• Breve@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    5 hours ago

    I’m wondering how much of TikTok is actually authentic. Like when a video gets hundreds of views and likes, is TikTok padding those numbers to make users feel like they are “viral” just to stay on the platform? Even if TikTok isn’t directly doing it, how many are from bot farms just trying to “look normal” by having their sock puppets engage with “normal” videos before using them to push their desired narratives?

    Maybe I should start a social network with a mysterious black box algorithm that is really just a random number generator that only goes up. 🤔

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      4 hours ago

      I imagine that people have fucked around to find out how to game the system and know more or less exactly how the thing actually works. People do it everywhere else. Shit, dudes on YouTube like The Spiffing Brit make entire videos about how the system works and how you can exploit it.

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    7 hours ago

    I think those „success stories“ were always at least a little fabricated by the algorithm that somewhat randomly pushed a selected few lucky users immensely just to show the rest how you can become a media sensation overnight. It gives the platform free publicity as opposed to distributing visibility more evenly. Besides the ad revenue on TikTok is almost non existent even compared to Youtube. It was never a platform that you could realistically become successful with even if you got views.

    • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      6 hours ago

      Besides the ad revenue on TikTok is almost non existent even compared to Youtube. It was never a platform that you could realistically become successful with even if you got views.

      If TikTok was widely known for being bad for making money then maybe it pulled some people who didn’t care about money like on old YouTube.

  • Soulifix@kbin.melroy.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    7 hours ago

    I’ve come from an era of the internet where - you’re not supposed to be internet famous. That’s like a frowned upon thing where people think you lead a loser life because you got infamous on the internet. Now people are fretting about how many views they get.

  • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    9 hours ago

    They miss the early phase of enshittification. The reason a normal person could get 50 million views in 24 hours is because the tiktok office had a way to juice the algorithm for specific videos and show it to everybody. And they were just doing this for free. Just like Facebook used to show content to people organically. Eventually tiktok starts selling ads and maximizing value, and then you have to pay for the success they used to give for free.

    Wait if tiktok is a private company, maybe it wouldn’t do that exactly the same way as Facebook and Google

  • heavydust
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    arrow-down
    18
    ·
    12 hours ago

    success, content

    Making shitty videos is a stupid hobby, not a job.

    • Nima@leminal.space
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      9 hours ago

      what’s with this curmudgeon type shit? their livelihood is at risk. just because you’re not part of the ecosystem doesn’t mean you need to dismiss a way to make money thats worked for quite a few people.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        6 hours ago

        They’re lice riding on the back of a large and very efficient predator.

        Nothing they can do on that platform benefits humankind, though it might funnel some money in the “creators’” direction. They’re no better than the teenagers that run bindles of smack from the trap house to the junkie for a couple of bucks.

        • Nima@leminal.space
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          3 hours ago

          this is a social media app that creators can make videos on. i think you’re overreacting just a bit, man.

          its not the end of the world. people making content that people enjoy on a video app isn’t going to ruin the youth.

          relax.

      • heavydust
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        10
        ·
        8 hours ago

        their livelihood is at risk

        They should make a better tiktok: 5 seconds videos, it will be more insightful, and a gift to humanity… Or maybe 1 seconds videos because they will concentrate their talents. But god forbid they find a real job, that would be exhausting.

        • blakemiller@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          5 hours ago

          How do you feel about content like this? It’s long form, informative, and hobbyist.

          Or this guy who generates customer leads to his interior design business?

    • themurphy@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      10 hours ago

      You can say the same about the whole entertainment industry then. You just prefer other things than short form, visual content.

      • heavydust
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        10
        ·
        10 hours ago

        I cannot say that a great movie is equivalent to a meme in an animated GIF.

          • heavydust
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            4 hours ago

            Nobody is saying that

            Well, that other guy was saying this so…

            • state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 hours ago

              No, they did not. All I saw was a statement that people making a living on sites like TikTok or YouTube are also part of the entertainment industry. Which is just a fact. Whether you like short form content on these sites or not doesn’t change that fact.

              • heavydust
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                3 hours ago

                part of the entertainment industry. Which is just a fact

                Your facts are yours only, and laughable too. Get a job, something that is the tiniest bit useful. But filling the internet with your inane thoughts is definitely not a job, nor does it belong in a forum dedicated to technology. The mere “fact” that any moron can pretend to have a job by putting 30 seconds videos in the latest fad is disgusting and unworthy of humanity.

                Woops, I already spent more time answering your post than those idiots have spent filming themselves spewing what idiotic thoughts came out of their brains. Am I an influencer now?

                • skulblaka
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  2 hours ago

                  Am I an influencer now?

                  You aren’t making any money from it, so, no.

                  Like it or not, people make a living doing this.

    • Chozo@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      9 hours ago

      If it pays the bills for those people, what difference does it make? Other than “me no likey”, that is?

  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    11 hours ago

    Morons who should have been doing that in the first place. You never want all your content and success to hinge on the whim’s on one corporation.

  • biggerbogboy
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    23 minutes ago

    Have people somehow forgotten that VPNs exist? Like millions are moving to rednote but the easier way is to literally just, at minimum, get a shitty free VPN, and still have access to tiktok.

    Personally tho, I’d probably opt for a cloud server VPN if I really needed one.

    Edit: this was a stupid take, I forgot the app would be removed from devices and that it will cause inconvenience.

    • ahal@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 hours ago

      You vastly overestimate the average person’s technical ability.

      • biggerbogboy
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        9 hours ago

        Honestly, true. I must be underestimating how tired I am and overestimating how much brain power I got left because, I must say, I barely had a single thought when typing that.

    • superkret@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Any roadblock in using a social media will turn off 90% of the users.
      Which means the creators will be gone, too.
      Sure, you could connect to it via VPN, but most of the content you like won’t be there anymore.

      • biggerbogboy
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        24 minutes ago

        I fully agree with that, and I was wrong in assuming that it’d be very simple. In my country, we only got online piracy firewalled, so I don’t have experience with apps or other kinds of websites getting banned, and somehow I assumed that most of the demographics of a service would try and use it a different way just like how we use VPNs to hop on the pirate bays, but that isn’t the case.

    • shoulderoforion@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      9 hours ago

      VPN’s are grand, if you’re using a PC, if you’re using a smartphone the app is about to be dissapeared, also if your bag is monetization, good luck getting a bank to accept digital deposits from TikTok

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        6 hours ago

        Good, they can do something else to regain their sense of self-worth, such as working the glory hole in a truck stop in Bakersfield.

      • biggerbogboy
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        9 hours ago

        Oh right, I somehow didn’t think they’d remove the app at first, I thought they’d just firewall it or smthn. The monitisation part also makes a lot of sense too. Honestly I don’t have even the smallest experience with witnessing anything online get banned in my country apart from piracy.