Recent comments in /f/technology

DevAnalyzeOperate t1_jbdxin9 wrote

Reply to comment by zUdio in New Bill Could Ban TikTok, Other Foreign Technology Products in US Over Data Collection Concerns by donnygel

The main reason I wanted to do this was because of Forbes reporting on TikTok spying on journalists. https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/12/22/tiktok-tracks-forbes-journalists-bytedance/?sh=607f09b47da5

I'll also point out that if you're concerned about the free market - why are you more concerned with this potential ban in America than the ongoing ban of YouTube and Twitter and Facebook and Google in China? A free market doesn't exist and there is a one sided trade barrier. Also banning a business that's a competitor to a western business, even doing that explicitly for that reason, particularly when china has already enacted similar trade barriers (thus meaning there would be no breaking of any treaty under international law) can indeed be enforceable and legal. If you ban TikTok from the mainstream it won't have the nessecary content and social network to survive.

In terms of being ethical/moral/reasonable, my concern is actually the impact it would have on younger generations, I don't know why the fuck anybody would be concerned about what Meta thought about the issue. TikTok is a massive part of youth culture. These are all subjective things though. all I can say is objectively keeping China in control of the social media platform most western youth use is objectively a huge intelligence boon as well as an economic and military advantage.

The biggest argument I will give against the sale is that China already moved their datacenters to the US so it might simply be overkill to also force them to say, divest TikTok to a US owned entity in exchange for a payout.

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whatistheformat t1_jbdwaye wrote

Reply to comment by Dragoniel in How Reddit is getting simpler — and dealing with TikTok, with chief product officer Pali Bhat by BronzeHeart92

agreed. I check out the new layout occasionally and encounter multiple issues within minutes. From a usability standpoint it's a nightmare. Clearly they feel the pressure to compete in the doomscrolling marketplace, but If they force reddit to be just another tiktok, it will lose what makes it unique and worth going to. Searching the web with the term "reddit" is probably their biggest marketing coup rn, if they bust up communities they will be losing massive value.

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Dragoniel t1_jbdvvkk wrote

Reply to comment by Hrmbee in How Reddit is getting simpler — and dealing with TikTok, with chief product officer Pali Bhat by BronzeHeart92

> Lots of people use Google to find things on Reddit, which is often used as a criticism of Google’s search quality. I wanted to know if Pali thinks Google is vulnerable in search, if Reddit can become a primary search engine for people, and most importantly, what he took from Google’s culture and what he left behind in organizing Reddit’s product team.

That paragraph makes no sense. Google is used to search for things on Reddit, because Reddit's own search is useless. How is that criticism for Google...? Nothing that Reddit will ever do to its search will be able to square up to Google's tools. There's no way in hell.

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Dragoniel t1_jbduxf4 wrote

Reply to How Reddit is getting simpler — and dealing with TikTok, with chief product officer Pali Bhat by BronzeHeart92

They talk a lot about all the new features and user-centric design and all that and here I am still using old.reddit.com mode, because every time I resolve to get used to the "new" fancy design, I give up and return to the original within an hour. It's fucking godawful. If they ever discontinued the old mode, I'd just quit reddit altogether the same day.

So, all this talk sounds empty to me.

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Hrmbee t1_jbdurhl wrote

Reply to How Reddit is getting simpler — and dealing with TikTok, with chief product officer Pali Bhat by BronzeHeart92

>Pali Bhat joined Reddit from Google about a year ago — he’s actually Reddit’s first-ever chief product officer, which is pretty surprising considering that Reddit is a series of product experiences: the reading experience, the writing experience, and importantly, the moderation experience. One thing we always say on Decoder is that the real product of any social network is content moderation, and Reddit is maybe the best example of that: every subreddit is shaped by volunteer moderators who use the tools Reddit builds for them. So Pali has a big job bringing all these products together and making them better, all while trying to grow Reddit as a platform. > >Pali wanted to come on Decoder to talk about his new focus on making Reddit simpler: simpler for new users to join and find interesting conversations; simpler to participate in those threads; and simpler to moderate. We talked a lot about the tension between what new users need when they’re learning to use Reddit and what Reddit power users want — if the goal is to grow the site, you run the risk of irritating your oldest users with change. > >We also talked about video. Reddit is rolling out a dedicated video feed, which sounds a lot like an attempt to compete with TikTok, which every social network is trying to do — and we talked quite a bit about Google and search. Lots of people use Google to find things on Reddit, which is often used as a criticism of Google’s search quality. I wanted to know if Pali thinks Google is vulnerable in search, if Reddit can become a primary search engine for people, and most importantly, what he took from Google’s culture and what he left behind in organizing Reddit’s product team.

This was an interesting interview. Of particular interest to me was that before Pali there was no chief product officer. Even without that though the product team(s) seemed to be doing a passable job at the very least. Hopefully this new director impacts the user experience in a positive way in the coming months and years.

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Firechess t1_jbcww05 wrote

Reply to comment by uberinstinct in Meta's 'year of efficiency' continues, thousands more expected to be laid off by chrisdh79

And McDonalds killed even more people with diabetes. Welcome to human beings becoming shitty through excess. But I bet you don't even know who McDonald's CEO is. Or even Nestlé. The only thing that stands out about Zuckerberg is that he made his company from his dorm room, and therefore he gets the dishonor of being more evil than Mao Zedong.

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whitexheat t1_jbckve9 wrote

Reply to comment by DoesntWantToBe in Meta's 'year of efficiency' continues, thousands more expected to be laid off by chrisdh79

I work at a tech company in a non-programming role and this is true for us as well. I ask a different set of questions for anyone coming from a FAANG to sus out if they've been scrappy and done a breadth of work. They're all smart and capable people, but like you said, they've often have more resources at their disposal and haven't had to wear 5 different hats in a day.

Also, in my field, a lot of people got hired at FAANGs straight out of PhD programs and there are some issues with that as well. Like clearly bright people, but don't always have the soft skill sets we're looking for so I tend to hire from similarly-sized companies.

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