I get the addictiveness of TikTok and Reels but I don't know what the solution is to the supposed insidiousness. They just figured out what you like to watch and showed you more similar stuff.
Are we gonna make laws that say "if you're running a video platform you have to figure out what people DON'T want to watch and regularly shove it in their face so the feed is bad"? That still requires building a deep understanding of every user.
Do feeds need to all be Certified Completely Random™ content?
It is very interesting to compare tiktok in China to the US.
> In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” a tech expert stated that the U.S. version of TikTok — a Chinese-owned social media platform — is different than the Chinese version of the app, comparing the two experiences to opium and spinach.
Well there are much simpler “algorithms” that do not use reinforcement learning and do not have the same emergent issues at stake here (addiction, ragebait, etc). The argument would be that algorithmic curation makes you an editor, not a passive host, and you should face the risk of reasonable liability if you choose to use more lucrative extractive machine learning tools.
> I get the addictiveness of TikTok and Reels but I don't know what the solution is to the supposed insidiousness. They just figured out what you like to watch and showed you more similar stuff.
The solution for an individual is not to consume short-form video content.
> They just figured out what you like to watch and showed you more similar stuff.
> you have to figure out what people DON'T want to watch and regularly shove it in their face so the feed is bad
They did both, and figured out the perfect delivery mechanism to keep you watching; just the right amount of everything, with an interaction pattern not dissimilar to a casino.
YouTube and Instagram are dramatically less addictive if you just download discrete videos.
I'm a huge proponent of deleting all of these apps, but if you think you organically really like certain content, download it on the fly from a list of select channels.
Are we gonna make laws that say "if you're running a video platform you have to figure out what people DON'T want to watch and regularly shove it in their face so the feed is bad"? That still requires building a deep understanding of every user.
Do feeds need to all be Certified Completely Random™ content?