from Hacker News

Guns, Drugs and Viral Content: Welcome to Cartel TikTok

by discocrisco on 11/29/20, 2:44 PM with 8 comments

• by swiley on 11/29/20, 3:31 PM

  You could see this kind of thing happening with macro images on imgur and reddit 6 years ago. So much of this "organic" social media is just submarine PR. It's awful.

• by Ancapistani on 11/29/20, 4:44 PM

  I don’t see it as a problem.

  First, it reinforces that the cartels are a huge part of life tor real people, not some theoretical issue “somewhere else”. It personifies the issue.

  Second, I don’t buy for a moment the idea that it will turn our kids into sicarios. If anything, knowing that world actually exists just under the surface and so nearby should give pause to people who are flirting with the edges of it.

• by Firebrand on 11/29/20, 4:29 PM

  TikTok seems like content moderation time bomb in general, and it makes me wonder if they’re struggling to attract brands when they can’t ensure their ads won’t end up appearing after a heroin production video that’s already racked up a half million views.

• by h2odragon on 11/29/20, 4:43 PM

  Wait, I never really caught on to what the first "TikTok panic" was about. There was noise about someone was going to have to sell the "TikTok" part of the company? because $reasons? then that couldn't happen because $orange_man_bad? or just because it was his idea?

  I bet "They're showing heinous shit to the childrens" is a big reason for urgency, too. Like people have kids and immediately forget that they were kids, saw all that themselves, and came out ok.