YouTube, TikTok And Snap Go To Congress Tuesday. Here’s Why Their Fates May Vary

TikTok videos are shorter than a typical one on YouTube, usually a minute or less. This lets users see more TikTok videos more quickly, a rate of increased consumption that then carries an increased risk of landing on sludgy content, says Cameron Hickey, the project director for algorithmic transparency at the National Conference on Citizenship. “On YouTube, maybe you watch 24 one-hour videos, and one of those videos is made by an anti-vax crackpot,” he says. “That’s very different from watching 60 videos every hour” on TikTok, where a user would then find an even wider range of “potentially harmful or damaging concepts.”

Forbes | October 2021, Abram Brown