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

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

So, uh, I haven't... I haven't tried TikTok yet. I know, it's weird, I'm a grown-ass adult, and yet here we are.

I just spent like 30 minutes browsing TikTok and honestly it explains _so much_ about why... well, everything is just LIKE this, now.

it's... just wall-to-wall political misinformation, loud noises, boobs, kittens, AI slop, teenagers echoing white supremacist talking points, stunts, ads, get-rich-quick-schemes, it's like pure liquid USA

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

I think people blame COVID for why people seem dumber and meaner as of late but I don't think it was COVID you guys

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

like, I was partially judging my ideas about what TikTok might be like by the bar of "YouTube Shorts" which I figured was close enough that I'd get TikTok's vibe from it, but _NO_ I had no idea how much Google was sanding the rough edges off of that white-hot payload of algorithmic rage-bait

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

I'm disgusted and angry that this exists at all.

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

admittedly, commenting "this is racist misinformation" under videos just incentivizes The Algorithm to show me more of those videos and I have no way to control that with something as simple as a dislike button

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

if you're wondering why the new head of BC's Conservative is further right and crazier than anything we've seen before, it could be because the dominant form of media is filled with teenagers telling everyone in #canada that they're paying 75% income tax to usher 1 million new immigrants a year into the country as part of a Liberal plot to pay them a wage of $90K a year to stay here and take jobs away from Honest Hard-working Canadians

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

i'm going to run for office on the promise that I'm going to make every single person in this country touch grass and read one single physical book

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

I don't care which book it just has to produce any train of thought that lasts longer than 38 seconds

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

(yes I understand the irony of posting this as a toot)

[cube_drone@mastodon.social]

okays, basically every "old person discovers new media" experience is like this, right? "this is terrible, the kids these days are disrespectful young gits, they should appreciate art and literature not this loud noise and trash"

[neilk@xoxo.zone]

@cube_drone That’s how long I lasted. IMO Tiktok is the closest thing we have to a malevolent demon. It’s a superhuman entity whose one goal is to find what weaknesses exist in your soul and then to turn you into its slave. Most social media has this now, but Tiktok is so much worse.

Incidentally if you turn off history on Youtube, the Shorts feature no longer enough information to do the infinite suggestions thing

[cargot_robbie@urbanists.social]

@cube_drone All terrifying points. It's also difficult to make TT users aware of the issues. IIRC you saw the early-algorithm shotgun spread that gives them info about you. Mid-stage TT is curated so folks only see the stuff chosen for them, so it becomes possible to pass by somebody else's entire feed without seeing anything in common, like ships in the night. Everyone thinks their feed is the good one

Fedi does this too, but it's participatory, visible, and grassroots

[ajh@indieweb.social]

@cube_drone

Don't forget MAID if you get a hangnail.

[apike@mastodon.social]

@cube_drone Yes! For what it's worth, you can prod TikTok to give you a pretty wholesome high-quality feed by reinforcing what you want (swipe away or "not interested" and certainly don't comment or spread the bad stuff). But that doesn't fix the fact everybody else is getting the bad stuff

[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?