For example, I don’t use TikTok. I never have, and I never will, and I’d advise everyone else to get off the platform too. I genuinely believe it’s objectively harmful to people’s mental health and possibly even a threat to democracy. That said, I also believe people should be free to decide for themselves whether they want to use it or not, which is why I’m against the U.S. government banning it.
That people should try things before they fully pass judgement. I’m not particularly pro TikTok but a lot of Lemmy’s anti TilTok views are ones they’ve picked up from media parroting.
Yeah same with heroin just try it once it’s fun
Now obviously TikTok isn’t heroin, but it’s deliberately made to be addictive and I’d find it hard to believe that a given person has never seen TikTok content outside of TikTok. So it’s known garbage with known addictive properties and your question is why don’t we just give it a try before we pass judgement on how fun it is to scroll through a large quantity of that same garbage.
Also don’t forget TikTok content existed before the TikTok addiction algorithm. Early YouTube was like that before the algorithm change to promote ten minute vids. Vine existed and was rejected (thank god) by my generation. Etc. it’s not new content it’s just a new tool
Everything that is built for profit is designed for maximum retention of users i.e. addiction.
I’m not sure I follow what you mean by “I’d find it hard to believe that a given person has never seen tiktok content outside tiktok”
I’m not defending TikTok blindly here, it just annoys me when people pass judgement with pretty much zero knowledge on something except from what they’ve heard/read.
I know TikTok is flawed yes but no more or less than any other profit driven app/site. If you don’t like short form content then that’s fine, personally I think there’s a time and place for it.
Perhaps you shouldnt have said ‘without trying it’, you dont need to try TikTok to know the downsides. But theres a difference between ‘I hate TikTok because others hate it’ and ‘Ive read some studies about social media addiction and reject TikTok’
That said, Im not particularly against TikTok, but it definitely needs more regulation like any other legal drug.