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So far, Americans using RedNote have said they don’t care if China has access to their data. Viral videos on TikTok in recent days have shown Americans jokingly saying they will miss their personal “Chinese spy,” while others say they are purposefully giving RedNote access to their data in a show of protest against the wishes of the U.S. government.
“This also highlights the fact that people are thirsty for platforms that aren’t controlled by the same few oligarchs,” Quintin said. “People will happily jump to another platform even if it presents new, unknown risks.”
I used to think that the perceived complexity of the fediverse was creating a hurdle for more adoption.
Now all these fucking people are learning Chinese to better use RedNote.
Apparently convenience isn’t actually a barrier? I’m baffled why so many people are flocking to anything other than the fediverse.
id rather learn Mandarin than Linux
I think it’s probably marketing more than convenience
Exactly. I think a lot of people just go to whatever is blasted into their eyeballs often enough without a second thought as to the source. I bet with the TikTok news, RedNote probably started paying a bunch of influencers to astroturf and bought a bunch of ad space.
I doubt so many people would be buying nonsense on Temu if it wasn’t buying up every. Single. Unblocked. Ad space. Across everything.
People would be like “WTF is a Temu? I’m not into pokemon. Oh I see. It looks sketchy.”
I agree. You have to either be in the tech sphere or privacy sphere to know about fediverse apps. Outside of reddit refugees I don’t think anyone using the normal apps know about fediverse options or what that even means to be decentralized. I don’t think it’s really a functionality or convenience issue, we really need our own special interest groups or something to help with fedi app branding and PR. Not sure if that is even something that is crowd sourceble?
It’s marketing, but it’s also the value proposition. Average Joes don’t see the value in decentralization, privacy, or the freedom from corporate control. Although that may change under an authoritarian regime…
A big barrier is the UI, the default lemmy UI is terrible.
The apps aren’t great either, I’m very techy and haven’t found one feels as nice as reddit (and the reddit app has many issues)
Normies just aren’t going to push past all those barriers
Lemmy website is decent for me on mobile and PC alike, what are your complaints?
What mobile app do you use?
I’ve tried a few, none of them are great for various reasons. My favourite is Sync The up-vote buttons are hidden on comments. Very annoying
The default website is terrible, it looks like the social media app I built in highschool for a project. You have to click into every post to see it properly.
I use photon.lemmy.world but non tech people will give up long before finding it.
And when I introduce people to Lemmy and send them that link, some literally think it’s a virus link, it looks dodgy
show me a federated system that has a bunch of cool tiktoky videos….
afaik, it’s mostly text and that much data would be a huge problem
pick one
Loops by Pixelfed
IMO it is DOA because the whole point of TikTok is the feed algorithm. You’re not supposed to pick what to watch, the algorithm knows your interests. The idea of TikTok therefore is fundamentally unethical and any libre alternatives will be hindered by the fact that users want the unethical part which no developer should or wants to implement.
Sounds like they’re actually rolling out a for you feed in the near future
I don’t see why the concept should be unethical.
In practice, of course it is insanely unethical as the algorithms are designed to maximize view time which leads to algorithmic radicalization and hate spreading more quickly, but the concept of an algorithm knowing and learning what you like and selecting for you itself isn’t unethical.
Unless you host it yourself, you have practically given away your soul to an instance operator
It’s expensive for video though.
In other words, I have a hard time seeing Pixelfed with a high quality “benign” TikTok algorithm. It’s already possible for music, but video data\analysis is just so voluminous that, without the profitable exploitation backing it, I don’t see how they’d pay for it.
We also have to consider moderation. If suddenly everyone just jumped to the fediverse all at once…hoo boi let’s just say I bet the FBI would have quite a field day.
But then again there’s PeerTube instances that seem to be doing pretty well so…I dunno…?
It’s like engineering drugs specifically targeting reward systems of the brain associated with human emotional development and socialization.
Edit: more explicit
I’m sorry, say that again?
Besides the fact that it’s quite difficult to do this non-invasively, giving anyone instant access to any amount of exactly what they want most is
dangerous(Edit: likely irresponsible, potentially dangerous, like designing escapist drugs, fine line between helping and hurting, and you must consider both).Definitely find lack of care on the part of fellow computer scientists irresponsible. I’ve rejected grant followups for thinly veiled weapons research for the same reason; i.e., potential misuse.
Oh wow, how you so perfectly, succinctly described all the empty promises of Ai hype in one elegant line. 😬
I get it now