by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It happened again. Today I was looking at Tik-Tok and was pushed an extremely and I mean EXTREMELY specific video on my For You Page. Here’s what happened: I went to the doctor yesterday and he asked me around my alcohol consumption.
After some joking around, I admitted I drink a lot.
Ok, flash forward 24 hours and what am video am I pushed on my For You Page? A video a man having that specific conversation with his doctor. Like the literal same conversation.
Let’s go through how this is possible.
There’s the case that somehow, in aggregate, that Tik-Tok knows via my likes and time watched that people like me drink a lot and have that type of conversation with our doctors…so I got the video. That’s a fair enough explanation other than it happened 24 hours after I had that specific conversation with my own doctor.
Another argument could be made that through a combination of knowing about people like me aggregate and my phone’s location that they knew to push me that video because they knew that not only do I drink a lot, but within the last 24 hours I had been to a doctor. (This one actually seems to make sense.)
Then, there’s the more kooky explanations — at a minimum Tik-Tok is listening to me via my phone. I’m beginning to think a lot Big Tech companies do this already and Tik-Tok is just the most conspicuous.
Of course, I continue to have a lingering suspicion that Tik-Tok is much more direct than any of the above — it is somehow reading my mind.
But, lulz, that couldn’t possibly be happening, right? Right?
