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So I finally installed tiktok. While registering, I indicated I was male. I was immediately shown what I can only describe as "anti-feminist" videos, women winning arguments against feminists, jordan peterson interview clips, etc. I generally scroll past these videos quickly, but they got more and more frequent, I probably made it worse for liking a few bill-burr clips early on, but it certainly started very early on.
My wife is a frequent tiktok user, she likes videos you'd expect of women, crafting stuff, recipes, etc. She gets also gets ton of overtly political feminist videos. Neither of us have strong feelings towards feminism. If anything, she's to my right on the gender issues.
I hear a lot of anti-tiktok rhetoric along the lines that china is invading our privacy. I'm much more concerned about tiktok dividing the younger generations and pitting groups against each other. This is probably more algorithmic than intentional, but this effect is almost certainly worse than the privacy concerns. I know this isn't anything new, other social media apps have similar effects, but I think the effect is much stronger with tiktok. With facebook, you inherit the political environment of your friends. With reddit and twitter you can choose your own echo-chambers. With tiktok, the decision is made against your will and almost instantly.
Same for YouTube..they always recommend Jordan Peterson clips even though I seldom watch his videos. I think this puts a dent in the narrative that social media is always pro-left. I suspect the reason for this is because Jordan Peterson and non-PC political videos have a high retention rate and follow-through rate. People who watch one video are highly inclined to watch more , probably more so than other niches.
How does one explain how incredibly bad YouTube recommendations are? If I go to YouTube and just look for something interesting to watch, I have to scroll past dozens and dozens of videos to find something interesting. The most baffling thing is that it can't figure out that if it shows me a video every time I go to YouTube and I always scroll past it and don't click on anything until it has shown me about 40 videos, I probably don't want to watch that video and it shouldn't show it to me 20 times before giving up.
It also seems to have a long memory and a short memory for the wrong things. If I watch one video from a particular channel, it will suggest videos from that channel every day for a few weeks even if I never watch any more. But if I watch a lot of videos on a particular subject, if I stop watching them for a few weeks, it will completely forget that I was interested in that and never show me one of those videos again. It should be the exact opposite. If I just watch one video about something and don't keep watching more videos that it suggests on the same subject, it should assume I'm not that interested in it or was only interested in that particular video. But if I watch a lot of videos on a subject, it should assume I will be somewhat interested in that subject for the long term, even if I go a week without watching one of them.
Another thing it struggles with is it seems to put too much weight on the channel the video is hosted on and not enough on the actual content. If I watch a video because I am interested in the interviewee, it will keep recommending videos with the same interviewer, but it won't recommend other videos with the interviewee.
The other thing is that it clearly grouping certain channels into clusters and cannot figure out that I actually really dislike certain types of videos in that cluster. So like if it clusters videos about Alice and Bob together because people who like one tend to like the other, if I watch a video about Alice, it will immediately start suggesting videos about Bob, even if I never watch a Bob video. It cannot figure out that I am in some way different from other people who like this cluster of videos.
I actually like this feature. I watch different categories of videos ranging from various debates and podcasts, gaming videos, historical videos and documentaries, videos about technology from solar to new weapons and I also follow some channels due to them being entertaining or just cute to clean the palate with something wholesome such as some animal stuff. I often think something may be interesting but not right now as I am interested in different topic at the moment. But I like it if it remains in the feed for some time - even for a day or two - as I can return to it.
On the other hand I do use "not interested" feature for content I do not find interesting which helps. I am also blocking/unsubscribing whole channels a lot if the algorithm thinks for some reason that I should watch the content even if I find it uninteresting. One example is that I do watch League of Legends content from one youtuber/streamer when I am chilling in the evening or drinking my coffee as he has soothing voice and it helps me vent off stress. Of course as soon as I subscribed to his content and watched a few of his videos, I was slammed by other League content that I am not at all interested in. It took me weeks of religious blocking of random League stuff until the algorithm realized that no, I do not want to watch anything else from that category.
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