john

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

If you use TikTok, you should read this once.

In October 2024, a court clerk in Kentucky uploaded the lawsuit against TikTok with the confidential sections still visible. NPR downloaded it before anyone caught the mistake. By the time the court resealed it, the internet had a copy.

What was inside was TikTok's own engineers, in their own words, describing what their app does to a human brain.

Not a critic's brain. Yours.

Here is what they wrote down.

— TikTok ran the math on how long it takes to develop "compulsive use" of the app. The number is 260 videos. With 8-second videos played in rapid-fire succession, that works out to roughly 35 minutes. The company's internal documents call this the compulsive-use threshold.

— TikTok's own research describes what compulsive use causes: "diminished analytical ability, impaired memory, contextual reasoning, conversational depth, empathy, and heightened anxiety." That is not a quote from a critic. That is TikTok's own language, in its own internal documents.

— A team inside the company called "TikTank" wrote in an internal report that compulsive use on the platform was "rampant."

— After 30 minutes of continuous use in one sitting, the company's own documents state that users are placed into "filter bubbles" — algorithmic loops the user did not choose and cannot easily escape.

Then there is the screen-time tool — the one TikTok publicly markets as proof it cares.

— TikTok ran an experiment on the 60-minute screen-time prompt. Daily teen usage dropped from 108.5 minutes to 107. A reduction of 1.5 minutes.

— Internally, the screen-time tool was not measured by whether it reduced screen time. Its top success metric, in writing, was "improving public trust in the TikTok platform via media coverage."

— A project manager wrote in internal chat: "Our goal is not to reduce the time spent." Another employee added that the goal was "to contribute to daily active users and retention."

— A TikTok executive approved the screen-time feature only on the condition that its impact on the company's "core metrics" was minimal. The lawsuit alleges the company planned to "revisit the design" if the tool ever reduced usage by more than 10%.

The "Are you still scrolling?" break videos? An executive admitted in an internal meeting they were "useful talking points" for lawmakers, but "not altogether effective."

Then there is the algorithm itself.

— An internal report flagged that the For You feed was showing what the company called "a high volume of not attractive subjects." TikTok then retooled the algorithm to suppress those users. Kentucky authorities wrote: "By changing the TikTok algorithm to show fewer 'not attractive subjects' in the For You feed, [TikTok] took active steps to promote a narrow beauty norm even though it could negatively impact their Young Users."

That sentence is the entire pitch of the platform, said out loud.

— Internally, TikTok also acknowledged that its publicly reported content moderation metrics were "mostly misleading," because they only measured the content the company successfully moderated — never the content it missed.

Now read those bullet points again as one continuous case.

The company knows the addiction threshold. The company measured it. The company ranked engagement over mental health in writing. The company built a screen-time tool whose internal success metric was PR. The company suppressed people it deemed unattractive to keep you scrolling. The company called its own moderation numbers misleading.

None of this is a leaked rumor. None of this is a journalist's interpretation. This is a court filing. The documents are TikTok's. The words are TikTok's. The math is TikTok's.

The 14 state attorneys general who signed onto this lawsuit aren't fringe activists. They're a bipartisan coalition.

Sources at the bottom: NPR, CNN, AP, Mashable, OPB, The Independent. All citing the same accidentally-unsealed Kentucky filing from October 11, 2024.

The next time the company tells you it cares about your wellbeing — the screen-time prompts, the break videos, the safety features, the careful PR statements — remember that its own engineers wrote down, in court-admissible language, that the safeguards were never meant to work.

The app is not broken.

It is performing exactly as designed.

You were the spec.

[john @randomname99000]

@andrew_lei27386 @realTateBrown huh

[john @randomname99000]

@DetroitBengals @b1ackfamilyPAC Teach your youth to not murder and then they wouldn't need to be freed

[john @randomname99000]

@b1ackfamilyPAC Justice? You saying he didn't get enough prison time for murdering someone? Seems pretty intentional to pull a knife and start a fight.

[john @randomname99000]

@shanta35shun @b1ackfamilyPAC good to know you stand with a murderer. I'll be sure to stay away from you cause you'd probably be happy to murder someone you disagree with too.

[john @randomname99000]

@krassenstein lol explain why it should be a federal holiday?

[john @randomname99000]

@AlexReimer1 gfy descrate?

[Derrick Evans @DerrickEvans4WV]

WTF?

5 women were minding their own business in Jersey City when two men pulled up on a moped and threw sulfuric acid on them.

Police are also refusing to release a description of the attackers.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think the attackers are Muslim🤷‍♂️

[Paul Danner @Paul_Danner_]

@HunterAA6 Biden gave Pizzagate Podesta $370 billion to “make planet prettier”.

You people are retarded sheep.

https://t.co/4bt8QMUQAd

[john @randomname99000]

@HunterAA6 Damn gotta love when hunter opens his mouth. Just a reminder of how truly stupid he is.

[Tim Pool @Timcast]

Is It APATHY Or Intention?

The more right leaning local leadership is the less violent crime there is

Do Democrats intentionally allow or encourage violent crime or is it based on ignorance and incompetence

[john @randomname99000]

@Jsif311458 @RealMattCouch lol

[john @randomname99000]

@AnnapolisPD Pathetic. When the police become the criminals, what have you become.

[john @randomname99000]

@502KYGal @RekietaLaw @LatimaMama @Case1034521625 If he was concerned with other things that he couldn't get CLE in, you think he had time to request an extension? Not like he has used the license in ages anyway so i'm sure it wasn't at the top of his list of things to do

[john @randomname99000]

@Rinzy2000 @Timcast Just cause you're stupid doesn't mean you need to open your mouth and show the world

[john @randomname99000]

@TheronAlvord @Timcast The Europa series got overly complicated and too bogged down in the minute tasks. To me it stopped being fun after EU2

[john @randomname99000]

@epaclife @Timcast haha dumbass can't detect sarcasm. Go touch grass dumbshit

[john @randomname99000]

@MLB Convenient MLB doesn't show their ump blowing a call, refusing to review it, and then throwing the manager out. Ridiculous bullshit. Ump should be ashamed of how pathetic that was.

[End Wokeness @EndWokeness]

Yesterday in NYC…

Jonathan Pettigrew (41) asks a "teen" on an MTA bus to lower his phone volume — the "teen" kills him:

[john @randomname99000]

@DrewHLive someone should tell her the makeup and work she's done on her face doesn't look good