抖音海外版TikTok是如何改寫(xiě)世界的

Hello, person who is, statistically speaking, a humanadult aged approximately “millennial” to “boomer.” The analytics suggest a high likelihood that you’reaware there is an app named TikTok, and a similarlyhigh likelihood that you’re not totally sure what it’sall about. Maybe you asked someone younger in yourlife, and they tried to explain and possibly failed. Ormaybe you’ve heard that this new, extraordinarilypopular video app is “a refreshing outlier in thesocial media universe” that’s “genuinely fun touse.” Maybe you even tried it, but bounced straightout, confused and sapped.

你好，一名從統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)上講屬于人類的成年人，年齡大約在“千禧一代”到“嬰兒潮一代”之間。分析表明，你很有可能聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)一個(gè)叫TikTok的應(yīng)用程序，同樣，你也很有可能不完全了解它是干什么的。也許你問(wèn)過(guò)你生活中更年輕的人，他們?cè)噲D做過(guò)解釋，但沒(méi)成功?；蛘吣憧赡苈?tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)，這個(gè)非常受歡迎的新的視頻應(yīng)用“在社交媒體領(lǐng)域是一個(gè)令人耳目一新的異類”，“使用起來(lái)確實(shí)有趣”。也許你試過(guò)它，但因?yàn)槔Щ蠛托箽?，馬上就放棄了。

“Fear of missing out” is a common way to describe how social media can make people feellike everyone else is part of something — a concert, a secret beach, a brunch — that they’renot. A new wrinkle in this concept is that sometimes that “something” is a social mediaplatform itself. Maybe you saw a photo of some friends on Instagram at a great party andwondered why you weren’t there. But then, next in your feed, you saw a weird video, watermarked with a vibrating TikTok logo, scored with a song you’d never heard, starring aperson you’d never seen. Maybe you saw one of the staggering number of ads for TikTokplastered throughout other social networks, and the real world, and wondered why you weren’tat that party, either, and why it seemed so far away.

“害怕錯(cuò)過(guò)”是描述社交媒體如何讓人們覺(jué)得其他人都是某個(gè)東西(音樂(lè)會(huì)、一處秘密的海灘、一頓早午餐)的一部分，而他們卻不是的一個(gè)常用說(shuō)法。這種想法的一個(gè)新特點(diǎn)是，有時(shí)“某個(gè)東西”本身是一個(gè)社交媒體平臺(tái)。也許你在Instagram上看到一些朋友參加一個(gè)很棒的派對(duì)的照片，你想知道，為什么你沒(méi)去。接下來(lái)，你在你的動(dòng)態(tài)消息中看到了一個(gè)奇怪的視頻，上面有一個(gè)振動(dòng)的TikTok標(biāo)志，配有一首你從未聽(tīng)過(guò)的歌，主角是一個(gè)你從未見(jiàn)過(guò)的人。也許你在其他社交媒體網(wǎng)上看到了鋪天蓋地的TikTok廣告，并想知道為什么你沒(méi)有參加那個(gè)派對(duì)，為什么它看起來(lái)那么遙遠(yuǎn)。

It’s been a while since a new social app got big enough, quickly enough, to make nonusers feelthey’re missing out from an experience. If we exclude Fortnite, which is very social but alsovery much a game, the last time an app inspired such interest from people who weren’t on itwas … maybe Snapchat? (Not a coincidence that Snapchat’s audience skewed very young, too.)

已有好長(zhǎng)時(shí)間沒(méi)出現(xiàn)過(guò)一款新的社交應(yīng)用程序，在足夠短的時(shí)間里變得足夠強(qiáng)大，以至于它讓非用戶感到他們正在錯(cuò)過(guò)一種體驗(yàn)。如果我們把同樣非常社交，但只不過(guò)是款游戲的《堡壘之夜》(Fortnite)排除在外的話，那么，最近的一款在沒(méi)有使用它的人中激發(fā)了如此大興趣的程序應(yīng)用是……也許是Snapchat?(Snapchat的用戶也非常年輕，這并非巧合。)

And while you, perhaps an anxious abstainer, may feel perfectly secure in your “choice” not tojoin that service, Snapchat has more daily users than Twitter, changed the course of itsindustry, and altered the way people communicate with their phones. TikTok, now reportedly500 million users strong, is not so obvious in its intentions. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’thave them! Shall we?

雖然你可能就是不想用這些應(yīng)用，而且對(duì)自己不用Snapchat服務(wù)的“選擇”非常有把握，但那個(gè)服務(wù)的日常用戶比Twitter的還多，它改變了行業(yè)的發(fā)展方向，改變了人們用手機(jī)交流的方式。據(jù)報(bào)道，目前已擁有5億用戶的TikTok對(duì)自己的打算并不很明確。但這并不意味著它沒(méi)有打算!讓我們了解一下，好嗎?

The basic human explanation of TikTok.

用基本的人話解釋TikTok。

TikTok is an app for making and sharing short videos. The videos are tall, not square, like onSnapchat or Instagram’s stories, but you navigate through videos by scrolling up and down, like a feed, not by tapping or swiping side to side.

TikTok是一個(gè)制作和分享短視頻的應(yīng)用程序。它的視頻是長(zhǎng)條形的，而不是像Snapchat或Instagram那樣是方形的，你用手指上下滾動(dòng)來(lái)瀏覽視頻，就像瀏覽動(dòng)態(tài)消息那樣，而不是用手指左右掃動(dòng)。

Video creators have all sorts of tools at their disposal: filters as on Snapchat (and later, everyone else); the ability to search for sounds to score your video. Users are also stronglyencouraged to engage with other users, through “response” videos or by means of “duets” — users can duplicate videos and add themselves alongside.

視頻制作者有各種各樣的工具供他們使用：和Snapchat(以及后來(lái)所有平臺(tái))一樣的濾鏡，還可以搜索聲音作為視頻的配樂(lè)。軟件還通過(guò)“回應(yīng)”視頻或“二重唱”的方式強(qiáng)烈鼓勵(lì)用戶與其他用戶互動(dòng)，用戶可以復(fù)制視頻，并把自己添加到視頻中去。

Hashtags play a surprisingly large role on TikTok. In more innocent times, Twitter hoped itsusers might congregate around hashtags in a never-ending series of productive pop-up mini-discourses. On TikTok, hashtags actually exist as a real, functional organizing principle: notfor news, or even really anything trending anywhere else than TikTok, but for various“challenges,” or jokes, or repeating formats, or other discernible blobs of activity.

主題標(biāo)簽在TikTok上的作用出奇地大。在相對(duì)純真的年代，Twitter希望通過(guò)一系列無(wú)休止的、卓有成效的、臨時(shí)起意的迷你話語(yǔ)來(lái)讓用戶匯聚到一起。在TikTok上，主題標(biāo)簽是作為一個(gè)真實(shí)的、功能性的組織原則存在的：不針對(duì)新聞，甚至不針對(duì)TikTok之外的任何流行趨勢(shì)，而是針對(duì)各種“挑戰(zhàn)”、笑話、重復(fù)格式，或其他可區(qū)別開(kāi)來(lái)的活動(dòng)集合。

TikTok is, however, a free-for-all. It’s easy to make a video on TikTok, not just because of thetools it gives users, but because of extensive reasons and prompts it provides for you. You canselect from an enormous range of sounds, from popular song clips to short moments fromTV shows, YouTube videos or other TikToks. You can join a dare-like challenge, or participatein a dance meme, or make a joke. Or you can make fun of all of these things.

但TikTok上也很混亂。在TikTok上制作視頻很容易，不僅因?yàn)樗o用戶提供工具，還因?yàn)樗蚰闾峁└鞣N各樣的理由和提示。你有大量的音樂(lè)可以選擇，從流行歌曲片段到電視節(jié)目、YouTube視頻或其他TikTok用戶的短片。你可以參加一個(gè)類似激將的挑戰(zhàn)，或參加一個(gè)舞蹈迷姆，或編個(gè)玩笑?；蛘吣阋部梢阅盟羞@些事情開(kāi)玩笑。

TikTok assertively answers anyone’s what should I watch with a flood. In the same way, the appprovides plenty of answers for the paralyzing what should I post? The result is an endlessunspooling of material that people, many very young, might be too self-conscious to post onInstagram, or that they never would have come up with in the first place without a nudge. Itcan be hard to watch. It can be charming. It can be very, very funny. It is frequently, in thelanguage widely applied outside the platform, from people on other platforms, extremely“cringe.”

TikTok對(duì)任何人的“我該看什么”的問(wèn)題做出洪水般的果斷答復(fù)。同樣地，這款應(yīng)用也為“我該發(fā)什么”這個(gè)令人束手束腳的問(wèn)題提供大量的答案。其結(jié)果是，上面有了人們?cè)丛床粩嗟刂谱鞯牟牧希藗?很多人非常年輕)可能因?yàn)殡y為情而不愿在Instagram上發(fā)布這些材料，或者如果沒(méi)人慫恿，他們壓根兒就不會(huì)想到制作這些材料。上面的視頻可能不堪入目，可能令人著迷，也可能非常、非常搞笑。用這個(gè)平臺(tái)之外廣泛使用的、來(lái)自其他平臺(tái)的人的話說(shuō)，它上面的東西常常十分地“丟人現(xiàn)眼”。

So that’s what’s on TikTok. What is it?

TikTok上就是這樣一些東西。那TikTok究竟是什么?

TikTok can feel, to an American audience, a bit like a greatest hits compilation, featuring onlythe most engaging elements and experiences of its predecessors. This is true, to a point. ButTikTok — known as Douyin in China, where its parent company is based — must also beunderstood as one of the most popular of many short-video-sharing apps in that country. Thisis a landscape that evolved both alongside and at arm’s length from the American techindustry — Instagram, for example, is banned in China.

對(duì)于一名美國(guó)受眾來(lái)說(shuō)，TikTok感覺(jué)有點(diǎn)像是熱門節(jié)目匯編，只展示最吸引人的元素，以及之前的類似應(yīng)用最吸引人的種種體驗(yàn)。從某種程度上說(shuō)，事實(shí)的確如此。但必須清楚的是，TikTok——它的母公司來(lái)自中國(guó)，在那里它叫抖音——是中國(guó)眾多短視頻分享應(yīng)用中最受歡迎的一款。這一派景象的發(fā)展與美國(guó)科技產(chǎn)業(yè)并駕齊驅(qū)，又自成一體——比如，Instagram在中國(guó)是被屏蔽的。

Under the hood, TikTok is a fundamentally different app than American users have used before. It may look and feel like its friend-feed-centric peers, and you can follow and be followed; ofcourse there are hugely popular “stars,” many cultivated by the company itself. There’smessaging. Users can and do use it like any other social app. But the various aesthetic andfunctional similarities to Vine or Snapchat or Instagram belie a core difference: TikTok ismore machine than man. In this way, it’s from the future — or at least a future. And it hassome messages for us.

實(shí)際上，TikTok是一個(gè)與美國(guó)用戶以前使用的應(yīng)用程序截然不同的應(yīng)用。它無(wú)論看起來(lái)還是在使用感受上，可能跟那些以好友動(dòng)態(tài)為中心(friend-feed-centric)的社交軟件一樣，你可以關(guān)注別人，也能被別人關(guān)注;當(dāng)然，有很多大受歡迎的網(wǎng)紅，其中很多都是該公司自己著力打造出來(lái)的。還有消息功能。用戶也確實(shí)可以像用其他社交應(yīng)用一樣來(lái)用它。但它與Vine、Snapchat或Instagram在審美和功能上的諸多相似之處，掩蓋了一個(gè)核心區(qū)別：TikTok更多的是機(jī)器而非人類。就這個(gè)意義上說(shuō)，它是來(lái)自未來(lái)的應(yīng)用，或者說(shuō)，至少是來(lái)自某一種未來(lái)。它在向我們傳達(dá)一些訊息。

Consider the trajectory of what we think of as the major social apps.

想想那些我們視為主要社交應(yīng)用的發(fā)展軌跡吧。

Instagram and Twitter could only take us so far.

Instagram和Twitter只能做到這一步了。

Twitter gained popularity as a tool for following people and being followed by other people andexpanded from there. Twitter watched what its users did with its original concept andformalized the conversational behaviors they invented. (See: Retweets. See again: hashtags.) Only then, and after going public, did it start to become more assertive. It made morerecommendations. It started reordering users’ feeds based on what it thought they might wantto see, or might have missed. Opaque machine intelligence encroached on the originalsystem.

Twitter的走紅是作為以關(guān)注他人并被其他人關(guān)注——并在此基礎(chǔ)上擴(kuò)充服務(wù)——的工具。它觀察用戶對(duì)其最初的概念做了什么，并將他們發(fā)明的對(duì)話行為正式化(比如轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)功能，又比如標(biāo)簽功能)。直到那時(shí)，在公司上市之后，它才開(kāi)始變得堅(jiān)定而自信。它提出了更多的建議。開(kāi)始根據(jù)用戶可能希望看到的，或者有可能錯(cuò)過(guò)的內(nèi)容，對(duì)用戶的信息源進(jìn)行重新排序。不透明的機(jī)器智能侵占了原來(lái)的系統(tǒng)。

Something similar happened at Instagram, where algorithmic recommendation is now a verynoticeable part of the experience, and on YouTube, where recommendations shuttle onearound the platform in new and often … let’s say surprising ways. Some users might feelaffronted by these assertive new automatic features, which are clearly designed to increaseinteraction. One might reasonably worry that this trend serves the lowest demands of abrutal attention economy that is revealing tech companies as cynical time-mongers andturning us into mindless drones.

類似的情形也發(fā)生在Instagram上，算法推薦現(xiàn)在是其相關(guān)體驗(yàn)中非常值得關(guān)注的部分。而在YouTube，推薦以一種新的，通常是令人驚訝的方式在平臺(tái)上穿梭。有些用戶可能會(huì)對(duì)這些自以為是的自動(dòng)新功能感到不爽，這些功能顯然是為了增加互動(dòng)而設(shè)計(jì)的。人們或許完全有理由擔(dān)心，在殘酷的注意力經(jīng)濟(jì)時(shí)代，這種趨勢(shì)滿足的是那些最低需求。在這種經(jīng)濟(jì)里，科技公司是沒(méi)有心腸的時(shí)間販子，它們將我們變成了一群沒(méi)頭沒(méi)腦絮叨的人。

These changes have also tended to work, at least on those terms. We often do spend more timewith the apps as they’ve become more assertive, and less intimately human, even as we’vecomplained.

至少在那些條件下，這些變化也往往是奏效的。我們往往花更多的時(shí)間在這些應(yīng)用程序上，因此它們也變得更加自信，不再那么有人性，哪怕我們對(duì)此有所抱怨。

What’s both crucial and easy to miss about TikTok is how it has stepped over the midpointbetween the familiar self-directed feed and an experience based first on algorithmicobservation and inference. The most obvious clue is right there when you open the app: thefirst thing you see isn’t a feed of your friends, but a page called “For You.” It’s an algorithmicfeed based on videos you’ve interacted with, or even just watched. It never runs out ofmaterial. It is not, unless you train it to be, full of people you know, or things you’ve explicitlytold it you want to see. It’s full of things that you seem to have demonstrated you want towatch, no matter what you actually say you want to watch.

關(guān)于TikTok，一個(gè)非常關(guān)鍵同時(shí)又容易忽略的地方在于，在熟悉的自導(dǎo)向信息源和一種首先基于算法觀察和推理的經(jīng)驗(yàn)之間的那個(gè)中點(diǎn)，它是如何跨過(guò)去的。當(dāng)你打開(kāi)這款應(yīng)用時(shí)，最顯而易見(jiàn)的線索就在那里：你首先看到的不是好友動(dòng)態(tài)，而是一個(gè)名為“For You”(為你準(zhǔn)備)的頁(yè)面。它是一個(gè)算法動(dòng)態(tài)，基于你互動(dòng)過(guò)的視頻，甚至只是觀看過(guò)的視頻。它有著取之不竭的素材。除非你對(duì)它進(jìn)行訓(xùn)練，或者明確告訴它你希望看到什么，否則上面全是你不認(rèn)識(shí)的人，或者你未必想看的東西。不管你實(shí)際上告訴它你想看什么，經(jīng)過(guò)訓(xùn)練后的它，上面都是你似乎表現(xiàn)出來(lái)你想要看的東西。

It is constantly learning from you and, over time, builds a presumably complex but opaquemodel of what you tend to watch, and shows you more of that, or things like that, or thingsrelated to that, or, honestly, who knows, but it seems to work. TikTok starts makingassumptions the second you’ve opened the app, before you’ve really given it anything to workwith. Imagine an Instagram centered entirely around its “Explore” tab, or a Twitter built around, I guess, trending topics or viral tweets, with “following” bolted onto the side.

它不斷從你身上學(xué)習(xí)，隨著時(shí)間的推移，建立一個(gè)大致上很復(fù)雜但不透明的模型，來(lái)發(fā)現(xiàn)你喜歡觀看什么，并且向你展示更多這樣的內(nèi)容，或者類似內(nèi)容，或者與之相關(guān)的內(nèi)容，或者，老實(shí)說(shuō)，誰(shuí)知道什么內(nèi)容，反正似乎是有效的。TikTok會(huì)在你打開(kāi)應(yīng)用的那一刻就開(kāi)始做出假設(shè)，那時(shí)你還沒(méi)有向它提供任何東西來(lái)供它使用。想象一個(gè)完全圍繞“探索”標(biāo)簽建立的Instagram，或者一個(gè)圍繞著熱門話題和病毒式傳播推文建立起來(lái)的Twitter，“關(guān)注”是被捆綁在一側(cè)的。

Imagine a version of Facebook that was able to fill your feed before you’d friended a singleperson. That’s TikTok.

想象另一個(gè)版本的Facebook，它能在你加好友之前就把你的信息源填滿。TikTok就是這樣的。

Its mode of creation is unusual, too. You can make stuff for your friends, or in response toyour friends, sure. But users looking for something to post about are immediately recruited intogroup challenges, or hashtags, or shown popular songs. The bar is low. The stakes are low. Large audiences feel within reach, and smaller ones are easy to find, even if you’re justmessing around.

它的創(chuàng)造模式也不同尋常。當(dāng)然，你可以為朋友們制作東西，或者給朋友發(fā)送回復(fù)。但是，想發(fā)布內(nèi)容的用戶會(huì)被立即招募到群組挑戰(zhàn)和話題標(biāo)簽當(dāng)中，或者得到一些流行歌曲作為素材。門檻很低。風(fēng)險(xiǎn)很低。大量的觀眾似乎觸手可及，而少量的觀眾也很容易得到，即便你只是在瞎鼓搗。

On most social networks the first step to showing your content to a lot of people is grinding tobuild an audience, or having lots of friends, or being incredibly beautiful or wealthy or idle andwilling to display that, or getting lucky or striking viral gold. TikTok instead encouragesusers to jump from audience to audience, trend to trend, creating something like simulatedtemporary friend groups, who get together to do friend-group things: to share an inside joke; to riff on a song; to talk idly and aimlessly about whatever is in front of you. Feedback is instantand frequently abundant; virality has a stiff tailwind. Stimulation is constant. There is anunmistakable sense that you’re using something that’s expanding in every direction. The poolof content is enormous. Most of it is meaningless. Some of it becomes popular, and some isgreat, and some gets to be both. As The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz put it, “Watching too many in arow can feel like you’re about to have a brain freeze. They’reincredibly addictive.”

在大多數(shù)社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)上，向很多人發(fā)布內(nèi)容的第一步是努力建立一個(gè)受眾群;或者擁有很多朋友;或者非常漂亮、富有、空閑，并且愿意展示這些東西;或者特別幸運(yùn);又或者碰巧撞到能以病毒級(jí)傳播的黃金內(nèi)容。相反，TikTok鼓勵(lì)用戶從一群觀眾跳到另一群觀眾，從一個(gè)趨勢(shì)跳到另一個(gè)趨勢(shì)，創(chuàng)建一些類似于模擬臨時(shí)朋友群組的東西，他們聚在一起做朋友群組做的事：分享一個(gè)內(nèi)部笑話;即興翻唱一首歌;漫無(wú)目的地談?wù)撁媲暗囊磺?。反饋是即時(shí)的，而且往往是豐富的;病毒級(jí)傳播有很強(qiáng)的推動(dòng)力。刺激是恒定的。你會(huì)得到一種明確的感覺(jué)：你正在使用一種向各個(gè)方向擴(kuò)展的東西。內(nèi)容非常巨大。大部分都毫無(wú)意義。有些東西會(huì)流行起來(lái)，有些東西很棒，有些二者兼?zhèn)?。正如《大西洋》月?The Atlantic)的泰勒·洛倫茲(Taylor Lorenz)所說(shuō)，“一口氣看太多視頻會(huì)讓你感覺(jué)大腦都麻木了，非常容易上癮。”

TikTok is just doing to you what you told it to do.

TikTok只是對(duì)你做了你讓它做的事。

In 1994, the artist and software developer Karl Sims demonstrated “virtual creatures” thatmoved in realistic ways discovered through “genetic algorithms.” These simulations, throughtrial and error, gradually arrived at some pre-existing shapes and movements: wriggling, slithering, dragging and walking.

1994年，藝術(shù)家和軟件開(kāi)發(fā)者卡爾·西蒙斯(Karl Sims)展示了用“遺傳算法”發(fā)現(xiàn)的以逼真方式移動(dòng)的“虛擬動(dòng)物”。這些通過(guò)試錯(cuò)得出的模擬逐步得出了某些已存在的形狀和運(yùn)動(dòng)：扭動(dòng)、滑動(dòng)、拖拽和行走。

But some early models, which emphasized the creatures’ ability to cover a certain distance asquickly as possible, resulted in the evolution of a very tall, rigid being that simply fell over. Indoing so, it “moved” more quickly than a wriggling peer. It didn’t understand itsevolutionary priority as “creature-like locomotion.” It needed to get to a certain place asefficiently as possible. And it did.

但是，一些早期模型更希望這種生物能夠盡快走完一定距離，結(jié)果制造出一種非常高大、僵硬的生物，只會(huì)跌倒下來(lái)。這樣，它能比一個(gè)扭動(dòng)的生物“移動(dòng)”得更快。它不明白自己的進(jìn)化優(yōu)先級(jí)是“像生物一樣的運(yùn)動(dòng)”。它需要盡可能高效地到達(dá)某個(gè)地方。它也確實(shí)做到了。

Older social apps are continuously evolving, too. Their models prioritize growth and discovery, of course, but also assume the centrality of your people: the accounts you follow and whichfollow you, or with whom you communicate directly, and are bound up in their founding mythsand structures: Facebook’s social graph; the News Feed; the Instagram feed; Twitter’s rigiduser relationships.

舊的社交應(yīng)用也在不斷發(fā)展。當(dāng)然，它們的模型會(huì)優(yōu)先考慮增長(zhǎng)和發(fā)現(xiàn)，但同時(shí)也假定你的人脈圈子處于中心地位，也就是你關(guān)注的賬戶、關(guān)注你的賬戶，或者你與之直接溝通的賬戶，這一切都與這些應(yīng)用的創(chuàng)始觀念和結(jié)構(gòu)緊密相連：Facebook的社交圖譜;新聞源;Instagram源;Twitter極具原則性的用戶關(guān)系。

TikTok though is the towering stick falling far and fast, not caring to wait to evolve through awriggling, cumbersome social phase, but instead asking: Why not just start showing peoplethings and see what they do about it? Why not just ask people to start making things and seewhat happens? If engagement is how success is measured, why not just design the appwhere taking up time is the entire point? There’s no rule, in apps or elsewhere, againstengagement for engagement’s sake. Let the creature grow tall and fall upon us all.

然而，TikTok就像是一根高高的大棒，它可以很快就倒下來(lái)，到達(dá)很遠(yuǎn)的地方，它根本不想等待，不想通過(guò)一個(gè)曲折、繁瑣的社交階段完成進(jìn)化，而是在問(wèn)：為什么不向人們展示一些東西，看看他們會(huì)拿它們做什么?為什么不讓人們做點(diǎn)東西，看看會(huì)發(fā)生什么?如果參與度是衡量成功的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，為什么不設(shè)計(jì)一個(gè)只需在其中花費(fèi)時(shí)間的應(yīng)用呢?無(wú)論是在應(yīng)用程序里還是在其他地方，只要想?yún)⑴c，那就沒(méi)有任何規(guī)則能夠阻擋參與。讓這個(gè)生物越長(zhǎng)越高，然后砸在我們所有人身上。

In What Laboratory Was This Monster Made?

這個(gè)怪物是在哪個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)室制造的?

TikTok is far from an evolutionary fluke. Its parent company, ByteDance, recently valued atmore than $75 billion dollars, bills itself first as an artificial intelligence company, not acreator of mission-driven social platforms. TikTok was merged with Musical.ly, a socialnetwork initially built around lip-syncing and dancing and adopted by very young people. Itstill carries a lot of Musical.ly’s DNA, and its app store reviews contain more than a littleyearning for Musical.ly’s return. It was the defunct Musical.ly against which the Federal TradeCommission recently levied its largest-ever penalty for mishandling the private data of youngusers.

TikTok絕不是什么進(jìn)化上的僥幸產(chǎn)物。其母公司字節(jié)跳動(dòng)(ByteDance)最近的估值超過(guò)了750億美元，它首先將自己標(biāo)榜為一家人工智能公司，而不是使命驅(qū)動(dòng)型社交平臺(tái)的創(chuàng)造者。TikTok與Musical.ly合并，后者是一個(gè)社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)，最初建立在對(duì)口型演唱和跳舞的基礎(chǔ)上，用戶是非常年輕的人群。TikTok仍然帶有很多Musical.ly的DNA，它的應(yīng)用商店評(píng)論里也有不少人呼吁Musical.ly的回歸。最近，美國(guó)聯(lián)邦貿(mào)易委員會(huì)(Federal Trade Commission)對(duì)這個(gè)已經(jīng)不復(fù)存在的Musical.ly處以有史以來(lái)最大的罰款，原因是對(duì)年輕用戶的私人數(shù)據(jù)處理不當(dāng)。

“ByteDance’s content platforms enable people to enjoy content powered by AI technology,” itswebsite says. Its vision is “to build global creation and interaction platforms.” ByteDance’swildly popular news and entertainment portal, Jinri Toutiao (translated as “Today’sHeadlines,”) relies heavily on AI — not human editors, or a self-selected feed of accounts — tocurate and create customized streams of largely user-and-partner-generated content tailoredto each of its readers.

字節(jié)跳動(dòng)的網(wǎng)站稱：“字節(jié)跳動(dòng)的內(nèi)容平臺(tái)使人們能夠享受由人工智能技術(shù)提供的內(nèi)容。”它的愿景是“建立全球創(chuàng)作與交流平臺(tái)”。字節(jié)跳動(dòng)廣受歡迎的新聞和娛樂(lè)門戶網(wǎng)站“今日頭條”在很大程度上依賴人工智能——而不是人工編輯，也不是用戶自己選擇的賬戶源——來(lái)管理和創(chuàng)建定制的信息流，這些信息流主要是用戶和合作伙伴制造的內(nèi)容，并為每位讀者量身定制。

These are services where a sort of “filter” bubble — isolating users into worlds of points ofview — isn’t an unintended consequence. It’s the point. And it’s extremely effective: BothToutiao and Douyin have drawn attention from Chinese regulators for, among many otherthings, some familiar to any large social-ish platform, and others unique to its speech-constrained political environment, capturing too much user time. As a result, TikTok’s“Digital Wellbeing” settings include an option to enforce a password-protected time limit. Thecompany’s other challenges can be addressed more assertively: an algorithm-first attentionmarket isn’t just centrally ruled, it’s centrally allocated.

在這些服務(wù)中，產(chǎn)生某種“過(guò)濾”泡沫——將用戶隔離到不同的觀點(diǎn)世界當(dāng)中——并不是一個(gè)意外的結(jié)果，而是關(guān)鍵所在。而且它非常有效：今日頭條和抖音都吸引了中國(guó)監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)的注意，原因有很多，其中一些是任何大型社交類平臺(tái)都熟悉的，還有一些是其受言論限制的政治環(huán)境所特有的，然而還有一個(gè)原因是，它占用了用戶太多時(shí)間。因此，TikTok的“數(shù)字健康”設(shè)置包括一個(gè)選項(xiàng)，可以強(qiáng)制執(zhí)行受到密碼保護(hù)的使用時(shí)間限制。該公司面臨的其他挑戰(zhàn)可以用更明確的方式來(lái)表述：算法優(yōu)先的注意力市場(chǎng)不僅是中央統(tǒng)治的，還是中央統(tǒng)一分配的。

Why Do People Spend Hours on TikTok? It’s the Machines.

為什么人們要花幾個(gè)小時(shí)在TikTok上?因?yàn)闄C(jī)器。

All of this goes a long way to explain why, at least at first, TikTok can seem disorienting. “You’renot actually sure why you’re seeing what you’re seeing,” said Ankur Thakkar, the formereditorial lead at Vine, TikTok’s other most direct forerunner. On Vine, a new user might nothave had much to watch, or felt much of a reason to create anything, but they understood theircontext: the list of people they followed, which was probably the thing letting them down.

所有這一切有助于解釋，為什么至少在剛開(kāi)始的時(shí)候，TikTok可能讓人迷失其中。“你實(shí)際上并不確定自己為什么會(huì)看自己正在看的這些東西。”TikTok另一家最直接的前身Vine的前編輯負(fù)責(zé)人安庫(kù)爾·塔卡爾(AnkurThakkar)說(shuō)，在Vine上，新用戶可能沒(méi)什么可看的，或者覺(jué)得沒(méi)什么理由去創(chuàng)建任何東西，但他們熟悉自己的環(huán)境：他們的關(guān)注人列表，正是這個(gè)列表提供的東西可能讓他們失望。

“It’s doing the thing that Twitter tried to solve, that everyone tried to solve,” he said. “How doyou get people to engage?” Apparently you just … show them things, and let a powerfulartificial intelligence take notes. You start sending daily notifications immediately. You tellthem what to do. You fake it till you make it, algorithmically speaking.

“它解決了Twitter以及所有人都試圖解決的問(wèn)題，”他說(shuō)。“也就是怎樣讓人們參與進(jìn)來(lái)?”“顯然，辦法就是……給用戶看東西，然后讓強(qiáng)大的人工智能做筆記。隨后立即給用戶發(fā)送每日通知，告訴他們?cè)撛趺醋觥乃惴ㄉ现v，一直假裝下去直到成功。

American social platforms, each fighting their own desperate and often stock-price-relatedfights to increase user engagement, have been trending in TikTok’s general direction for awhile. It is possible, today, to receive highly personalized and effectively infinite contentrecommendations in YouTube without ever following a single account, because Google alreadywatches what you do, and makes guesses about who you are. And while Facebook and Twitterdon’t talk about their products this way, we understand that sometimes — maybe a lot of thetime — we use them just to fill time. They, in turn, want as much of our time as possible, andare quite obviously doing whatever they can to get it.

美國(guó)所有社交平臺(tái)都在拼命提高用戶參與度，而且這種參與度往往會(huì)與股價(jià)有關(guān)，它們朝著TikTok的總體方向發(fā)展已經(jīng)有一段時(shí)間了。今天，你不需要關(guān)注任何賬戶，就可以在YouTube上收到大量高度個(gè)性化的內(nèi)容推薦，因?yàn)楣雀枰呀?jīng)開(kāi)始觀察你在做什么，并且猜測(cè)你是誰(shuí)。雖然Facebook和Twitter不會(huì)這樣描述他們的產(chǎn)品，但我們知道，有時(shí)候——也許是很多時(shí)候——我們只是用它們來(lái)打發(fā)時(shí)間。而它們反過(guò)來(lái)想要盡可能多地占用我們的時(shí)間，而且它們顯然正在竭盡所能地得到這些時(shí)間。

 

 

So maybe you’ll sit TikTok out. But these things have a way of sneaking up behind you. Maybeyou never joined Snapchat — but its rise worried Facebook so much that its prettier product, Instagram, was remade in its image, and copied concepts from Snapchat reached you there.

所以，就算你撐著不用TikTok，這些東西總有辦法悄悄湊上來(lái)你。比如說(shuō)，也許你從來(lái)沒(méi)有加入過(guò)Snapchat，但它的崛起讓Facebook非常擔(dān)心，以至于它旗下更漂亮的產(chǎn)品Instagram對(duì)自身形象進(jìn)行了重塑，從Snapchat那里拿來(lái)了一些概念，最終還是來(lái)到你面前。

And maybe you skipped Twitter — but it still rewired your entire news diet, and, besides, it’show the president talks to you, now.

也許你不用Twitter——但它仍然改變了你的整個(gè)新聞消費(fèi)結(jié)構(gòu)，此外，現(xiàn)如今你的總統(tǒng)跟你說(shuō)話就是用這種方式了。

TikTok does away with many of the assumptions other social platforms have been built upon, and which they are in the process of discarding anyway. It questions the primacy of individualconnections and friend networks. It unapologetically embraces central control rather thanpretending it doesn’t have it. TikTok’s real influence going forward may be that the other socialmedia platforms decide that our friends were simply holding us back. Or, at least, it was holdingthem back.

TikTok消除了其他社交平臺(tái)所建立的許多假設(shè)，而這些假設(shè)本身也已經(jīng)處在被摒棄的過(guò)程中了。它質(zhì)疑個(gè)人聯(lián)系和朋友網(wǎng)絡(luò)的首要地位。它坦然接受中央控制，而不是假裝自己沒(méi)有這樣做。在未來(lái)，TikTok真正的影響可能是，其他社交媒體平臺(tái)都會(huì)認(rèn)為我們的朋友只是在妨礙我們前進(jìn)?；蛘?，至少，是在妨礙“它們”前進(jìn)。