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Ask HN: Is TikTok rigged to show pro-chinese content?

4 points by siva7 ↗ HN
I've installed TikTok for the first time on my iPhone. Besides being shown lots of "funny" shorts, i've noticed a heavy bias towards political content mixed with funny shorts which is usually pro russian (supportive of putin), xenophobic (supportive of far-right parties) or pro police. Since there is no way the content algorithm could have derived the decision to show me these political shorts on some kind of profile tracking (i don't search for these kind of topics on the internet nor do they fit my own political views) i'm left wondering if the TikTok algorithm is rigged to influence the political view of its mostly young user base to align with Chinese foreign interests. Are you aware of any studies done in this regard?

10 comments

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senttoschool
It might be good to get some pro-Chinese stories. After all, you're only getting pro-America content right now. Balanced views.

/semi-serious sarcasm

moose_man
Yeah in comparison to the nationalist content on the Chinese internet out echo bubble is nothing. There was a not insignificant portion of the Chinese internet that was tracking the Pelosi flight into Taiwan and was disappointed that it wasn't shot down. I'm not sure what the solution is to the echo bubble we have, but probably not more Chinese propaganda.
senttoschool
You're already drinking so much pro-America, anti-China propaganda. Why not drink some pro-China propaganda too?
Hatrix
All TikTok shows me is people doing stupid things or women shaking their boobs or butts. No political content as far as I can tell.
theGeatZhopa
One thing is that TikTok uses your search and view history for delivering the videos most ROI for you.

Other thing is what it's do, when no history is accessible:

Just use the most viewed Videos as start. Or, may be conclude out of other users local to you, what might be of interest in the very moment and the very place.

User settoschool is right. Anti China Propaganda is where you think of being influenced by the Chinese propaganda in the first place, rather assuming a "simple" algorithm that shows what happens and what is watched around you.

Might be all around are also afraid by the Chinese?

senttoschool
I'm not sure what kind of content OP saw on TikTok, but the fact that many Americans (or westerners) think that any thing positive about China or Chinese people is CCP propaganda tells you just how much anti-China propaganda they've been drinking.

It's a country of 1.4 billion people. Nothing good ever happens there? Everyone there spends every hour thinking about how to destroy America? Every Chinese citizen is evil?

People love to call out Chinese propaganda whenever anything positive is posted about China but they themselves don't realize how much propaganda they're consuming.

theGeatZhopa
Yes that's the problem. Thank you for pointing it out.

There is no good, no evil. We have a lot of shades between that.

Just like the Ukraine do anything for getting support (even they need to lie, picture graphs and do other bad things) - people still thinking there is just Russian propaganda.

I think thats what is called projecting the enemy to verify own failures.

Use your brains. But check whether there is no preformed bias towards something. Keep asking whether own positions might be wrong. Don't get catched by the ratcatchers like Trump, Merkel or G.W -to name a few, not fixing to certain- but be careful not to play into the agenda of antihumanists.

Difficult.

accrual
TikTok isn't that much different from Reddit, blogs, Discord servers of your choosing, etc. It delivers content you have interest in. Whatever you spend the most time watching, liking, reading/commenting on, searching for, etc. is what will be delivered, because the app's goal is to keep you in the app. If one gets something political or empty in value, skip it or press and hold to select Not Interested. Searching for specific topics and following creators will quickly create a more curated feed.

There's absolutely rigging involved, and some things that "go viral" are hand picked to do so. But that doesn't mean the users are powerless consumers which have no choice over what is shown on the FYP. My personal feed is apolitical.

getwiththeprog
TikTok is smarter than you think. It knows what you are interested in, and in your case it is evident that you have a 'thing' for "political content mixed with funny shorts which is usually pro russian (supportive of putin), xenophobic (supportive of far-right parties) or pro police"

You see on Tik Tok what you choose to see! When I look at people watching Tik Tok on the bus, I mainly see kids watching advertisments disguised as content.

Dig a bit deeper to see how Tik Tok works. You will find that the algorithm is running with you in real time and you choose what you see.