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SomethingMatter t1_jddv7kr wrote

Reply to comment by littleMAS in The average TikTok user in the US is an adult 'well past college age,' CEO says by djJAMZ

No, the average age is higher than the voting age. Average <> most. One 90 year old person can bring up the average in a group with 9 x 10 year olds to 18 years.

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littleMAS t1_jdemb88 wrote

"More than 150 million people in the United States use TikTok on a monthly basis, with the average user today being an adult well past college age." Refers not to the average age but the average user, a reference to the median or the central tendency of the distribution. If he has said 'average age,' you would have been right to call him out. However, his remarks were pre-published, and the nuances seem well polished.

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SomethingMatter t1_jdend1j wrote

I don't think we can make that assumption. Average typically refers to the mean and average user can be referring to the median user or a fictitious "average user" that is drawn up by using the mean.

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littleMAS t1_jdf0heb wrote

True, 'average' can be vague. If TikTok had every American under the age of 18, it would still have the average user as adult since only 73 million are below 18. Given they have 150 million Americans users, the average being of voting age is the only conclusion. While the document goes into great detail about how TikTok protects children and the privacy rights of all Americans, the paper presented to Congress led by stating that their American users are adults, hence of voting age, regardless of whether we look at it as the mean, median, or multi-modal distribution.

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SomethingMatter t1_jdf4liz wrote

It's tricky because TikTok are talking about 150 million users but are those people that installed the app once, monthly, or daily users? My guess is total users. Those distributions are likely to skew differently. Distributions could also mean a very large gap between the median and mean or one that differs by only a year. We don't have enough information and the only people who do won't give us that information. I don't doubt that the median age is on or above 18 but that also depends on what we are looking at. Daily/Monthly/Total users.

Even if it was 18 or 20, that would put almost half of their users in school and at that point content pushing algorithms become really important. A lot of the protections for children either started in January this year or a commitments for things that they will do.

To be fair. My criticisms here aren't just about TikTok. I have the same problems with all social media companies and trust them to respect people's privacy about as far as I can spit. The only times that they have done things in favor of the privacy of people, and more especially children, is when they have been compelled to by law. Their business model relies on the data that they acquire from users.

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littleMAS t1_jdfa21g wrote

Of the 73.7 million Americans under the age of 18, 20 million are under the age of five. It seems likely that very few of them are TikTok users. My point is that at least 75 million Americans, roughly the number who voted for Trump, were identified as TikTok users and, therefore, potentially voters. Given the state of our politics, I believe they made their point to those elected officials, who will grumble about it and move on.

Yes, social media has shown limited regard, at best, for user privacy. "The user is the product" has been their mantra. TikTok is no different. Like all 'too big to fail' social media companies, TikTok is making its point, "We are too big to ban."

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SomethingMatter t1_jdfc4n3 wrote

The whole talk of banning them make absolutely no sense. The US has no reasonable mechanism to block their website and people can side load applications onto their phones and other devices. It's completely unenforceable. That's ignoring that it probably steps on quite a few laws and the constitution along the way.

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littleMAS t1_jdfev8z wrote

That is true, but politicians need cover. So, they can hold hearings and pontificate and pass a law that is unenforceable. Then they will brag about it during their re-election campaigns.

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