Comment by weinzierl
4 days ago
Main reason besides the algorithm is in my opinion that TikTok has wide but hard boundaries when it comes to content. This leads to diverse but relatively safe content.
It is not 4chan where you think twice before clicking a link to avoid emotional damage. It is also not Reddit or Youtube where you do not bother to go because you permanently encounter stuff that is inconsequentially blocked and you are still not safe from trauma. I think most platforms other than TikTok try to be too strict, fail to enforce their unrealistic rules in any comprehensible form and therefore suck for most intellectually curious users.
This has been my experience and it is what people are reporting from red note.
In comparison to instagram I have found it far easier to explore, for instance, black women making leftist political critiques of Harris engaged in long conversations with black women who were actively supporting Harris.
Similarly, it has been much easier to find discussions about Palestine, labor rights, indigenous US culture, and numerous other topics.
I think those conversations are probably find-able on Ig or Yt, but I have had much more difficult time with those platforms. It's been hard for me to find much engaging content that is close enough to my (admittedly anarchistic) political and cultural views that the conversation changes what I think in useful ways, so I avoid that work on things like FB. These platforms do suck for doing anything other than keeping up with pictures of my nieces.
My feeling is that in general the TT algo doesn't really care about US politics so it just shows me engaging content, whatever that might be for me.
People here can call that "addictive", but in doing so it quickly discards any agency for people who have any actual political disagreements with the radically centrist US political mainstream.
I am used to that flippant dismissal- Allen Dulles would have rather believed in mind control than believe that US military personal who encountered Koreans were swayed by genuine empathy for a legitimate political-economic position.
By contrast, my feeling is that various other governments don't really care what folks in other countries think about the world so as long as it's not objectively porn or gore they just let conversations happen.
That is, of course, quite dangerous if your power relies on maintaining narrative consistency for the population you rule- that's why China and other authoritarian folks do things like limit what can happen on social media in their countries...
The whole concept that one's views can be changed by what they were compelled to watch is what leads to the circus of absurdity in modern times. The fact that the media, corporations, and political establishment will all aggressively repeat a statement only to be rebuffed by the public at large seems to have no affect on their insistence on believing in this nonsense.
If it were true than the countless nations which turned to extreme censorship and propaganda to try to maintain themselves would be still standing. Instead, they invariably lose the faith of their people who simply stop believing anything (or supporting their own government) and at that point their collapse is already imminent - even if it might only happen decades later. See: Soviet Union.
Or for some predictive power - once China's economy reaches its twilight years where you have to juke the books and redefine exactly how things are measured just to keep eeking out that 1 or 2% growth per year, their entire political system will collapse. People would be happy being ruled by a group of authoritarian mutated frogs who demanded you ribbit in loyalty 6 times a day, so long as their economy and society was booming from the average person's perspective. It's only when things slow down that people start looking more critically at the systems they live under.
A large part of the effectiveness of the media is normal people think they don't know this.
Media has absolutely wised up to the fact that contrarian attitudes are common amongst Americans. These companies know that if they repeat something nonstop and make it as obnoxious as possible, a large number of people will quickly adopt the opposite viewpoint. That's the desired result.
Reverse psychology is something elementary school kids learn about and use to torment others or do their bidding. It doesn't end in elementary school.
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I have no idea how you can believe that media does not affect a person's beliefs.
The evidence is all around you.
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