374K views · Nov 8, 2022 · 1:24 · 2 HN recommenders · 8 mentions · discussed 2022–2025
A 60 Minutes segment in which Tristan Harris contrasts TikTok with its Chinese counterpart Douyin. He argues that Chinese children get wholesome, time-limited content while the rest of the world gets the addictive version.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN cites it in TikTok ban debates as the accessible summary of how Douyin and TikTok differ.
“tl;dw: Chinese users get more wholesome content, particularly children, along with usage limits.”HN comment, 2023
“tl;dw: Chinese users get more wholesome content, particularly children, along with usage limits.”
Douyin versus TikTok differences
60 Minutes piece on Douyin (domestic users) versus TikTok (foreign users): this video tl;dw: Chinese users get more wholesome content, particularly children, along with usage limits.
“Here's a video about the differences”
Explains differences between Douyin and TikTok
> There’s an equivalent called Douyin. Having used neither, I don’t know what’s the difference, if any. Here's a video about the differences: TikTok in China versus the United States | 60 Minutes: this video Douyin is much healthier. Chinese children cannot use Douyin for more than 40 min a day, and it promotes positive content like science experiments you can do at home. American kids can use TikTok as much as they want, and so are addicted. I don't use it, but I'm almost certain it doesn't just show prosocial educational content to kids, but mostly mindless entertainment and influencer ads. The result is the most popular career Chinese kids saw they want to grow up to be astronauts, but American kids want to be social media influences.
“Here's a segment by 60 Minutes explaining how they show their own citizens educational, beneficial content”
Compares Douyin and TikTok content for children
If you read the first paragraph of the article, the primary concern mentioned is not surveillance, it's influencing the American public in ways that benefits China and harms the US. Psy-ops effectively Here's a segment by 60 Minutes explaining how they show their own citizens educational, beneficial content inspiring them to be better citizens, while the rest of the world gets the degenerative content we usually associate with ticktok. And China could easily further adjust their ranking algorithm further to highlight the views it wants us to have. All social media has the power to do this, but China has both the most adversarial incentive and a demonstrated willingness to do so. this video
“CBS 60 Minutes Interview with an IT expert just 3 weeks ago”
Interview with tech expert on TikTok's influence
So he made it up thinking it was fake - but now it has been independently shown to be likely true. In which case he made up a conspiracy theory then demonstrated to be accurate when he thought it was a joke. link link CBS 60 Minutes Interview with an IT expert just 3 weeks ago: this video
“The recent 60 minutes story specifically says the type of content is completely different”
Content on Chinese version is very different
This is not true. The recent 60 minutes story specifically says the type of content is completely different because it is heavily moderated in China which is the total opposite of what we see in the US or elsewhere outside of China. this video
“This was around the time I decided that I didn't care what happened to TikTok.”
this video [TikTok in China versus the United States | 60 Minutes] This was around the time I decided that I didn't care what happened to TikTok.
At best this comment implies there's actual an actual smoking gun related to what functionally are nation-state capability and operations to influence populations external to their own, specifically related to TikTok/ByteDance. If you have an AP government level understanding of how China and the USA work, then you can probably understand that this is an intersection of: government laws, great power competition, and wealth seeking behaviors. When you control the algorithm, everyone downstream of it is at the mercy of the power structures and incentives of your top level leadership [0]. Consider the following: 1.) How Chinese companies interact with the CCP: they are 100% subservient with a CCP party member who can pull the CEO in at anytime and assign them tasks related to studying Xi thought and other party material, as well as demand the company do anything for the state. 2.) What great power competition looks like including economic warfare (tariffs, massive state subsidies to protect national defense, influence operations for allies, securing raw materials, reducing reliance on rivals, etc). 3.) How espionage in general works in support of political aims, and especially how each nation uses it to further their goals. For China, it's always been about vacuuming up as much data as possible, and then later on finding use cases for it. The disruption side of their practices are successful if they make chaos in an adversary that forces them to spend time on dealing with that i
“Chinese children are time limited to 40 minutes per day”
Expert comparison of Chinese and US youth content
No, it just moved eastwards and gained a few extra stars. Compare the Chinese iteration of TT (Douyin) with the international version. Chinese children are time limited to 40 minutes per day and get presented 'science experiments you can do at home, museum exhibits, patriotism videos and educational videos' according to a 'tech expert' interviewed on the subject [1] while western girls get told they may be boys and vice-versa if they happen to feel some unease with their growing bodies during puberty. They get inundated in 'influencer' content trying to peddle them the latest make-up trends, the latest fashion fads and more such consumerist drivel. From the interview with the 'expert': “There’s a survey of pre-teens in the U.S. and China asking, ‘what is the most aspirational career that you want to have?’ and in the U.S., the No. 1 was a social media influencer, and in China, the No. 1 was astronaut,” Harris said. “You allow those two societies to play out for a few generations and I can tell you what your world is going to look like.” Of course I did not only mention the CCP as a nefarious actor in the 'social' landscape, did you miss that? I pointed out the (decidedly home-grown) tech moguls as being just as guilty and while they may have tried to virtue signal with the 'progressives' when they were in power they're certainly not part of the 'red scare´ unless they're like Lenin's 'capitalists who will sell the Soviets the rope they will use to hang them'. I don't think th
