Althouse: "Do you like TikTok? A lot of people do.... It’s one of the fastest-growing cultural phenomena in years..."

November 10, 2019

"Do you like TikTok? A lot of people do.... It’s one of the fastest-growing cultural phenomena in years..."

"... and is more popular than Facebook among 13- to 16-year-olds in the United States.... That’s also why some people hate it. Silicon Valley companies dislike it because it’s cashing in on a market opportunity — and they haven’t yet successfully replicated it.... Officials in the United States also worry about the Chinese ownership of an influential app.... Former U.S. employees said moderators based in Beijing had the final call on whether flagged videos were approved... And during a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri [said], 'A company compromised by the Chinese Communist Party knows where your children are, knows what they look like, what their voices sound like, what they’re watching and what they share with each other.'"

From "The Week in Tech: TikTok Is in Trouble/The video app has been a runaway success around the world. But U.S. lawmakers have recently taken a strong disliking to it" (NYT).

I'm one of the people who like TikTok. I tend to open it up at around 4 in the afternoon — a time that has long been my mental low point — and just relax into the entertainment. It's mesmerizing, slipping from one little thing to the next. Here are the 2 things that appealed to me the most in yesterday's session (and I challenge you to find something nefarious and Chinese about it!):

It's just fun, mostly pretty happy and sweet. I know happy sweetness could be a commie plot! That's how they get you, rotting your brain, but if that's what we should be wary of, I'm paranoid about what the Americans are up to, what with all this pop culture we've been spewing for a hundred years.

It's funny that we're supposed to be worried about censorship by the Chinese, and our Congress seems to be gearing up to interfere with the flow of free speech on TikTok.

44 comments:

rhhardin said...: Where are the Winnie the Pooh costumes.; 11/10/19, 5:54 AM
tim maguire said...: I only know TikTok through my 11-year-old daughter. She and her friends post videos of our dog jumping over things.; 11/10/19, 5:57 AM
Another old lawyer said...: You're naive in the matters of gathering personal information and Communist countries.; 11/10/19, 6:02 AM
Jaq said...: I trust Google less than I would trust and ABC/Disney executive alone with my granddaughter.; 11/10/19, 6:05 AM
Wince said...: That's how they get you, rotting your brain, but if that's what we should be wary of...

Brains are rotting all over the place, indeed.

The concern is all that TikTok "sweetness" is a "honey pot" that opens a door to privacy invasion and surveillance by a malevolent app once it's installed.; 11/10/19, 6:17 AM
gilbar said...: hmmm
As Al Smith would say, let's take a look at the record...

Tiktok is
more popular than Facebook among 13- to 16-year-olds in the United States....
Owned by the People's Republic of China
Apparently opposed by REPUBLICAN congressmen, here in the states

13- to 16-year olds are
the new age group that DEMOCRAT congressmen, here in the states, think need to have voting rights

Professor Althouse says
Tiktok is Fun! She's not addicted! She could stop at anytime! She just doesn't want to; 11/10/19, 6:25 AM
sinz52 said...: Concern about TikTok is unwarranted.

If the Chinese want to know what your children look like and what they're doing, they can do that by sifting any existing social media, including Facebook.

The Internet has already given each human being the option to broadcast his existence and lifestyle to the entire world.

The same gun owners who are so worried about a national gun registry don't seem to mind going on Facebook under their real names and announcing their AR-15 ownership there.; 11/10/19, 6:26 AM
gilbar said...: I tend to open it up at around 4 in the afternoon — a time that has long been my mental low point — and just relax into the entertainment. It's mesmerizing, slipping from one little thing to the next.

First they gave us paper airplanes, but i didn't mind; 'cause i liked the paper airplanes
Then they gave us weird halloween costumes, but i didn't mind; 'cause it was mesmerizing
When they took over our country;
i didn't even notice; 'cause it was slipping from one little thing to the next; 11/10/19, 6:29 AM
gilbar said...: The same gun owners who were forced onto a national gun registry don't seem to mind going on Facebook under their real names and announcing their AR-15 ownership there;
since they're already ON the national gun registry
fify!; 11/10/19, 6:32 AM
Bob Boyd said...: I can't read the whole thing, but my first thought about the posted quote was, Senator Hawley doesn't really explain the how or why of his concern so he comes across as sort of xenophobic, commie-phobic.
My second thought was, this is the NYT talking about a Republican...from Missouri...the xenophobic, conservative-phobic NYT...pushing the narrative.; 11/10/19, 6:49 AM
Tank said...: That guy with the zippers is pretty much how Tank dresses for outside activities in the winter. No singing though.; 11/10/19, 6:51 AM
John henry said...: Let's see :

Millions of uigars in Concentration camps.

Harvesting organs from living falun gong

Killing 50m Americans a year with fentanyl

And you are ok with Chinese spyware?

Good to know.

We know you are OK with american spyware (Google, Facebook etc)

But chinese spyware?

Really, Ann.

John Henry
John Henry; 11/10/19, 6:55 AM
John henry said...: Ann,

Just curious, since you are so casual about these things, do you have aSiri spymaster in your house?

I assume siri with you being an Apple fangirl but if not siri, echo or the google spymaster?

John Henry; 11/10/19, 6:59 AM
brylun said...: "You're naive in the matters of gathering personal information and Communist countries."

This is the most accurate comment so far.

Personal experience while travelling in China 3 years ago:
1. Room safe opened in the Beijing Marriott while we were touring. Nothing was taken.
2. After a couple of weeks of emailing my friend Jones, who referred to the Chinese disparagingly as "Chi-Coms" in a number of emails to me, we were in a large Beijing market and a man walked by us with an orange sweat shirt with white letters saying "Tell Jones we're smart!"

Maybe I'm just paranoid... but I also have served in a branch of NSA many years ago.; 11/10/19, 7:31 AM
stlcdr said...: Exactly right. The Chinese will certainly censor it. It’s kind of a ‘duh’ statement. But so what?

It seems to me that the Chinese created it because, based on my understanding, it’s generally short, home grown videos. The opportunity to make a political stand (I.e. anything the Chinese dot gov doesn’t like) fairly limited, but provides a solid form of contributory entertainment for the masses.

Who wants to sit through a 15 minute YouTube video for the actual 30 seconds of entertainment? Almost anyone can make a 10 to 30 second video of something fun or interesting that happens to them, around them, or they make happen. The best jokes are often one liners.; 11/10/19, 7:32 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I remember when people worried about God monitoring everything they said and did and even thought.; 11/10/19, 8:07 AM
Browndog said...: This post is ripe for one of those "ok, boomer." all the cool kids are saying these days.; 11/10/19, 8:10 AM
Browndog said...: David Bowie had some insights decades on how the internet would change society in ways we cannot even imagine.

Imagine social scores; 11/10/19, 8:14 AM
Howard said...: Well it is owned by the Chicom's so perhaps the concern revolves around they're having a direct pipeline to our impressionable youth of today; 11/10/19, 8:20 AM
brylun said...: "I remember when people worried about God monitoring everything they said and did and even thought."

Is "Huawei" a god?; 11/10/19, 8:28 AM
brylun said...: “China’s main export is espionage, and the distinction between the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese ‘private-sector’ businesses like Huawei is imaginary,” Republican Senator Ben Sasse said.; 11/10/19, 8:37 AM
Howard said...: I think the okay Boomer meme is mostly millennial. Tick tock is a gen z phenomenon. My granddaughter is cohort. she and I like to sit in a Starbucks and make fun of all the millennials doing their millennial things in the most comical stereotypical fashion that the best sketch comics could never depict; 11/10/19, 8:38 AM
brylun said...: I wonder how I would feel if I had a "Summer Palace" that was totally destroyed by foreign powers. Or how these powers sold opium to my people. Not to mention the rape of Nanking.

"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."; 11/10/19, 8:42 AM
Jaq said...: It’s not just communist countries. The UK tracks everything you do online. Germany, as I recall, recorded the first 30 seconds of every phone call. It was in the specifications if you wanted to sell them a telephone switch. That’s not East Germany, BTW. If you want privacy, go off line, don’t drive a car. Plate scanners are very common and local sheriff’s departments use them as a way to raise revenue.

Even “burner” phones are easier to track than people think. It’s not like they have “five seconds to trace that call” They can go back at their leisure and sift through even calls that were never answered for patterns.; 11/10/19, 8:48 AM
Jaq said...: I don’t think that the Chicoms have designs on us that are much different than Alphabet and their subsidiary, the Democrat Party. Social credit scores, limits on speech, and end to capitalism and a move to fascism, move our manufacturing over to them.... The real objections to China it seems are not on substance, but on race.; 11/10/19, 9:23 AM
Ice Nine said...: Here's an article that explains what TikTok is - which I went to since that is not at all clear in the Althouse link. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/10/arts/TIK-TOK.html?module=inline

Look at the "pinecone" GIF there and then note that the writer, presumably an adult, said this about it: "I have laughed every time I watched it." That should tell you a lot of what you need to know about TikTok's entertainment value to you (and even more so, about that writer, for that matter).

And just in case that is not sufficient to compel you to not bother yourself with TikTok, there is this passage: "Much of the music is hip-hop."; 11/10/19, 9:36 AM
brylun said...: We all should object to financial payments to relatives of our federal officials.; 11/10/19, 10:13 AM
bagoh20 said...: Being unconcerned about this is like being unconcerned with having a known pedophile as a babysitter becuase when you watch him he's always so nice.

The historic behavior of the people playing with your child is pretty important, but hey, I need a damn babysitter, so...; 11/10/19, 10:14 AM
bagoh20 said...: "The real objections to China it seems are not on substance, but on race."

So you believe there would be no objection if Putin was doing it, or the Aryan Brotherhood?; 11/10/19, 10:17 AM
Lurker21 said...: I know happy sweetness could be a commie plot!

It's Happy Fun Ball!; 11/10/19, 11:00 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: “I remember when people worried about God monitoring everything they said and did and even thought.”

And that’s exactly why He is feared. Your quip is unintentionally apt.; 11/10/19, 11:31 AM
Ken B said...: When god monitored everyone he kept the secrets and never acted on them.; 11/10/19, 11:44 AM
Ken B said...: It’s interesting that Ann looks only at the user supplied content, and concludes from it that there can be nothing worrisome about the software involved.; 11/10/19, 11:51 AM
rcocean said...: Yeah, we don't wan those BAD Chinese Censors, we want those GOOD American Censors. For example, the Chinese wouldn't censor the name of the Ukraine whistle-blower. Fortunately Google and Facebook have picked up the slack. I'll have to give Tick-Tok a try, anything to break the Silicon Valley Monopoly.; 11/10/19, 11:54 AM
eddie willers said...: I clicked on the first Tik Tok you put up. It was LOUD and I could find no volume control. I keep my computer audio nearly at full and adjust apps and videos individually.

I am NOT going to lower my overall volume for a ten second video.; 11/10/19, 12:05 PM
Marc in Eugene said...: TikTok is amusing, one video out of ten or twelve or fifteen-- think of it as random YouTube videos of 30 seconds' length. The audio is either on or off, so far as I can tell, which is obnoxious. Kids mostly but occasionally adult users. There are some 'cultural differences' evident so far as what may or may not be funny about certain ways of treating animals, ahem. While 'explicit sex' is outside the rules, there's certainly a lot of salacious innuendo-- probably inevitable when adolescents are running the show. A lot of 'gay', too, which so far as I can tell is mostly straight kids affecting to be down with it all while telegraphing sotto voce 'but I'm not of course'.; 11/10/19, 1:21 PM
hstad said...: "...Blogger tim maguire said...I only know TikTok through my 11-year-old daughter. She and her friends post videos of our dog jumping over things. 11/10/19, 5:57 AM..."

I'm happy to hear that "tim...". But that begs the question of why AA, an adult and former Professor, decided to write a blog comment about something that 11 year olds love???? Culture rot is to mild?; 11/10/19, 1:32 PM
Bill Peschel said...: I don't use a smartphone, so accessed it through the desktop. I seem to be limited to the Trending ones, which were dance vids (mostly) using the same four hip-hop songs.

This is for the inmates at Guantanamo (remember them?). I prefer Imgur.; 11/10/19, 4:11 PM
Jeff Brokaw said...: You should just always assume every app on your phone is not only tracking your location at all times and every website you visit and every keystroke you type, and looking at your photos to recognize your family members, but also turning on the microphone at random times. Maybe the camera too.

Just assume the damn thing is spying on you, to be frank. That’s what it is and that’s how you should frame it in your mind.

Then all this data is stored and bought and sold on a worldwide data market so they can draw an amazingly accurate picture of every detail of your life. And your loved ones lives.

But no worries, I’m sure we can trust that whole process and the unknown players involved, because I like to live in fantasy land.; 11/10/19, 4:34 PM
Jim at said...: The same gun owners who are so worried about a national gun registry don't seem to mind going on Facebook under their real names and announcing their AR-15 ownership there.

Uh-huh. Because you obviously run in the same circles as AR-15 owners who boast on FB ... which might consist of four people. At most.

All of my guns tragically disappeared in a boating accident several years back.; 11/10/19, 5:20 PM
Iman said...: “ Where are the Winnie the Pooh costumes.”

Oh man, lol... beat me to it right out of the blocks...; 11/10/19, 6:09 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I’m used to adjusting the volume using the controls on my device, usually the iPad. The lack of a volume control on the screen is a plus for me.; 11/10/19, 6:30 PM
JamesB.BKK said...: Nothing like elected Republicans seeking to protect the interests of companies - and their billionaire founding shareholders and bankers using free tech supposedly created at government expense using funds taken at gunpoint from poor saps - that have plainly stated that they hate their constituents to provide real clarity. Me? I'll be happily signing up with Alipay.; 11/10/19, 9:55 PM
PM said...: Whatever today's version of "Turn off the TV and go outside and play" is.; 11/11/19, 10:21 AM