TikTok’s algorithm leads us toward outrage-inducing stories. But its live videos of Hurricane Milton actually were useful — and could replace TV.
As Hurricane Milton approached Florida this week, my TikTok “For You” Page was full of videos of people battening down windows, piling up sandbags, and livestreaming their surroundings as the weather grew more ominous by the hour. As night fell and power outages swept the coast, I watched live streams of palm trees swaying in the dark rain.
On one hand, this live video was exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to see. And it’s a dream for some tech moguls — as Elon Musk has said about X — to host on-the-ground citizen journalists streaming unvarnished live video.
But it was also utterly confusing. Scrolling through the live streams, I wasn’t sure if they were filmed in the direct path of the storm or somewhere else in Florida. Were these pre-recorded? Or filmed during another hurricane? Or were they truly live? What, exactly, was I looking at here? Regardless, I couldn’t look away.
Reporting live from a hurricane has been a staple of news since before Dan Rather’s famous soaked-trenchcoat broadcasts. (The modern version would be Anderson Cooper getting nailed in the face with flying debris Wednesday night on CNN.) It’s a visceral human experience to be in awe of extreme weather.
Want to know what it feels like to be inside a hurricane? Turn on @CNN. Here’s @BillWeirCNN losing his hat a few minutes ago: pic.twitter.com/EZNnpz3K6eTikTok amplified controversial characters
But there was another modern element happening with the TikTok coverage — a weird, ugly theme that TikTok uniquely has seemed to encourage: the viral villain.
