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Re110: TikTok for Addicting the World's Kids

retraice.com

Tristan Harris's analysis of China's TikTok vs. the exported version.
Tristan Harris on TikTok; spinach TikTok for Chinese kids, opium for everyone else; the Opium Wars and the `Century of Humiliation'; TikTok content and time limits for Chinese kids; Netflix on the attention economy vs. sleep; Russia and China trying to radicalize U.S. veterans via social media; war and civil war.

Air date: Sunday, 8th Jan. 2023, 10:00 PM Eastern/US.

This is a follow-up to Re109, Retraice (2023/01/07), where we described TitTok as a tool for Chinese spying. It's worse than that.

Tristan Harris is co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, worked as a design ethicist at Google, and studied computer science at Stanford.^1

Tristan Harris on 60 Minutes, 2022:

"It's almost like [Chinese company Bytedance] recognize[s] that technology [is] influencing kids' development, and [so] they make their domestic version a spinach TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world."^2

Cf. Re48, Retraice (2022/11/12), on the Opium Wars and the `century of humiliation [of China]', a Chinese term.

TikTok in China, if you're under 14 years old:^3
* science experiments
* museum exhibits
* patriotism
* educational content
* limited to 40min per day
* mandatory 5 sec delay now and then
* opening and closing hours

Harris on Joe Rogan, 2021

"It's like Xi saw The Social Dilemma [and so enacted changes to protect only China's kids]."

On the attention economy more broadly: "Even Netflix said their biggest competitor is sleep, because they're all competing for attention."^4

In the same episode, Harris says Russia and China try to radicalize U.S. veteran's groups on social media, to increase the likelihood of such tactically trained people joining or starting civil war. Cf. Re17, Retraice (2022/03/07), on both war with China and U.S. civil war.

_

References

Retraice (2022/03/07). Re17: Hypotheses to Eleven. retraice.com.
https://www.retraice.com/segments/re17 Retrieved 17th Mar. 2022.

Retraice (2022/11/12). Re48: From Drugs to Mao to Money. retraice.com.
https://www.retraice.com/segments/re48 Retrieved 14th Nov. 2022.

Retraice (2023/01/07). Re109: TikTok (app), Tik-Tok (novel), and Low-Power Mode (Day 7, AIMA4e Chpt. 7). retraice.com.
https://www.retraice.com/segments/re109 Retrieved 8th Jan. 2023.

Footnotes

^1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Harris.

^2 TikTok in China versus the United States -- 60 Minutes, Nov. 8, 2022. Available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0xzuh-6rY

^3 Some of these items and the following quotes are from Tristan Harris on Joe Rogan #1736, 2021. Clip available at: What China's Crackdown on Algorithm's Means for the US, Nov. 18, 2021.

^4 https://youtu.be/im4O2sW3FiY?t=210