#just literally insane to blame it on The Algorithm when its literally based off extant behaviours

[severalowls]

Why do people have the idea that TikTok literally has a bot which "scans for skinny conventionally attractive white people and promotes their content first" when... No, they don't need a bot for that. That content is getting boosted because it attracts higher engagement rates as a result of deeply ingrained societal biases in the general audience.

You can't blame some mustache twirling racist software engineer for writing a deliberately racist algorithm to cause racism. Software tends to reinforce the existing biases of the data entered into it. And the data is users, mostly unwittingly, stopping to watch people who they find attractive on average more and for longer than other content. And concepts of 'attractiveness' are deeply based in societal expectations and prejudices, so those come to the forefront.

Content creators don't need to feature high expense professionally made-up "beautiful people" at the start of their videos to Trick The Racism Robot.

There is no Racism Robot. There is only a subconsciously racist population.

#nor am i claiming not to have the same unwitting biases to give greater benefit of doubt to people who i 'like the look of' #thats just like an entire sociological phenomenon #just literally insane to blame it on The Algorithm when its literally based off extant behaviours #the algorithm makes it difficult to break out of in the context of its own system ecosystem one the behaviour is introduced #but couldn't you say that thats... also true of a behaviour in a human population #anyway this is about that body positivity song tiktok where 90% of the dancers are conventionally attractive and skinny #and then they feature like 3 plus size women and one woman in a wheelchair towards the end #and people are saying this is essential to the system and not because your average schmo would #scroll past a video prominently featuring e.g. a fat black woman without even batting an eye #this also applies to the extreme bias towards rich kids with eye catching props and elaborate makeup/hair/backgrounds etc.