this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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This one isn't going to age well.
Based on my experience, having never used TT myself, but married to someone who does and friends with people who do...
You DON'T really get different perspectives. In ANY of those platform styles.
It's literally designed to show you whatever you engage most with, and usually that's "things that get you angry" regardless of who you are. For my wife, it's "here's how my family is shitty/aita" for some of my friends it's "here's how I was being misgendered/deadnamed/not accepted" and for some people I know, it's "here's a person who is not cis/white/christian/male existing in my general area"
I guess you get the different perspectives if you know a wide variety of people who use it and don't actually use it yourself?
Algorithms are cancer. I've always been very left-leaning, but the moment I immigrated to western Canada, YouTube started trying to spoon-feed me Jordan Peterson and other right-wing trash. I've trained it since to thoroughly fuck off, but it was very eye-opening.
Algorithms that can deliver somewhat personalized content for things like music and entertainment can be great and help people find things they dig they never would have otherwise.
Algorithms delivering personalized content for things like news and medical information are absolutely cancer, tho.
Yeah I like Spotify for finding new hip-hop but I think if it was a different genre I might not have the same success
You might however get different perspectives from those that lawmakers or other powerful people want people to mostly see. (True on TikTok and all other social media. I consider it one of the greatest achievements of the Internet that it makes it a lot harder for the powerful to maintain an "overton window" and I consider it one of the most important societal causes to make sure they can't undo that achievement.)
Earlier today I shared this story https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/tiktok-ban-fueled-by-israel-not-china which may or may not have been an inspiration for the story in the OP, but is definitely an example.
I think it has a stronger leftist pipeline than other platforms and so is better able to steer someone that way if they're susceptible to it. Same goes with neo-nazi shit but thats something already available on other platforms
No, it doesn't have a leftward pipeline. It recommends 2X as much right-wing content as left-wing content.
It may have had a left lean at somepoint, but it does not now.