What makes this real fun is when you realize that TikTok quietly hides comments with external links by default to keep people in its ecosystem, but doesn't tell you. So if you try to, say, cite a source to prove disinformation your comment appears to you but no one else. This further confuses threads and makes pointing to factual data or debunking someone's bullshit all but impossible.
I've become convinced that TikTok is an amazing platform for misinformation, if only because it is built to destroy context. Videos appear out of order via an algorithm, no one can link to anything external to cite sources or point to authority, and surrounding discourse is frayed and scrambled. It's shockingly easy for absolute nonsense to take root and spread among people who want to believe it unchallenged.
This is part of how you get the "Venezuelan gangs have taken over multiple apartment complexes in Colorado, the cops have ceded the ground to them, and our only hope is the Hell's Angels who have promised to come in and solve the problem with racialized violence" story in right wing circles. It's also how you get the "Chase Bank Glitch" story where dozens upon dozens of TikTokers posted about how gullible rubes are doing a viral check fraud scheme en masse when there's no real evidence of that ever happening.
It's an entire platform built to facilitate stories of people eating tide pods or that someone put razorblades in Halloween candy.
bro, that chase bank glitch story is just complete nonsense. right? i turned on tiktok for the FIRST time in months (what can i say, when you run out of tweets to read...) and my algo was still "bearded leftist"-tok... and literally ALL OF THEM wer talking about the chase bank glitch like it was a real thing. it was revealing to say the least.
they were ALL like "not just young people, all kinda people! young and old, male and female!" like, what are you even saying? this passes the smell test enough for you to say it on a video with your face??? i would like to see an article by MSNBC and an official arrest report before i hang my reputation on a story this laughably implausible
