so you claim that Chinese alternatives are free from dark patterns, don’t get people hooked, and don’t track users on the internet? if not, then it’s about who controls people, not using better products.
so you claim that Chinese alternatives are free from dark patterns, don’t get people hooked, and don’t track users on the internet?
No. I meant it’s wrong to assert that it would be a good practice to open up the market for western software companies and try to beat them by making a better product.
To be hinest with you I don’t think blocking access to (for example) Facebook and providing an indigenous alternative to it amounts to restriction in an ethically sensible way. I was going to write a longer reply but I am a bit drunk so I’ll refrain. Let me know what you think about so I can try to explain myself a bit better.
what I meant is that, instead of making access to facebook or twitter harder, educate people and explain to them why these platforms are bad. let people know that GAFAM are basically doing NSA’s work at this point, that they have started to centralize internet and take away people’s freedom, that these platforms see the user as nothing more than an ad-watching animal that has to become addicted to scrolling, stuff like that. if it happens, then people would see these platforms for what they are, and won’t be interested in joining them. this will benefit everyone, people can’t say China is censoring the internet or oppressing its people, Chinses people have a better digital literacy, etc.
the other problem is how the restrictions are applied. for example why is lemmygrad blocked by the firewall? it’s platform made by communists for communists, so I don’t see the ponit in banning it.
the third problem I would say is the Chinese alternatives themselves. I don’t see wechat or tiktok (apparently it has a different version in China) as better alternatives. they still have many features that are undesirable, they’re centralized, privacy-invasive, proprietary, addictive and profit driven, in other words, they become the very thing they swore to destroy.
let’s remember that TikTok is a Chinses app. it has an infinite scroll feature that shows you a tailored set of videos that need an attention span of less than a minute. it’s litterally so addicting that instagram and youtube introduced a similar feature. it also track users.
I’m not blaming China here, this is just the result of centralised proprietary and profit driven social media that do not care for the user and try to maximize the time you spend browsing them.
but when it comes to the last part of my previous comment, tracking users and invading their privacy, well, where should we even begin.
TikTok is actually the foreign app! China uses Douyin, from the same people. I’m not sure how it’s regimented in China as I’ve never used it, it would be interesting to ask someone who knows about this.
But it’s a real criticism that can be made. Certainly we uphold China as socialist, but also see their contradiction with the capitalist world order where they have had to integrate not only the mercantile logic, but everything that comes from it: alienation, new fleeting products on new markets, and thus people spend their evenings infinitely scrolling Tiktok or Douyin after work.
TikTok is actually the foreign app! China uses Douyin, from the same people. I’m not sure how it’s regimented in China as I’ve never used it, it would be interesting to ask someone who knows about this.
oh, I didn’t know. agreed, it would be interesting to see the differences.
But it’s a real criticism that can be made. Certainly we uphold China as socialist, but also see their contradiction with the capitalist world order where they have had to integrate not only the mercantile logic, but everything that comes from it: alienation, new fleeting products on new markets, and thus people spend their evenings infinitely scrolling Tiktok or Douyin after work.
yeah, it’s a shame. the same happens also with free software, for example lemmy and mastodon have infinite scrolling as well. so even when developers are deliberatly trying to give users some control, we still have to deal with the unethical aspects of profit driven systems leaking into our environment. I guess capitalism corrupts anything it sees on spot.
I went to see if Douyin is different, and found this on its wikipedia page:
TikTok and Douyin have almost the same user interface but no access to each other’s content. Their servers are each based in the market where the respective app is available. The two products are similar, but features are not identical. Douyin includes an in-video search feature that can search by people’s face for more videos of them and other features such as buying, booking hotels and making geo-tagged reviews. Since its launch in 2016, TikTok/Douyin rapidly gained popularity in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the United States, Turkey, Russia, and other parts of the world. As of October 2020, TikTok surpassed over 2 billion mobile downloads worldwide.
Some users may find it hard to stop using TikTok. In April 2018, an addiction-reduction feature was added to Douyin. This encouraged users to take a break every 90 minutes. Later in 2018, the feature was rolled out to the TikTok app. TikTok uses some top influencers such as Gabe Erwin, Alan Chikin Chow, James Henry, and Cosette Rinab to encourage viewers to stop using the app and take a break.
Many were also concerned with users’ attention spans with these videos. Users watch short 15-second clips repeatedly and studies say that this could report to a decrease in attention span. This is a concern as many of TikTok’s audience are younger children, whose brains are still developing.
so the only diferences are different servers and environment, and some extra features on Douyin (one of which relies on facial recognition, which means they scan videos for faces and identify them). honestly it seems to be even worse than instagram or youtube :|
so you claim that Chinese alternatives are free from dark patterns, don’t get people hooked, and don’t track users on the internet? if not, then it’s about who controls people, not using better products.
No. I meant it’s wrong to assert that it would be a good practice to open up the market for western software companies and try to beat them by making a better product.
I agree, however, I think it would be better to do this by educating citizens, not by restricting them.
To be hinest with you I don’t think blocking access to (for example) Facebook and providing an indigenous alternative to it amounts to restriction in an ethically sensible way. I was going to write a longer reply but I am a bit drunk so I’ll refrain. Let me know what you think about so I can try to explain myself a bit better.
what I meant is that, instead of making access to facebook or twitter harder, educate people and explain to them why these platforms are bad. let people know that GAFAM are basically doing NSA’s work at this point, that they have started to centralize internet and take away people’s freedom, that these platforms see the user as nothing more than an ad-watching animal that has to become addicted to scrolling, stuff like that. if it happens, then people would see these platforms for what they are, and won’t be interested in joining them. this will benefit everyone, people can’t say China is censoring the internet or oppressing its people, Chinses people have a better digital literacy, etc.
the other problem is how the restrictions are applied. for example why is lemmygrad blocked by the firewall? it’s platform made by communists for communists, so I don’t see the ponit in banning it.
the third problem I would say is the Chinese alternatives themselves. I don’t see wechat or tiktok (apparently it has a different version in China) as better alternatives. they still have many features that are undesirable, they’re centralized, privacy-invasive, proprietary, addictive and profit driven, in other words, they become the very thing they swore to destroy.
Probably not, considering China is fighting against letting people be “no-lives”, that spend all their free time on a computer.
let’s remember that TikTok is a Chinses app. it has an infinite scroll feature that shows you a tailored set of videos that need an attention span of less than a minute. it’s litterally so addicting that instagram and youtube introduced a similar feature. it also track users.
I’m not blaming China here, this is just the result of centralised proprietary and profit driven social media that do not care for the user and try to maximize the time you spend browsing them.
but when it comes to the last part of my previous comment, tracking users and invading their privacy, well, where should we even begin.
TikTok is actually the foreign app! China uses Douyin, from the same people. I’m not sure how it’s regimented in China as I’ve never used it, it would be interesting to ask someone who knows about this.
But it’s a real criticism that can be made. Certainly we uphold China as socialist, but also see their contradiction with the capitalist world order where they have had to integrate not only the mercantile logic, but everything that comes from it: alienation, new fleeting products on new markets, and thus people spend their evenings infinitely scrolling Tiktok or Douyin after work.
oh, I didn’t know. agreed, it would be interesting to see the differences.
yeah, it’s a shame. the same happens also with free software, for example lemmy and mastodon have infinite scrolling as well. so even when developers are deliberatly trying to give users some control, we still have to deal with the unethical aspects of profit driven systems leaking into our environment. I guess capitalism corrupts anything it sees on spot.
I went to see if Douyin is different, and found this on its wikipedia page:
so the only diferences are different servers and environment, and some extra features on Douyin (one of which relies on facial recognition, which means they scan videos for faces and identify them). honestly it seems to be even worse than instagram or youtube :|
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