#online tik tok

[flamedoesart]

I feel like people tend to forget that the reason children are on websites they really shouldn't be on, like Twitter for example, is because there are no spaces on the internet anymore specifically designed for children, unless it's for babies or toddlers.

The death of Flash also meant the death of thousands of games and websites specifically designed for the 9-13 demographic. Now granted, several games died long before Flash did (like the Holy Disney MMO trio - Pixie Hollow, ToonTown and Club Penguin) but there were other websites designed around what kids would enjoy. Sites like Kongregate, Sploder, GirlsGoGames and others were designed with kids in mind.

These sites were special in the sense that it gave fun games for children to play without even really needing to interact with other people directly. They could play the games and have fun. If they wanted to make friends they could, and oftentimes these sites had moderation to prevent kids from having full control over what they could say so as to prevent bullying and potential cyberstalking.

But now Flash is dead, and there's barely any hangout spots for that demographic anymore. I think the last remaining game you can play that doesn't require Flash that was a major part of the 2010s game nostalgia was Wizard101, but that game comes with the flaw of membership programs, similar to all the other MMOs that existed at the time.

Needless to say, the next time we ask in annoyance why there's so many 12 year olds on Twitter and Tik Tok, remember that it's because there's literally no online spaces anymore solely for them and only them, that majority of adults wouldn't step foot into anymore.

[sortagolddigger]

Girl all these videos of dusties attacking black women are starting to make me want to go on a full campaign that black women should only associate with a certain kind of man

Y'all need to make dusties suffer with loneliness. They are way too comfortable attacking us in front of the world!

[savage-flirtation]

https://www.tiktok.com/@laura_horowitz?_t=8jvzENEroOm&_r=1

[soullessbullshit]

Fennorian: Hey, father, can I go to a party tonight?

Verandis: Are you gonna drink?

Fennorian: No.

Verandis: Are you gonna do drugs?

Fennorian: No?

Verandis: Are you gonna have sex?

Fennorian: No!

Verandis: Then why the fuck are you going?

[cy-cyborg]

I'm seeing a lot of people here and on other platforms getting angry at people who have come from Tik Tok (and youtube to a lesser extent) who refuse to say words like death, racism and anything relating to heavy topics. Sometimes they won't even say the names of minorities either.

Any I get why this is frustrating and just not a good practice. The people criticising these folks are absolutely right, we need to get comfortable saying these words and discussing these topics. Not to mention the fact that self-censorship can cause issues for people who are legitimatly triggered by those topics (e.g. due to trauma), But as someone who spent a lot of time on Tik Tok and youtube before coming here, I think there's some vital context missing here.

I'd say a good 75% of the people on tik tok, and by extention, people who have moved elsewhere from Tik Tok, using words like "unalive," "r#pe," "sewerslide" or whatever else aren't using it because they're uncomfortable with the topic. In fact, it's quite the opposite. They want to talk about it, but Tik Tok's content moderation is so wildly strict that they can't. Even saying the words would get you flagged by the algorithm, ESPECIALLY if you had captions enabled or the actual word written in text from the in-app editor. This was especially true for people from minorities trying to talk about issues affecting their community or even just themselves (hence the hesitation to even say the minorities name sometimes).

This isn't just some conspiracy theory either. Tik Tok staff admitted to doing this intentionally on several occasions as a way to "keep the peace". I remeber when I first joined, it came out that they intentionally limited views on videos of visibly disabled people, both to prevent bullying but also because "some users find that content disturbung." I couldn't even show my stumps in videos without my videos getting stuck on 0 views at best or account warnings for "inappropriate content" at worst. I got DMs from several people after my video about disability pride month in July asking why their comments wishing me a happy disability pride month got removed, when I went into check the filtered comments, they'd all been hidden for "bullying". The same thing was happening with people commenting and saying the word "autism." And that's just the disabled community. I know similar stuff was happening in other communities too.

Most of the time, you had to speak in coded language to get your point out there. It's not that they're uncomfortable with it, it's because the videos would be dead in the water if they didn't. Getting the message out using these "toned down" replacements was better than not getting it out at all.

"OK, but this isnt tik tok, they shouldn't do that here" yeah, I agree, but for a lot of kids, Tik Tok was their first real experiance with social media, it makes sense that they're going to assume other platforms will be the same. YouTube is just as bad, if not worse, in some respects. Tumblr even has its fair share of censorship issues, too (e.g. queer people's posts being flagged as mature for seemingly no reason). It's not a stretch to make the assumption they'd need to continue the practice of self-censorship here, too.

This isn't to say that NO ONE is using the censored words to avoid hard topics/because it makes them uncomfy, but in my experiance, those people assume this is the best thing to do because everyone else was using it. They don't stop to ask why. They just repeat it, which in turn contributes to making them umcomfey with the real word.

I'm not saying don't pick people up on this stuff. We NEED those words, and we need to be more comfortable with them so stuff like the above situation doesn't happen and become a self-perpetuating cycle. But it started from a real, genuine need to censor ourselves to even get the message out, and I think it's important to keep that in mind. It's not just kids being "too sensitive."

[themancorialist]

Piccadilly, Manchester.

[cheetour]

reminder: viewing and sharing posts online is a morally neutral action. 90% of the time you will get better news and analysis from books and newspapers and by following the work of specific journalists anyway. sitting at home not talking to anyone will impact the world about the same amount as it did 30 years ago, even if the internet makes it feel like that's not true anymore.

[lifestylebysheena]

The Good Gal's Guide To Decentering Men - A How To Decenter Men Conversa...

[akechi-if-he-slayed]

this is how i feel whenever people go out of their way to describe how abysmal and disgusting kyman is as if it is not. a ship in a cartoon with characters who are very much not real people!!!

[gorillaxyz]

hopefully now that im being weaned off of being as chronically online i can save nixie too

[catherinemaplewood]

sse deciding to cut off twitter is soooo irratating. like i, frequent twt user, NEEDED that. >:(

[bunn-iiii]

I am expecting someone to eventually tell me to shut up about my bf but I'm still gonna talk abt him anyways and they can suck it up

[soullessbullshit]

Cassian: The best way to get back at someone who wronged you is to live a happy life.

Cassian: But chemically, I can’t do that, so I’m gonna fuck his dad.

[ssahotchnerr]

VERY curious question, was hotch the character that first grabbed your attention or was it someone else and then drifted to him?

AHHHH omg so YES aaron was the very very first one to catch my attention, but i tried to convince myself i was a spencer girl bc i was like 🤨 hotch is too old. that's weird 🫵🏻

BUT once i got to like s10 (i literally sped through watching the show bc quarantine 2020 yk so it didn't take long) i was like - who am i kidding!?!?!?!?! 🥰🤭