Or, TikTok has been banned in India since 2020, and all the chhapri/pullingo content moved to IG and YT Shorts as a result
India's been Instagram's (and Meta in general) largest market for years now and 75% of Indians on the Internet use IG [0], and every month an additional million users in India seem to join based on MAU stats.
Political momentum keeps building for banning it in the USA as well. It's driven by both Chinese (too much control) and Israeli (not enough control) propaganda concerns.
A ban has been attempted since at least 2020, and has gone nowhere. There is no precedent for something like this, as Congress cannot show what law Tiktok has violated. It would need to go to the Supreme Court, even if both houses passed the bill.
Congress puts forward many bills that have no shot at passing. The goal of something like this is to force Bytedance to sell its US operation to a US company, rather than deal with regulatory uncertainty. Hasn't worked yet.
Well, now you've moved the goal posts. What a government says its employees can/cannot do is not the same thing as what the citizens can/cannot do. I see that no different than any employer not allowing apps on company devices, or even having the corp network block any/all social media.
I don't know what the difference is between a threat and an attempt but just yesterday a U.S. House panel unanimously approved a bill that could ban it. Today Biden said he'd sign the bill it if it passes.
> I don't know what the difference is between a threat and an attempt
Is this a real statement? As in, ESL possibly?
Someone blustering/threatening to do something is just a bunch of hot air. Enacting legislation and putting into action so that it becomes illegal would be attempting it.
It would only be an attempt, as we've seen how well banning through legislation works with things like Prohibition, War on Drugs, etc. Are they going to force all US ISPs to block it? Are they going to ban it from the stores? Are they going to prevent US users from accessing VPNs from outside US territories? Let's face it, people are addicted to TikTok, and they will find a way to get their fix.
Exactly. I'm surprised that tiktok has been able to maintain its top spot for so long.
The biggest headscratcher is why india didn't ban facebook, instagram, youtube, etc along with tiktok. My hope was india would build up their own tech giants. Instead india just handed their social media environment to zuckerburg. What's the long term plan there? Give zuckerburg's properties ( facebook, instagram, whatsapp, etc ) monopoly over india? Are there any competent leaders in india? I simply don't get it.
> why india didn't ban facebook, instagram, youtube, etc
Has India almost went to war with the US in the last 5 years? No.
Has India almost went to war with China in the last 5 years? Yes.
That's why.
Before 2020, Chinese firms were trying to expand into India as their ideal target market. In retaliation for Galwan, they got kicked out.
> would build up their own tech giants
Why?
How many global software giants can you name from Israel, Japan, or South Korea (let alone the entire EU)?
The biggest reason that countries like Israel were able to rapidly develop was because of the soft power of being so integrated in the American tech industry.
IP driven industries like ICT, Pharmaecuticals, Semiconductors, and Finance represent 33% of Indian exports [0] but 10% of China's [1], and India's entire R&D capacity was built by western private sector companies like IBM, GE, TI, Intel, Nvidia, Apple, etc.
Kicking them out is economic and research suicide for India.
> I'm surprised that tiktok has been able to maintain its top spot for so long
Because every other country uses it because it's so popular.
If that was the case, then india would have stopped trade with china. China is still one of india's top trading partners. And one of its biggest investors.
Why ban tiktok? It's a national security issue. And india has the talent, population and resources to do so.
> How many global software giants can you name from Israel, Japan, or South Korea (let alone the entire EU)?
Surely you are smart enough to see the difference between israel, japan or south korea and india? I'm also a big proponent of the EU banning american tech and building up their own tech. The EU built up airbus, why can't they do the same for facebook, microsoft, etc?
> The biggest reason that countries like Israel were able to rapidly develop was because of the soft power of being so integrated in the American tech industry.
What does israel have to do with india? Are you saying india should be a vassal to the US like israel, japan and south korea are? You surely must be joking. India should be a regional power like china, russia and hopefully the EU. It shouldn't be anything like israel, korea or japan. Given its size and history, don't you think india should set its sights a little bit higher?
As one who has watched loved ones zombie-scroll through Reels on Facebook, this is not a victory of any kind for the world at large. It's just another step in the ongoing march toward widespread dysfunction.
I'm not a daily active user of either service but what I've noticed is how Instagram has started injecting way more "suggested" content into my feed than it used to, really making it similar to TikTok's feed.
I'd say Instagram's algorithm is a few steps behind TikTok when it comes to really nailing what kind of things I want to watch, but Instagram has the added advantage of being somewhere I keep track of friends and family, so I get a much more "personal" feed of people I'm close to.
Both are time vacuums if I'm not careful though. If I have either app on my phone, I routinely fall into the trap of the infinite scroll. Instagram has definitely done a better job of keeping me scrolling longer than it used to. Best (for me) to just keep them off my devices and check in every so often when I want to catch up a bit.
YouTube's little "shorts" feed on the other hand though, that is the wild west, never know what you're gonna be shown.
For anyone looking to spend less time on social media, I suggest using Instagram exclusively on desktop, because it's the same content but you can block ads and the interface isn't as addictive.
Yeah, but the annoying thing is that instagram now is focusing almost exclusively on content from people out of my network other than the friends I want to keep connected to. It would be good if they kept the exploration part exclusively on reels.
I don't even use the feed anymore because of so much external garbage it tries to throw at me.
TikTok has started monetizing much more aggressively. About 15-20% of the videos I get are now ads for their shop. Yes, a video sharing app has a shop a la Temu. It drives quality down. IG has been somewhat improving in quality but everything must be monetized at some point and so enshittification will happen there as well. All these apps are only temporarily good.
This comment has made me more appreciative of YouTube Premium. If I can pay a subscription fee, then maybe that will help prevent degradation in the quality of the UX.
YouTube is way more trash than reels and tiktok. Earlier they used to have the ability to hide shorts for 30 days, now they start their android app on shorts.
I hear this a lot but it hasn't been my experience. My Shorts are almost all from channels I already enjoy, whereas my Reels are full of low-quality clickbait. Maybe the quality for each is directly tied to how much time you invest in their platform?
I have been noticing this in the past couple of weeks. You're right on with about 10-20% of videos being shops. There seems to be two categories to the shop ads. One is "good" content creators that are trying to monetize through the shop. The other is random temu level crap people are trying to just sell.
Basically Instagram Reels algorithm started to get very good, they found the magic algorithm and it's so much easier to click the Reels button than switch to the TikTok app. Plus, everyone has their friends on Instagram so why switch to another app?
That's my theory anyway. I remember when Instagram Reels was just awful and all the suggestions sucked, now it's actually good.
Surprising outcome, but very similar to what happened with Snapchat. Everyone used Snapchat and suddenly Instagram added Stories and over time people just used Instagram again when Instagram polished Stories enough.
Hmm, I guess Meta is unstoppable in the social media space.
I gave TikTok a whirl about a year ago just to see what the fuss was about, and was disappointed. It wasn't long before I got videos about eating disorders, bare knuckle boxing, and videos on how to cope with depression. I much prefer Facebook & Instagram Reels. It's more sanitized, and Facebook can gauge with more certainty what my preferences are since I've been feeding them with my data for over a decade now so they 'get' what I like.
How are these numbers calculated? Are these new downloads by first time users? Do people switching phones and downloading the app to a new device tallied in these counts? Should that really count? Sure it was downloaded again, but that's not an extra pair of eyeballs. It the same pair of eyeballs on a different device.
The active user seems like the metric that would matter vs downloads.
Those numbers are available but they’re self-reported. If you’re the type to distrust meta or byte dances self reported numbers it’s good to get a third party proxy number
Wat! A padded stat from one vendor compared to a padded stat from another vendor does absolutely nothing other than proving that people can pad stats. You've drunk the analytics kool-aid my friend
I think anyone talking about TikTok's content is doing themselves a disservice, because it fails to understand that the content is heavily curated by the algorithm.
I tried installing TikTok on a blank developer phone, and the content was vastly different from what I was used to. Absolutely appalling content, the worst that humanity has to offer.
But my own feed is nothing but serious and mature content.
The question is rather how those algorithms can have a negative influence on people's perception of reality.
Who decides what is bad content? Sociologists? Should we suppress it, to save democracy? Or does that kind of censorship lead to fascism?
> I tried installing TikTok on a blank developer phone, and the content was vastly different from what I was used to. Absolutely appalling content, the worst that humanity has to offer
I've had similar experiences with new TikTok installs. One thing I've noticed is that I get lower quality content with new installs using mobile network shared IP addresses, while better content with residential IP addresses.
I haven't used TikTok in 3-ish years now but I always found that funny. "All I see are underage girls dancing", you're outing yourself... Skip a few of those videos or long-click to say you're not interested and your feed will change. When I was on TikTok I saw a few curated witty/humor accounts, accounts related to a few TV shows I liked, and some news that I cared about.
They will also not show you certain content if you register it in an untraceable manner, e.g. they detect you run inside a sandbox with a non-american phone number they will just outright now show you certain channels, if you go to these channels they will show up as banned, but if you were to open that same channel in some kind of incognito web browser they will show up.
Beware: Instagram and TikTok and all of Facebook's apps store "eternal cookies" on your iPhone via the iOS "Keychain", separate from browser cookies.
Those cookies persist even after you delete the app, even if you completely disable and sign out of iCloud, and even after you restore your iCloud back on another iPhone/iPad.
There is no way to see or delete that data, except by using those apps, if they offer you an option to delete it, and so there's no way to be sure if that's all the data they store.
53 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 113 ms ] threadIndia's been Instagram's (and Meta in general) largest market for years now and 75% of Indians on the Internet use IG [0], and every month an additional million users in India seem to join based on MAU stats.
[0] - https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/instagram-users-by-country
Congress puts forward many bills that have no shot at passing. The goal of something like this is to force Bytedance to sell its US operation to a US company, rather than deal with regulatory uncertainty. Hasn't worked yet.
Texas bans Tiktok on government wifi and wired networks.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/17/tiktok-ban-m...
Is this a real statement? As in, ESL possibly?
Someone blustering/threatening to do something is just a bunch of hot air. Enacting legislation and putting into action so that it becomes illegal would be attempting it.
It would only be an attempt, as we've seen how well banning through legislation works with things like Prohibition, War on Drugs, etc. Are they going to force all US ISPs to block it? Are they going to ban it from the stores? Are they going to prevent US users from accessing VPNs from outside US territories? Let's face it, people are addicted to TikTok, and they will find a way to get their fix.
Chhapri is now used to represent the Hindi subculture similar to Pullingo, same way Punjabi and Haryanvi speakers use "Jatt" now.
It's a cool example of dialectic change due to slang.
Edit: though now that I think about it, someone like Elvish Yadav wouldn't own up to being Chhapri but his Pullingo equivalent would
Exactly. I'm surprised that tiktok has been able to maintain its top spot for so long.
The biggest headscratcher is why india didn't ban facebook, instagram, youtube, etc along with tiktok. My hope was india would build up their own tech giants. Instead india just handed their social media environment to zuckerburg. What's the long term plan there? Give zuckerburg's properties ( facebook, instagram, whatsapp, etc ) monopoly over india? Are there any competent leaders in india? I simply don't get it.
Has India almost went to war with the US in the last 5 years? No.
Has India almost went to war with China in the last 5 years? Yes.
That's why.
Before 2020, Chinese firms were trying to expand into India as their ideal target market. In retaliation for Galwan, they got kicked out.
> would build up their own tech giants
Why?
How many global software giants can you name from Israel, Japan, or South Korea (let alone the entire EU)?
The biggest reason that countries like Israel were able to rapidly develop was because of the soft power of being so integrated in the American tech industry.
IP driven industries like ICT, Pharmaecuticals, Semiconductors, and Finance represent 33% of Indian exports [0] but 10% of China's [1], and India's entire R&D capacity was built by western private sector companies like IBM, GE, TI, Intel, Nvidia, Apple, etc.
Kicking them out is economic and research suicide for India.
> I'm surprised that tiktok has been able to maintain its top spot for so long
Because every other country uses it because it's so popular.
[Is it just me or has HN gotten dumber recently?]
[0] - https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/countries/104/export-basket
[1] - https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/countries/43/export-basket
No. The US threatened nuclear war with india in the last 30 years though.
https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/looking-back-the-1998-nuclea...
> That's why.
If that was the case, then india would have stopped trade with china. China is still one of india's top trading partners. And one of its biggest investors.
> they got kicked out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_trading_partne...
> Why?
Why ban tiktok? It's a national security issue. And india has the talent, population and resources to do so.
> How many global software giants can you name from Israel, Japan, or South Korea (let alone the entire EU)?
Surely you are smart enough to see the difference between israel, japan or south korea and india? I'm also a big proponent of the EU banning american tech and building up their own tech. The EU built up airbus, why can't they do the same for facebook, microsoft, etc?
> The biggest reason that countries like Israel were able to rapidly develop was because of the soft power of being so integrated in the American tech industry.
What does israel have to do with india? Are you saying india should be a vassal to the US like israel, japan and south korea are? You surely must be joking. India should be a regional power like china, russia and hopefully the EU. It shouldn't be anything like israel, korea or japan. Given its size and history, don't you think india should set its sights a little bit higher?
I'd say Instagram's algorithm is a few steps behind TikTok when it comes to really nailing what kind of things I want to watch, but Instagram has the added advantage of being somewhere I keep track of friends and family, so I get a much more "personal" feed of people I'm close to.
Both are time vacuums if I'm not careful though. If I have either app on my phone, I routinely fall into the trap of the infinite scroll. Instagram has definitely done a better job of keeping me scrolling longer than it used to. Best (for me) to just keep them off my devices and check in every so often when I want to catch up a bit.
YouTube's little "shorts" feed on the other hand though, that is the wild west, never know what you're gonna be shown.
Which itself was a copycat of Vine.
That's my theory anyway. I remember when Instagram Reels was just awful and all the suggestions sucked, now it's actually good.
Surprising outcome, but very similar to what happened with Snapchat. Everyone used Snapchat and suddenly Instagram added Stories and over time people just used Instagram again when Instagram polished Stories enough.
Hmm, I guess Meta is unstoppable in the social media space.
Many countries ban them because of that relationship and this hindered their ability to grow before Meta could go after them.
I get so much more political content even though I don't like it at IG than at Tiktok, but granted everyone gets a different experience.
Or maybe you like one "political" post (a non-partisan joke for example) and then you get flooded.
But if you like one cat post you don't get flooded with cat posts for example.
Tiktok seems to be more random and IG more obvious.
a common joke on tiktok is to tell someone to post the same video on reels cause they know the comments are much more toxic
The active user seems like the metric that would matter vs downloads.
I tried installing TikTok on a blank developer phone, and the content was vastly different from what I was used to. Absolutely appalling content, the worst that humanity has to offer.
But my own feed is nothing but serious and mature content.
The question is rather how those algorithms can have a negative influence on people's perception of reality.
Who decides what is bad content? Sociologists? Should we suppress it, to save democracy? Or does that kind of censorship lead to fascism?
I've had similar experiences with new TikTok installs. One thing I've noticed is that I get lower quality content with new installs using mobile network shared IP addresses, while better content with residential IP addresses.
tiktok shows my videos to ~500 people instantly, then stops. instagram shows it to ~10 then stops.
presumably both are measuring view to like ratio or something. tiktok is 2%, ig is 0%. i assume that’s too low and why they stop showing it.
Those cookies persist even after you delete the app, even if you completely disable and sign out of iCloud, and even after you restore your iCloud back on another iPhone/iPad.
There is no way to see or delete that data, except by using those apps, if they offer you an option to delete it, and so there's no way to be sure if that's all the data they store.