So, uh, I haven't... I haven't tried TikTok yet.

[noodlemaz@mstdn.games]

@cube_drone I've never made a go of it either. And I'm not in the US, though, so it's a bit different
Friends share fun ones on elsewhere. There's good people on it too - as with just about everything. Doesn't mean I want its claws in me, Meta has ruined the technojoy I once had for socials

[moreentropy@chaos.social]

@cube_drone I remember the „early days“ when TikTok was new (here). It was lovely, it was creative. Mostly people lip syncing to other sounds and innocent skits from all around the world. No influencing at all, just creativity. It was fascinating. It’s long gone.

[jake4480@c.im]

@cube_drone yep

[jigmedatse@social.openpsychology.net]

@cube_drone@mastodon.social I'm so sorry you had that experience. I mean, I was going to say, "yeah, you're a grown ass adult, that's why you haven't tried TikTok." But um, well I guess, now you know.

[lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza]

@neilk @cube_drone, hah. I've completely ignored Shorts for the trivially simple reason that what I briefly saw of it was entirely portrait-layout video. (If it were landscape, I'd probably be ignoring it because the content was not of interest…)

[virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca]

@cube_drone Interesting. My wife is on Tiktok (read-only) and I see a representative selection of what is in her feed and she has none of those things. I suppose there is a default raw feed that is garbage but she would have curated her follows a few years ago and whatever is algorithmically shown maybe is based on that?

[bignose@sw-development-is.social]

@cube_drone
> I'm a grown-ass adult

This simple statement is strong justification for *not* using TikTok

[neilk@xoxo.zone]

@apike @cube_drone

I don't think I am a good enough person to survive microseconds of reaction time being scrutinized. I will take 0.3 seconds more to swipe away when it's something I'm vulnerable to, and TikTok is there, going "noted. you want another one of those?? how about another? another?"

That's the stuff I'm _consciously_ avoiding. There are more subtle traps, like feeding my rage addiction about legitimately bad things, or entrancing me with brainrot splitscreens

[ethicalprofessor@mstdn.social]

@cube_drone
I *knew* there was a reason I am avoiding TikTok, you gave me several.

Thanks.

[virtuous_sloth@cosocial.ca]

@cube_drone We live in Canada, mind you, maybe they also do geographic-based algorithms?

[praetor@mstdn.social]

@cube_drone my psychiatrist believes that that is also why ADHD cases have exponentially grown. She's like "do you use TikTok?" I laughed and said "I'm a grumpy millennial. I have more sense than that"

[lmk@infosec.exchange]

@cube_drone It's as if a foreign adversary made a "Trojan horse app" that simply amplifies our online culture as its secret weapon.

[torontowill@mastodon.social]

@cube_drone And there you've hit on why I quit TikTok. You can curate it to content that is genuinely very good, but only if you expend significant effort teaching the algorithm what you want to see. And even then, you can't rest, you have to be constantly vigilant not to engage with the wrong thing, because just beyond the walls of your happy garden is a zombie horde stretching into the horizon. Same reason I quit Threads, and never bothered at all with a bunch of other algorithmic feeds.

[the_moep@mastodon.de]

@moreentropy @cube_drone That was the zombie corpse of Musical.ly though. Bytedance killed that to push TikTok as an all-encompasing short video social media platform.

[the_moep@mastodon.de]

@cube_drone
Technically you can stop it (as the EU's Digital Services Act requires large social media platforms to have a toggle to turn off algorithmic feeds), however TikTok hides that multiple layers deep in their settings to not hurt their profits. (While in the process violating EU laws)

[mick_collins@toot.community]

@cube_drone
(low, soothing, half-whispered tones): Watch it

Let it in...to your brain

Become One with The Body

America

Fuck yeah

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

@neilk @apike I recall the feeling of relief when I started using mastodon and I realized I was looking at something incredibly stupid for a little too long , and I ... could? I could just look at something I didn't really like or want to commit to seeing Way More Of? After Facebook and Twitter the freedom of being able to choose what I want to see on my damn own felt heady and sorely missed

[moreentropy@chaos.social]

@the_moep TIL. That's sad.

[marty@fedi.marty.tf]

@cube_drone i had this experience when i was 19 and a group of coworkers bullied me into using snapchat and they had to spend like an hour explaining to me how it works bcs the entire concept of snapchat is just so fucking alien to how i want to live my life and while i do miss the people when i stopped working there, boy was i glad to get rid of that shit again.

[balangan@troet.cafe]

I had to create a Facebook account for development. On the third login I got terrible right wing propaganda on top of my feed.
It is all so f**king broken