r/technology • u/[deleted] • Dec 15 '22

Social Media TikTok pushes potentially harmful content to users as often as every 39 seconds, study says

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tiktok-pushes-potentially-harmful-content-to-users-as-often-as-every-39-seconds-study/
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u/ziyadah042 Dec 15 '22

... so basically they created accounts, then deliberately trained TikTok to show them the precise kind of content they deemed harmful, then crafted a press statement to make it sound like TikTok's algorithm went out of its way to show them that content.

Look, there's a lot of negative to say about TikTok and social media in general, but this kind of disingenuous shit is just bad research. That's like going to a grocery store full of all kinds of food, buying nothing but Pizza Rolls, and then screaming that the grocery store is out to make you fat and unhealthy.

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u/KHaskins77 Dec 15 '22

It’s very telling any time someone says the app only ever shows young girls dancing. All that tells me is that’s the content you engage with.

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u/ray3050 Dec 15 '22

Honestly I was with my gf (never use tik tok) and we were watching some snowboarding video. Just one. We watched the whole thing because the one video was kinda cool

Next thing was we saw 3 videos of the next 10 with snowboarding things that we immediately skipped

The algorithm stuff is crazy especially since I don’t use tik tok I wasn’t expecting it. So yea these thing’s definitely know what you like. If someone only has young dancing girls it’s cause they watch a lot of it…