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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.
I've had the exact same experience across all platforms (Tik tok, youtube, & instagram mainly). I used to be right wing but have solidly been on the left more several years now. Whenever I start any new account or social media I'm always bombarded with classic man-oriented 'right wing-ish' content (Peterson debunking feminists, gym bro complaining about girls, Shapiro clips, etc). Even now, after having these accounts for years, I'll still get random suggestions for this content.
What's even funnier is that if I watch a man-adjacent video (non-political workout vids or a video about guns) my algorithms get fucked up for weeks. I really do have to wonder if the right-wing influencers have a crazy high budget in comparison to the left. At this point they have to know my stats well enough to know that I'm not interested in those videos but they keep pushing. I admire the effort.
As someone who became more right wing over the years, I’m curious what caused you to have the opposite trajectory?
It's quite a long story (and I can go into more detail if you want). Overall, I realized that certain beliefs I held weren't as supported as I was led to believe by conservatives. I attended a conservative Christian college but had two left-leaning professors in particular & a few new left-leaning friends who broke me out of my conservative bubble and challenged my previous beliefs. Growing up I was taught that issues like racism & sexism were issues of the past (and totally blown out of proportion by virtue signaling woke libtards). This new group of people gave me a different story via personal anecdotes (from my new friends) & substantial research (from my professors). Over the course of four years and lots of debating, I came to the conclusion that the biggest pillar of my ring-wing belief (namely the idea of merit, aka 'you can do anything as long as you work hard' & the inverse "If you're struggling it's primarily your fault") wasn't as absolute as I thought it was.
Trust me, I was not looking to turn to the left in the slightest. I mean, who wants to be associated with woke feminists (or worse, liberals)? Of course, I don't agree with everything the woke crowd believes nor do I have many positive things to say about Biden & other libs. But overall I'm now firmly planted somewhere on the left because the right just didn't have sufficient support for the biggest issues. Feel free to ask any other questions but that's the basic story for me.
Fantastic question - I'm admittedly still undecided on exactly how to approach this issue. But here's my basic moral justification:
All people should have equality of opportunity
Discriminated groups have less opportunity
Privileged groups have more opportunity
Therefore, discriminated groups ought to have more opportunity so all people have equality of opportunity.
('Equality' in this case simply means 'as equal as is possible to realistically achieve')
As a simple hypothetical, I would support increased government funding to schools with predominately black student bodies. This would privilege the discriminated-against but is justified based on my value of equality of opportunity. (Edit: I would also support increased government funding for schools in poorer areas using this same logic as well).
I'm curious, what is your opinion/justification on the same issue?
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