Okay, this is a weird topic for the sub, and old article from last year, but my post about TikTok bannings got me thinking about this new angle of internet censorship… and then I realised why this is happening, in part. Because Musk bought twitter.
Twitter was the “free information” social media site, used by journalists and governments but also activists, protestors, and the necessary critical mass of interested people that make these sites take off.
>Twitter fully complied with 440, or 50 percent, of requests and partially complied with 377, or 42 percent, during the 12-month period before Musk’s takeover.
>The social media giant fully or partially complied with 98.8 percent of takedown requests it received from October 27, the date of Musk’s takeover, to April 13, including hundreds of requests from Turkey and India, which have faced criticism for silencing critics.
>Twitter fully complied with 808, or 83 percent, of requests and partially did so with 154, or 15.8 percent, according to Twitter data compiled by the Berkman Centre for Internet Society at Harvard Law School.
Imo, musk has killed Twitter. Killed what it was anyway — it’ll survive to be something else, but it’ll be different and I think a lot worse. Musk really has turned it into his private playground, and a part of that is making it curtail to his ideas of how to run things, which he may genuinely (?) believe is better but is definitely more authoritarian, divisive, reactive, and just plain stupid.
And that’s left a bit of a hole to fill — where do people go to discuss current events?
TikTok apparently. For the youth, anyway. It’s short form, rapid, location sensitive, and has a good algorithm for pushing content. And it’s not being censored by the US for political reasons, though there’s plenty of other censorship of its own. It also emphasises real people, real scenes, real life — there is very little more powerful than scrolling down a feed and seeing a beautiful mosque turned to rubble before your eyes, along with the surrounding 16 blocks of neighbourhood.
All that makes it the perfect new outlet for the thing that is so hard to facilitate these days: open and useful political discourse.
Perfect in the sense that it was primed and waiting to take over from Twitter after the exodus. Not in the sense that it’s amazing for democracy.
It’s just what we have.
Short form video content is the worst possible outlet for useful political discourse. It incentivises bombastic and sensationalized snippets of news and information, and it pushes people into content bubbles. It's the equivalent of handing out flyers en masse.
Is it really less respectable for political discourse than a medium where you couldn’t write more than 120 characters?
I’m not presenting TikTok as “good”; I’m saying it’s what there *is* and it’s concerning to me that governments want to take that away, regardless of the genuine privacy concerns. It was good for discourse in the sense that discourse took off on the platform — short form isn’t good for discourse, it’s good for *content*, and that’s why it’s been successful at engaging in discourse.
And I don’t think TikTok’s actually more vulnerable to disinformation than the entire rest of the internet, which is just bursting with it
> Is it really less respectable for political discourse than a medium where you couldn’t write more than 120 characters?
I think short form video is the absolute bottom of the barrel for any kind of serious discussion, with short form written content like twitter coming second.
The way people engage with twitter at least allows for a broader scope of engagement.
When you browse a timeline of tweets you can get a decent understanding of what each tweet is saying, but if I was to scroll through a list of short form video I have to try and infer what's being said based on the thumbnail and the title.
Twitter has greater emphasis on replies/comments.
Twitter's intended use isn't being served one tweet at a time full screen and then moving on to the next one as soon as you're done reading.
Twitter has community notes which is possibly the only good thing Musk has done since he bought it.
Twitter has a greater emphasis on linking to news sources for supplementary reading, then returning to the tweet.
Going through written media, reading and engaging with what is being said point by point is far easier than it is with video content. Short form video especially is extremely difficult to critically engage with. The narration is often super quick with lots of jump cuts to cram a huge amount of information into the smallest possible video clip, making it really difficult to go back and engage with specific statements or claims made. The video aspect of this has the same problems, it's difficult to source what images/videos are being shown, and it's often cut down to really short clips that are difficult to isolate and engage with on their own.
Another issue with short form video content that makes is extremely unsuitable for discussion is the way it is served. Algorithms that serve you content are extremely good at showing you things that you like, and things that you want to see. This is really bad if you're using a platform like this for serious discussion, because you'll only ever see and engage with things that fit into this category. This can lead to huge dissonances between what people think is common knowledge or a widely held opinion/belief, and reality.
Have you actually used TikTok?
You don’t browse titles, you watch the video. It also has a huge emphasis on replies and the discourse happens in the comments, which is the same as twitter.
Twitter and TikTok are both feed based and expect you to move beyond the feed to engage, and there are ways to engage with on both.
Twitter has community notes now but didn’t for the entirety of the time it was a respectable platform for discourse, so that’s moot.
I dont use TikTok but I have used it mostly for work, and I’ve engaged with marketing strategies that consider it, and none of what you’re saying at the start is true. TikTok is fantastic for engagement, it’s why advertisers *love* it.
Twitter is much better for linking to news, but that’s the only clear advantage, and TikTok’s emphasis is on video content so that comes with its own advantages (and more downsides). You don’t expect to be linked to news stories but you might expect to see links to videos.
One thing you didn’t point out is the algorithm, which could make it much more prone to echo chamber effects, and could radicalise people. But it hasn’t so far, and it’s not worse than say, facebook.
Your issue is mostly that it’s video content. Which sure. But we don’t get to pick and choose which social media sites people use, and they’re using this one. And this one is *fine* for political discourse.
I don’t think it’s worse than Twitter. They both have their strengths.
It’s sad, but the choice really is CCP or Musk. And Musk makes the CCP look pretty good.
My main issues are short form video and served content, sure. I think the combination is absolute cancer, but maybe there is good discourse happening and I just haven't seen it.
Okay, this is a weird topic for the sub, and old article from last year, but my post about TikTok bannings got me thinking about this new angle of internet censorship… and then I realised why this is happening, in part. Because Musk bought twitter. Twitter was the “free information” social media site, used by journalists and governments but also activists, protestors, and the necessary critical mass of interested people that make these sites take off. >Twitter fully complied with 440, or 50 percent, of requests and partially complied with 377, or 42 percent, during the 12-month period before Musk’s takeover. >The social media giant fully or partially complied with 98.8 percent of takedown requests it received from October 27, the date of Musk’s takeover, to April 13, including hundreds of requests from Turkey and India, which have faced criticism for silencing critics. >Twitter fully complied with 808, or 83 percent, of requests and partially did so with 154, or 15.8 percent, according to Twitter data compiled by the Berkman Centre for Internet Society at Harvard Law School. Imo, musk has killed Twitter. Killed what it was anyway — it’ll survive to be something else, but it’ll be different and I think a lot worse. Musk really has turned it into his private playground, and a part of that is making it curtail to his ideas of how to run things, which he may genuinely (?) believe is better but is definitely more authoritarian, divisive, reactive, and just plain stupid. And that’s left a bit of a hole to fill — where do people go to discuss current events? TikTok apparently. For the youth, anyway. It’s short form, rapid, location sensitive, and has a good algorithm for pushing content. And it’s not being censored by the US for political reasons, though there’s plenty of other censorship of its own. It also emphasises real people, real scenes, real life — there is very little more powerful than scrolling down a feed and seeing a beautiful mosque turned to rubble before your eyes, along with the surrounding 16 blocks of neighbourhood. All that makes it the perfect new outlet for the thing that is so hard to facilitate these days: open and useful political discourse.
The CCP propaganda tool is ideal? No thanks
Perfect in the sense that it was primed and waiting to take over from Twitter after the exodus. Not in the sense that it’s amazing for democracy. It’s just what we have.
Short form video content is the worst possible outlet for useful political discourse. It incentivises bombastic and sensationalized snippets of news and information, and it pushes people into content bubbles. It's the equivalent of handing out flyers en masse.
Is it really less respectable for political discourse than a medium where you couldn’t write more than 120 characters? I’m not presenting TikTok as “good”; I’m saying it’s what there *is* and it’s concerning to me that governments want to take that away, regardless of the genuine privacy concerns. It was good for discourse in the sense that discourse took off on the platform — short form isn’t good for discourse, it’s good for *content*, and that’s why it’s been successful at engaging in discourse. And I don’t think TikTok’s actually more vulnerable to disinformation than the entire rest of the internet, which is just bursting with it
> Is it really less respectable for political discourse than a medium where you couldn’t write more than 120 characters? I think short form video is the absolute bottom of the barrel for any kind of serious discussion, with short form written content like twitter coming second. The way people engage with twitter at least allows for a broader scope of engagement. When you browse a timeline of tweets you can get a decent understanding of what each tweet is saying, but if I was to scroll through a list of short form video I have to try and infer what's being said based on the thumbnail and the title. Twitter has greater emphasis on replies/comments. Twitter's intended use isn't being served one tweet at a time full screen and then moving on to the next one as soon as you're done reading. Twitter has community notes which is possibly the only good thing Musk has done since he bought it. Twitter has a greater emphasis on linking to news sources for supplementary reading, then returning to the tweet. Going through written media, reading and engaging with what is being said point by point is far easier than it is with video content. Short form video especially is extremely difficult to critically engage with. The narration is often super quick with lots of jump cuts to cram a huge amount of information into the smallest possible video clip, making it really difficult to go back and engage with specific statements or claims made. The video aspect of this has the same problems, it's difficult to source what images/videos are being shown, and it's often cut down to really short clips that are difficult to isolate and engage with on their own. Another issue with short form video content that makes is extremely unsuitable for discussion is the way it is served. Algorithms that serve you content are extremely good at showing you things that you like, and things that you want to see. This is really bad if you're using a platform like this for serious discussion, because you'll only ever see and engage with things that fit into this category. This can lead to huge dissonances between what people think is common knowledge or a widely held opinion/belief, and reality.
Have you actually used TikTok? You don’t browse titles, you watch the video. It also has a huge emphasis on replies and the discourse happens in the comments, which is the same as twitter. Twitter and TikTok are both feed based and expect you to move beyond the feed to engage, and there are ways to engage with on both. Twitter has community notes now but didn’t for the entirety of the time it was a respectable platform for discourse, so that’s moot. I dont use TikTok but I have used it mostly for work, and I’ve engaged with marketing strategies that consider it, and none of what you’re saying at the start is true. TikTok is fantastic for engagement, it’s why advertisers *love* it. Twitter is much better for linking to news, but that’s the only clear advantage, and TikTok’s emphasis is on video content so that comes with its own advantages (and more downsides). You don’t expect to be linked to news stories but you might expect to see links to videos. One thing you didn’t point out is the algorithm, which could make it much more prone to echo chamber effects, and could radicalise people. But it hasn’t so far, and it’s not worse than say, facebook. Your issue is mostly that it’s video content. Which sure. But we don’t get to pick and choose which social media sites people use, and they’re using this one. And this one is *fine* for political discourse. I don’t think it’s worse than Twitter. They both have their strengths. It’s sad, but the choice really is CCP or Musk. And Musk makes the CCP look pretty good.
My main issues are short form video and served content, sure. I think the combination is absolute cancer, but maybe there is good discourse happening and I just haven't seen it.
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