "sci fi books recommendations":

YouTube: Here are 3 videos about Sci-Fi books. Here are 4 brisket smoking videos. Here are some lost hikers videos (because you watched a video about a lost hiker 3 weeks ago). Here are 3 videos about a breaking story in the news. Here are 2 videos about sci-fi books, and another 8 about brisket.

TikTok: Here is a feed of videos about Sci-Fi books. And I'll make sure to throw in sci-fi book videos into your curated feed every now and then to see if you're interested.

This is a really good writeup. Thanks for posting it.
That’s very nice, but why on fucking earth doesn’t tiktok make “longs” already!!!

Its algorithm may be wonderful and useful but I don’t want short content in a watch-it-all feed.