TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm–It’s Your Phone

Re:TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm–It’s Your Phone by tluyben2 on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @02:03AM (#33528317)

Tried it over the past week. Even about the subjects that interest me, all the vids I could find were too shallow (as in old info, badly researched etc even for such a short video), sensationalist click bait, way too short etc.

I filled in my profile honestly and somehow it took me a lot of effort to teach the algo that I don't want to see videos of (mostly) naked teens dancing or doing (other) suggestive sex things (the first hour after installing, I got 4 young girls simulating taking a boob & vag pic and then looking at them with faked interest while giggling called pause game or something; is it supposed to be funny or?).

I followed 0 teens and because I didn't think I wouldn't find anything interesting about programming, I thought I would follow some true crime stuff; still got naked young girls mostly. After a while of following enough other stuff I got less of it.

I guess most guys (even old as myself) normally want to see this crap so the algo defaults to that? I don't know.

But the content I am supposed to like really sucks too; the 100k view video authors often don't even get the names of victims/perps right, many facts are just debunked rehashes of sensationalist takes etc. It's horrible so far. And the comments... the comments. Youtube comments are great compared and that's saying something. Maybe it'll improve?

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Re:TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm–It’s Your Phone by mnsc on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @05:11AM (#33529439)

The app is collecting tons of metrics of actual watching behaviour to adapt the feed. So maybe you don't want to advertise that "after using the app extensively I'm still getting only half naked young girls dancing". I'm not getting any half naked girls dancing in my feed despite quite enjoying young people dancing mindlessly as a counterweight to the state of the fucking world. Eg. the top notch editing/dancing by Cale Brown.

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Re:TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm–It’s Your Phone by probably_wrong on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @05:50AM (#33529701)

I'm sorry to say that your comment is the type of comment I'd typically downvote, but there's something about it that I think is worth discussing.

The user is complaining that he cannot get rid of the half-naked young girls dancing no matter how hard he tries. And yet, your reply is to accuse them of it being somehow their fault? If this is not Thoughtcrime, I don't know what it is.

For the record, I have heard his complaint before. I assume it's the default algorithm response when it can't figure you out.

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Re:TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm–It’s Your Phone by walls on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @12:21PM (#33534791)

It's very easy to not get these on TikTok by simply skipping past them a few times.

It's also very easy for them to become your whole feed if you happen to watch all of them.

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Re:TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm–It’s Your Phone by mnsc on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @02:24PM (#33536587)

I don't think I was saying that it was their fault, I'm just saying that _if_ tiktok eg analyses something subtle, like how hesitantly the user is swiping away a video, the algorithm might expose the subconscious desire to look at scantily clad ladies.

Edit: I have absolutely no insight on what metrics are being used, I'm just making it up.

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Re:TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm–It’s Your Phone by tluyben2 on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @07:43AM (#33530736)

I did not say extensively; I used it for a week now to see what the fuss is about and got, at first time opening this app, these videos. Not sure how that analysed my behaviour of ‘opening the app’.

Then I followed a bunch of guys in true crime and made sure to swipe other videos away as fast as I could and it got less but i still get them. Probably if you use it for a long time; it might be more tailored to me but the content, even the good content according to like minded, so far is so bad that I don’t think I will give it that much time.

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Re:TikTok’s Greatest Asset Isn’t Its Algorithm–It’s Your Phone by mnsc on Wednesday November 09, 2022 @02:36PM (#33536753)

Well I don't know how it is nowadays because so many creators have flocked there and I could absolutely imagine that thirst traps are so numerous and popular that the algorithm cant do a good job anymore. To be fair I joined more than 3 years ago "to check what my kids was raving about" and remember how I regularly was amazed on what the algorithm dug up for me, funny interesting content from people that seemed genuine. I still get that feeling but maybe not as much. And I never had any issues of watching too much either. It's just my kind of social media.

But I also have a couple of times where I fucked up the algo by liking the wrong video and having to mindfully steer it back on track again. So it's not magic, ofc.

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