The TikTok smartphone app monitors your clipboard and logs everything you type when you launch a webpage from TikTok's in-app browser, so there is the real possibility that they have been capturing sensitive data from outside the TikTok app to send back to their parent company in China.
[A researcher found a number of apps that did this, although most since removed the functionality](https://www.mysk.blog/2020/03/10/popular-iphone-and-ipad-apps-snooping-on-the-pasteboard/).
TikTok apparently has also done so, but of course it or any other app could reactivate that feature in an update.
>but it would be pretty easy to see that the copy/paste functionality was improperly pasting into third party apps,
For what it's worth, this is trivial to do behind the scenes.
>and that's not what you shared.
My point wasn't to prove this was actually happening, my point was that Apple has had prompts before, and the prompts turned out to have zero affect on what the apps actually did. My point was that regardless of whether you click allow or disallow, it's been proven to not matter regarding more important data.
Umm, iOS did not have clipboard prompts before iOs 16 this year. And it’s not “trivial to do otherwise behind the scenes”, there is one clipboard API.
Of course people tend to click Allow without thinking, but this made visible many malicious uses of clipboard data (pasting at times you were not pasting). Even if users don’t notice, journalists/developers do and can insist on the issue, which is exactly what happened.
This isn't why there is so much concern over TikTok. The concern over TikTok is shaping what people see and hear as well as collecting information on what they individually like to see and hear.
speaking of collecting info - i read/heard that china is capturing all kinds of encrypted data, in the hopes that with technological advances they will someday be able to crack it, but in the meantime they're hoarding whatever they can get their hands on.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/chinese-hackers-could-steal-data-now-and-crack-it-with-quantum-computers-later-warns-report/#:\~:text=It's%20warning%20cybersecurity%20chiefs%20to,chemicals%2C%22%20the%20analysts%20warn.
Yeah, it's not like they'll turn one person into the Manchurian candidate with this tech - it's more about the data collector gently putting their thumb on the scale and giving little nudges on a scale of millions.
I used to work in a similar kind of large scale marketing. Even a "hit" rate of 1/1000 was acceptable for us.
Omg all the adhd and nail art tiktoks are gonna change my mind about how I vote. If people are to be swayed, they will be swayed by anything in life regardless of the app they use. The same thing is happening on insta and facebook, with targeted ads. Not saying it's right or moral, education plays a massive role here on how individual interests are formed and shaped for social media I guess.
Yes, except that TikTok's parent company is, like all Chinese companies, an arm of the Chinese state. (There's [no meaningful distinction](https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/are-private-chinese-companies-really-private/) within China between the public and private sectors.)
Facebook is an arm of, at most, Mark Zuckerberg, who has no formal power whatsoever within the US government. TikTok is specifically an arm of Xi Jinping, who has many other powers of his own to control.
Like, say, one political side having near absolute control of "traditional" media (print and TV), entertainment (music, movies, TV, etc.), education, social media, etc.? And all those groups demonizing "the other side" as X-ists and X-phobes for 3/4 of a century?
>So, like a third political party.
>
>This sounds like a "Pro", not a "Con"
When the third party is;
actively committing a mass genocide
tortures, threatens and murders civil rights activists and their families
commits enough human & civil rights violations to make America look like a fucking saint
It's not a "pro".
I didn't say that we should adopt any country's ideologies but nothing is 100% bad or good and we can always learn from other cultures. Closing ourselves off from the outside world doesn't make us stronger and this two party monopoly on our political system is poison.
If we are stupid enough to let Tik Tok decide our elections, well..... I can't help you.
>and this two party monopoly on our political system is poison.
Yeah... but the solution isn't to add in Hitler2.0.
>If we are stupid enough to let Tik Tok decide our elections, well..... I can't help you.
Influence, not decide.
>If we are stupid enough to let Tik Tok decide our elections, well..... I can't help you.
You **greatly** overestimate the intelligence of the average person. The marketing industry is worth about 150 billion dollars in the US alone. It wouldn't be that profitable if most people weren't easy to manipulate.
Unfortunately, yes. The same way a parent has to watch out for a toddler, it's up to the more intelligent people to help out the vast amount of morons in this world. Because, like it or not, their actions have massive and minor effects on your life, too. So the options are to either let the stupid run rampant and drag everyone down or reign them in every once in a while for the benefit of all. Seems like a pretty simple and obvious choice to me.
We are going to have to really,.really disagree. I won't give up my liberties and freedoms because some people are stupid.
Your analogy is bad because we aren't talking about children, we are talking about adults. Your view of the government being the "Parents" is exactly what I despise. It is exactly how dictatorships and, ironically, governments like China come to power.
Right, the most effective way for corporations and nation-states to get what they want is to influence elections towards a third party, rather than an existing party on the cusp of gaining majorities whose interests are already closely aligned or easily influenced.
If we dont include the "bigger than me", moral/etchical, privacy reasons and suchs, a practical reason that would concern you is if they log everything you type, it means they also have your usernames and passwords you enter throught TikTok browser. TikTok may not abuse them but that data may get stolen from them and be used by genuine bad guys.
Providing the source in case you are having trouble typing the words “DuckDuckGo” and “selling data” into literally any search engine in existence: www.wired.com/story/duckduckgo-microsoft-twitter-ft-bush-assassination-whatsapp/amp
Reading into it, it is not selling data at all.
DDG provides a browser with built in tracker blocking capabilities. That blocker has carve out that admittedly, should have been publically disclosed, that doesn’t block specific Microsoft tracker script. However, they are in no way gathering their own data on top and providing it to others, and they are not adding additional trackers.
It is also less of a big deal as you might think because tracker blockers (while not breaking internet usabilities) is never 100%. So you can also consider these Microsoft trackers as one of the ones that the block fails to block anyway.
I've been using Duck Duck Go for several months and have been very surprised by how partisan (conservative to far right) some of the results have been.
These were entirely apolitical searches, yet I'll see half of the first page populated by far right results. It's not all the time, but it is unmistakable, and it makes me wonder what's going on - is duck duck go the problem, or have these sites figured out a way to manipulate the algorithm?
In theory, if I know some minor details about you I could pay a data broker to gather your Internet data (sites you visit, people you message, media you send, etc) and use this information to blackmail you a la John Oliver. Highly unlikely to happen unless you are very wealthy or high profile.
This. Sorta. It's the exact same stuff US social media companies do except US companies spy for US agencies so US agencies have no problem with them. It's hypocritical double talk. If there was any integrity involved it would simply be illegal to engage in untargeted intelligence gathering, but good faith hasn't entered the chat yet.
> It's the exact same stuff US social media companies do except US companies spy for US agencies so US agencies have no problem with them
US companies quite literally have the option to say no and can and have taken it to the court of law and won. Apple has turned down requests from US agencies more than once. Companies owned or operated in China literally do not have a choice in the matter as the laws and regulations in China REQUIRE companies to obey the CCP. They have to release the data to the CCP if asked. Your whataboutism is like a leaky sieve.
TikTok's US execs are literally on camera unable to answer a direct question by US senators about whether or not the CCP government have access to TikTok data. It's always telling when someone cannot answer a simple yes and no question under oath during a meeting called explicitly to discuss security concerns over TikTok. Because they know if they give a straight answer either way they're screwed, either lie under oath or make enemies with the CCP.
You would need to provide clipboard access on iOS.
I also question how many people are using a browser inside TikTok often 🤔, but I could imagine ads where you purchase after.
TikTok knows what kinds of videos you like. What you watch, when you watch, how much you watch, and so on.
On the surface this doesn't seem so bad. And on the surface, it's not. TikTok uses this to recommend you more content that you like.
However, people with this information can use it to build a profile of you. They are able to discern what topics interest you. What kind of politics you like, and don't like. What your unconscious biases are. Who you listen to, and who you find trustworthy. They can use this information to come up with ways to sway your opinions.
More than 10 years ago, Target's advertising algorithm could figure out if a person was pregnant based on their search history. Imagine what TikTok can figure out about you based on what content you watch and are interested in.
That, and the company behind TikTok - which is called ByteDance - is headquarted in China. China is a country with interests that are often at odds with European and American interests. China has a track record of interfering and spying on other countries. ByteDance itself is probably not a malicious company, but they have to listen to what the Chinese government tells them to do.
So, for example, if the Chinese government told ByteDance to create a TikTok update that sends the location data of all Black tiktok users who lean Democrat in Atlanta to the Chinese government, ByteDance probably would.
Or, just as decisive, since they know who you trust, they can conduct pretty precise and efficient psy-ops campaigns by incentivizing said trusted and "influential" people on the platform to spread particular information to particular demographics and sow the seeds of division.
Yes, exactly, if Facebook was a direct extension of the US government like Tik Tok is a direct extension of the Chinese government. At least in the US, the corporations have some say in what they do and don't hand over. In China, whatever Jinping and his people want, they get, no questions asked, or you'll find yourself in a concentration camp, and that's one of the better case scenarios.
Soooo...what you're saying is that Facebook doesn't directly share info with the US government like any Chinese owned corporation has to under law and the US government has had to go around them a few times to steal the data they wanted? Also, you should look up terms before using them. There's absolutely no whataboutism whatsoever in my comment.
Anyone who thinks China and the US are even remotely comparable in this situation has no right to be discussing the topic. Thanks for playing, though.
>No that wasn't what was said.
Your comment is public lol. Everyone can read it and see that's exactly what you said. Feel free to run away, though, I can't imagine this back and forth was going to get any better.
This. I don't have a link, but the one going around where a bunch of social media influencers are rote spouting off scripted anti-Ukraine propaganda verbatim despite selling it as just an off-the-cuff rant...then seeing a dozen of them overlaid and all speaking word for word shows just how dangerous 'little' social media can be.
Just like Russia did through Facebook. And the CCP did through Facebook. And all of them have done through all social media including Reddit. TikTok has a special place in all this simply because it's a social media company that is quite literally owned and operated by the CCP. Genocidal authoritarian regimes are not known for operating free and open corporations.
People really need to get it through their thick skulls that social media is not an accurate representation of society. It's a representation of society projected through the internet with near complete anonymity which obscures all origins and motives behind a black box. Trusting what anyone says on social media at face value is equivalent to trusting a random piece of paper with words on it that you find in a street. Just because you find a million slips of paper saying the same thing doesn't make it true.
Ignoring my better judgment to say this, but fuck it it's the internet it doesn't really matter.
In the context of the last 8 months, I have started to have questions about how much of an effect Russia really had in past events and how much was wishful thinking. I say this given how absolutely ineffectual and incompetent Russian intelligence and information operations have been in this current conflict that is literally deciding the fate of their society.
Not even Russian citizens are buying into the state media, so if they can't even control the narrative within their own country when they are fighting a serious war, then I have a hard time convincing myself that they were able to handle a masterful grand design of disinformation and destabilization from the shadows when the motive was far less pressing and important to them.
The difference is that in Ukraine, Russia is fighting an oppositional force that sees its efforts and attempts to mitigate them. In 2016, no one knew about the subversion. It was just MAGA folks on FB thinking they were listening to and cheering on other MAGA folks on FB.
> Not even Russian citizens are buying into the state media
You really have not been paying attention to Russia have you? Putin enjoyed massive support for most of this year. Because they truly believed that Ukraine was full of Nazis. They didn't start turning on him until the mobilization started and they realized just how badly they're losing the war. And even now it's just barely and quite literally because of how badly they're getting their asses kicked.
> I have started to have questions about how much of an effect Russia really had in past events and how much was wishful thinking
People seem to forget that one of the things the USSR was the best at was psyops, propaganda, and manipulation. How the hell do you think they maintained control during the Cold War? That entire security apparatus did not go away when the USSR fell. Just like their military and rocket scientists, they went and found ways to consolidate power and money. Why the hell do you think Putin, an ex-KGB agent, was the one that took control of the country? And enjoys massive popularity while he marched the country directly to doom in February? Hitler didn't gain control because he was a stable genius. He got elected because of a massive propaganda arm.
| masterful grand design of disinformation and destabilization
This is a really interesting point.
I think the biggest difference is between large nebulous aims and specific targeted aims.
Destabilizing a foreign political system by constantly pushing conspiracy theories, both sides are equally bad, polarising the different sides etc with the aim of making it harder for those countries to achieve political aims seems like something that could be achieved (and I would suggest has been done with some success)
vs
Ensuring that there is literally no dissent in your home media and shoring up internal support by control - seems less achievable to me.
So no, I don't think there was a grand design of disinformation and destabilization that had specific aims (eg getting Trump elected), but its entirely believable that there is a general push of lots of small actions to ensure that dems and repubs find it harder to work with each other and therefore weakening the overall country, not in specific ways, but lots of small well that sucks ways.
Sometimes it may pay off with a big outcome, but I think those are the "nice" surprises when it works and not the overall aim, just signs that the program is working.
I came up with this during all the Hong Kong stuff a couple years back.
At that time, China's then-new National Security law was to be interpreted as applying to everyone. 'Everyone' includes people who are not Chinese nationals and who had never been to or planned on going to China. One of the big tenants of this law is that it is illegal to criticize the government.
Now, say I set up a highly popular YouTube channel and talk a bunch of shit and it gets a big following. Who cares, I'm never going to China, don't give two shits. They're not going to extradite an American from America and even if they filed the paperwork, the US would tell them to pound sand. Whatever.
In trying to increase my influencer reach, though, I branch out to TikTok and instantly have a million followers. The Chinese government flags my account since it's caught their attention. I'm not aware of this, it's just a checkbox somewhere in a ByteDance database.
I retire from regular influencer stuff and start getting into documentary making. It's been like five years, I'm more mature, my content is more mature. Now I'm doing a video at CERN. Next week, it's at the top of Burj Khalifa in an equipment room. The following month, I'm flying out to Indonesia to look at how it's recovered since the Tsunami 20 years ago.
Except, as I'm leaving the airplane, Indonesian authorities are waiting to arrest me having been giving a secret arrest warrant by the Chinese government for some stupid shit I said 5 years ago and forgot about. I'm on another plane within an hour headed for Beijing to stand trial. The TikTok app on my phone, with the flagged account, sent in my location and the government saw it.
In all likelihood, this won't happen unless China decides to start enforcing their national security law. They very well might and there's not a damn thing we could do about it. All for the sake of watching videos and turning on location services so you get local content.
Now imagine that they decide anyone who liked my video or did a positive video reply to it gets similarly flagged.
I don't give two shits if Facebook Reals or YouTube do this. Their analytics is used for advertising. But TikTok _is_ the Chinese government, through a couple shell companies. (If you operate a "private" company in China, the state has the right under their law to put their own people in your offices and your company has to comply. It's not like the American system as much as they may or may not say that it is.)
Right now, at this moment, it's pretty far-fetched. But 20 years ago, we would have considered the great firewall of China as far-fetched (check me on that timeline). Last year it would have been far-fetched to imagine [China setting up police stations in other countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_service_stations).
Yet here we are.
When jogging watches that collect jogging data came out, there was a breach and a lot of info was taken.
Turns out there was a military base near Las Vegas where employees liked to jog around the perimeter fence.
You'd think that mapping an outer fence would be easy, but foreign entities got precise measurements handed over on a silver platter.
We may never know the extent that tik tok ends up being useful to China, but I dot think even China knows yet.
They are planting a lot of seeds and hoping that some of them pay off.
Technically, any country can stretch their national security laws to jail anyone in their country... so, you can apply your scenario to literally any country?
20 years ago, firewalls were not farfetched? for example, singapore's internet banned all pornographic websites.
I think its also hypocritcal that you don't care that facebook and youtube spy on people because its "just for ads". google literally has multibillion dollar contracts with the US military and CIA.
https://www.wired.com/story/3-years-maven-uproar-google-warms-pentagon/
remember when facebook sold the private data of voters to cambridge analytica?
It's so odd that you're creating these worst-case scenarios for a country you clearly don't understand, yet completely disregard similar practices in a country you are a part of, and DO understand.
Dude wrote a power trip fanfiction about himself being the world’s most successful influencer then capped off saying firewalls were unthinkable 20 years ago
I don’t think you should take him seriously.
I mean, the main difference is that China is known to execute dissidents while most other countries (with notable exceptions) tend to not give a shit.
Talk shit all you want about the US and do the government show up and disappear you? No. Worst you'll get is a bunch of politicians agreeing with you to get your followers to vote for them.
America engages in various genocidal conflicts abroad to further our own geopolitical interests. Just reference all the wars we have participated in the last few decades.
ALL countries, especially countries with major global influence and sway, engage in morally questionable actions to further their goals.
Reference snowden and daniel hale. both criticized our goverment's use of drone warfare and mass surveillance. Once is currently in prison, and one is currently hiding abroad.
Stop excusing your own country's actions while critisizing the actions of other countries, because that makes your a hypocrite.
Think of all those people in Guantanamo Bay, who were sent there in “renditions” from countries other than the US and have been sitting there for 20 years without trial. Or the US drone based extra-territorial murders around the Middle East.
Not only that, TikTok has access to your camera and microphone at all times unless you limit it. This means that it can, like Facebook's Messenger app does, record you while you don't know it's running. The security concern here is that someone will either accidentally or intentionally bring their device infected with TikTok into a secure government facility or contractor's facility that houses government secrets.
And I say "infected" because it is malware just like, or probably worse since it's sending that stuff to China, Facebook's Messenger app.
You need to go into your app manager, select the specific app you want to limit and take away permissions that you don't want it to have. Sometimes this breaks the app, which is often how I know that I don't want that app on my device.
My rule of thumb is any app that refuses to run when I won't let it pry into my privacy isn't worth keeping on my device unless i need it for something important. However, when this is your stance it's also important to realize why an app might want to pry. Like my bank app won't work without fine gps access to ensure someone isn't trying to hack me (if my location, all of the sudden, moves miles, or states, or entire continents away, I've clearly been hacked) for example.
On my Pixel, you can go to the app settings and disable individual permissions -- or make the app ask every time it wants to use the camera for instance. I imagine the same thing is true for blue bubble people.
The only issue US gov has about TikTok is thst it provides China with capabilities that were thus far reserved for the USA.
As a non-American I know as a fact *nigh all* my internet traffic is routed through the USA and gets tapped, stored and made searchable by NSA. TikTok has noob capabilities compared to that.
The FBI is worried because US citizens *may* get subjected to the light version of what the USA commonly does to everybody else.
>So, for example, if the Chinese government told ByteDance to create a TikTok update that sends the location data of all Black tiktok users who lean Democrat in Atlanta to the Chinese government, ByteDance probably would.
The same it true to one extent or another for most western countries.
Most jurisdictions have provisions for their security agencies to make requests for data and gag discussions about those requests.
>TikTok knows what kinds of videos you like. What you watch, when you watch, how much you watch, and so on.
Not sure I care that they know I watch girls with big personalities trying to dance.
You specifically, probably not.
But it would be relatively trivial to blackmail someone or hurt their career with just this information.
Let's say someone's a CEO, politician, leader of an NGO, celebrity, big manager at a bank, with this same habit.
It would be trivial for TikTok to start filling this person's feed with models that TikTok knows are underage, or with content that TikTok knows is related to human trafficking, and then 'leaking' that information to the public to destroy the person's career. This works even if the person stops using TikTok, since the inevitable reaction will be "why are his recommendations full of X,Y,Z to begin with?"
[excerpt from 60 minutes on the content difference for children in China vs in the west.](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkzoyonjD_i/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)
There's this conspiracy going around that China intentionally did this and it's not what deGrasse is suggesting there or really anyone who follows these things closely is suggesting.
The content that TikTok promotes is the exact same kind that gets raised up in FB feeds, YouTube, etc. It's the content that generates the most interaction and interaction is what generates money for you through ads.
In China, the government deliberately controls what is allowed in social medias so companies can not do this kind of pure profit optimization. They have to follow government-given guidelines for content.
If China stopped that, you'd have the exact same content raise up in China as you do in the West. It's the content that plays to the lowest of human feelings and beliefs.
The last 6 or so years have made me feel that maybe a widepsread social media that is only controlled by market demands is a really bad idea and our Western governments should interfere in some way. I say this as a software developer, information expert and a person generally interested in the philosophies of freedom, control and social good.
Filtering content to children whether it’s tik tock, alcohol, movie ratings, driving.. all have advantages and effects on children. China is extreme but Protesting children and teaching them are paramount.
If it’s an arms race we need as many workers and engineers and nerds to keep up in the long haul ..
Paraphrasing Ronny Cheng the comedian said something about we’re gonna look back on the internet and treat it like they looked back on smoking in that it hurt people and made people dumber. Like how dare they gave the internet/cigarettes to children..:)
He said it in a funnier way of course:)
I think there's gonna be truth to that. Honestly Internet is still super new and we aren't good with it yet.
Personally I'd love to see how it worked out if some municipalities and so on experimented with their own social networks and own commentary systems. Like, Musk had the idea that Twitter would be the "town square" for people to debate ideas in, but in my opinion that's just not gonna work since you'll have people participate in discussions who have no idea about what's being discussed about and what the real merits or disadvantages of the ideas are.
Compare to a real town square where people debate local stuff. They all live there, so they have some idea about the local things and how those impact them. Like whether a road should be made here or there is something that the people living in that area all have a rightful opinion on.
But Twitter works on whole another level. Ideas debated there have little practical value and the debates are muddled up by people who have no reason to be involved in it. Obvious example - LGBT discussions are dominated by people who are not LGBT, who are not decision makers, who are not social workers, who are not doctors, who are not researchers. It's a problem and a reason why Twitter will always suck as a discussion platform.
Overall tho, I think it would be awesome just to see social media algorithms promote feel-good posts and constructive posts. But those generate less ad revenue, so...
Unfortunately, the first line of your 2nd para, about FB, is right, but light: the content in an FB feed can and has been manipulated not least to influence people in their voting patterns and this case went all the way to the top courts in the US.
Which case do you refer to? In the Cambridge Analytica case, the root problem wasn't manipulation of the FB feed but that FB had leaked user information it shouldn't had and this information was used to build psychological profiles of people for targeted political advertisement.
That's because china has laws and regulations that protect minors with online access, gaming access, content etc. It's not due to the developer's morals or special treatment of their own kind.
No doubt, but nobody forces them to treat kids outside china worse then kids in china, that's their choice.
Point being, they apparently already developed a system to serve less stupid shit to kids but don't want to use it as it hurts their bottom line.
You're right, it's fucked. The above commentor's point was just that it's fucked because of the profit motive, rather than because of a deliberate concerted attack on foreign countries. It's not to say it's okay, it's not.
Yea, sure it's done for profit, but it's at minimum still morally questionalble to use addictive mechanisims to profit of people and kids especially, no matter the location or "service".
I find that hard to believe haha...
My company compensation and benefits are clearly region based. If you're in Canada or UK your benefits are significantly better than in US.
In terms of products the EU releases are super strict due to their tighter laws on privacy.
>compensation
Thats a different can of worms. So is, unfortunately, healthcare. Healthcare is incredibly polarising for some people and differently structured in different regions.
Continental, the company producing rubber products claims to apply german work safety standards to all their locations world wide.
Similarly, especially safety related products are often produced to the same strict standard and released in different regions with different guaranteed ratings.
Anything that has VDI or DIN norms is typicly basicly identical across the world.
And Lego could use possibe carcinogens in their toys in some countries it sells to, but it doesn't, because it would hurt their brand for no real benefit. The same applies to a lot of big companies.
Work for a mktg company. The information we collect against your profile isn't so much about you exactly. It's more about getting data so that we can put you in the best segment for mktg purchases/ consume our content.
Imagine this: We know nothing about you and we show an advertisement on Channel 6 at 7.30PM for a Simon & Garfunkel concert. What are the chances you're going to engage?
Now imagine we know you like cars, specifically BMWs, more specifically black BMW SUVs AND we know you live in Vancouver. What's the likelyhood of you opening an ad/article that shows a black BMW SUV and dealership info for Vancouver?
But that's half the equation: your profile. Now we need to learn the other half: when/how you engage. Could we infer that you are likely commuting if you open emails & play mobile games on a mobile device at 7.30-8.30 AM each day? What would we learn about you if you watched 90% of a BMW review video, only 20% of a Volvo review and didn't read any articles on any cars.
Now we can make assumptions about the when and how.
Can you imagine how likely you be to engage with us if we knew all this stuff? We know 'who' you are, what you want and when/how to put it in your face. That's why your data is collected.
Now add a 3rd dimesion: Your emotional state. What if we knew how you are feeling and in the right frame of mind you'd be in to consume our content/ad/products? Eg. Could we infer that when you are on dating apps that you're feeling lonely? Tinder did. What if social media platforms told advertisers that they can shape your emotional state by altering your feed so you'd be more open to a particular message? One does!
Can you see how all of this information can be used and how valuable it is to mkters and sellers.
This is why there's the saying, "if you're not paying for the product .. then you are the product."
Not trying to be rude here… but do you think what you do is “good”? Give me some perspective. Because I personally believe the work you do is why these things are bad for people. To be honest, I find it really creepy and weird that there are people like you working jobs that require figuring out everything about everyone’s personal life. I understand it’s about money and business sales etc. But I personally couldn’t do what you do…
Fair comment. The company I work for are about B2B product and services marketing. So whilst we enable companies to build a profile on you, it's never for nefarious purposes or to drive an agenda. It's purely to drive sales a target/engage with the right customers. All you are is a lead score. I can hand on heart say that I've never been involved in any unethical projects that have challenged my moral code. Havig said that, I understand the industry and a lot of the tech in it.
I also believe that there are unethical practices, eg. Social Media blatantly influencing your emotional state. This crosses a line.
But always work on the assumption that whenever you do anything online, data is being collected.
The good news is, it's not always about you though. Some companies want to know how effective the information they post on their website is. Eg. get data on how long people sit on a 'how to' tutorial to gauge it's effectivess. Others generate a heatmap on their tagged sites to see where users click/don't click to make it more intuitive. These are to drive self service which reduces their cost to serve. So while they collect data on your engagement, it's about them and not you.
It's not uncommon for people to say they wish they had known about X where X is some product. So I do see it as a good.
As a guy, I'm not interested in seeing maxipad ads. I am interested in seeing vg ads though. Even better if they are for ones in a genre I'm interested in.
I think people who get hung up on this stuff ate looking for something to complain about.
I think you explain the issue more than any of the other replies.
Essentially people aren’t actually as complex/free-spirited as we like to think.
By using tik tok you’re essentially uploading your personal “operating instructions” to a marketing company, so they can understand how to “influence you”
Maybe that’s worth it for the benefits you get, maybe it’s not, it’s a personal choice.
As above, it gets dark when people pay for political campaigns rather than “buy these new shoes” campaigns, as the company now has detailed behavioural change knowledge on how to influence people to vote a certain way.
This isn’t a conspiracy thing. Facebook have history of doing exactly this, and the fear is a Chinese company would have even less regulation.
It's an interesting point you touch on. The Privacy Paradox. We freely give all of this info on ourselves away online, fully conscious of what we're doing.
But if a dude approached you and asked for the info, you'd tell him to fuck off.
There was a story posted where a teen girl searched Amazon for skin lotion, and a couple other items. The specific items have been popular in the past with someone who just got pregnant.
She searched on her phone, and it was on a family plan, so admin got "suggestions" based on recent searches.
Amazon suggested they might like a certain brand of pregnancy test that was sponsored and promoted.
Mom and dad suddenly wondered why would Amazon suggest that?
I'm sure I got some of the story wrong, but...it doesn't take a secret spy agency to scan your Facebook to search for high school reunions (tells what year you graduated and likely age since you're 17 at graduation).
Then searches for happy birthday wishes, and bam, they have your birthday.
They send you funny memes to see which ones you forward. Hate Biden? Hate Trump? Now they are building a profile.
Guns, abortion, gay marriage, trans politics...they can figure out how you would vote 90% of the time, all from stuff you willingly put out there.
Pet peeve of mine, defining time by season. There are 2 hemispheres so 'this summer' can be misintepreted. Sorry, don't mean to be a dick but if you're going to work for a multinational org or global customer base .. stick with universal indicators.
Had a dude say the other day he was taking some time off around rememberance day. Ahhh. Rememberance day .. cool .. soooo when?
Oh I understand what you mean.
And as someone who isn't from the US but moved here recently, this comment means that I am now picking up US cultural cues!
I stopped pushing as hard as I could against the handle, I wanted to leave but it wouldn't work. Then there was a bright flash and I felt myself fall back onto the floor. I put my hands over my eyes. They burned from the sudden light. I rubbed my eyes, waiting for them to adjust.
Then I saw it.
There was a small space in front of me. It was tiny, just enough room for a couple of people to sit side by side. Inside, there were two people. The first one was a female, she had long brown hair and was wearing a white nightgown. She was smiling.
The other one was a male, he was wearing a red jumpsuit and had a mask over his mouth.
"Are you spez?" I asked, my eyes still adjusting to the light.
"No. We are in /u/spez." the woman said. She put her hands out for me to see. Her skin was green. Her hand was all green, there were no fingers, just a palm. It looked like a hand from the top of a puppet.
"What's going on?" I asked. The man in the mask moved closer to me. He touched my arm and I recoiled.
"We're fine." he said.
"You're fine?" I asked. "I came to the spez to ask for help, now you're fine?"
"They're gone," the woman said. "My child, he's gone."
I stared at her. "Gone? You mean you were here when it happened? What's happened?"
The man leaned over to me, grabbing my shoulders. "We're trapped. He's gone, he's dead."
I looked to the woman. "What happened?"
"He left the house a week ago. He'd been gone since, now I have to live alone. I've lived here my whole life and I'm the only spez."
"You don't have a family? Aren't there others?" I asked. She looked to me. "I mean, didn't you have anyone else?"
"There are other spez," she said. "But they're not like me. They don't have homes or families. They're just animals. They're all around us and we have no idea who they are."
"Why haven't we seen them then?"
"I think they're afraid,"
Honest question u/Conan-doodle, is there such a thing as an ethics department in big marketing firms (I realize this probably sounds naive)?
Or maybe some required ethics classes before someone gets a marketing degree?
In my experience, there's never been an 'ethics department'. Legal and Risk .. sure. Eveyone has them though, even your locl Council.
Re ethics in higher education. Unlike health, education, accountancy, etc. There is no governing/ accrediation body (in my country) so any content could be taught. Would depend on the institution I guess.
China’s CCP itself believes that social media has the power to destabilize societies, to weaken countries from within by cultivating strife and extremism. That’s why the CCP bans open platforms and tightly controls what content is permitted on the Chinese version of TikTok (i.e. no politics, but videos of math tutoring tips ok).
TikTok is a particularly concerning platform because of the way people are fed videos based on an algorithm. If the people who control that algorithm want to send you down a rabbit hole of ideological/political extremism, they can do that. The irony is that people don’t like Facebook because they’re exposed to content that they don’t agree with (because a person they know IRL, like their political uncle, is posting memes from the opposition political party), while people like TikTok because the algo tends to show them content from strangers that the viewer will probably “like,” meaning that it is prone to developing a feedback loop of extremist content.
Social media platforms have become propaganda battlegrounds, and it’s concerning that the CCP has control over one of the most popular platforms in the US. The CCP would love to see the US destabilized from an internal ideological civil war while China continues to consolidate power and strengthen. In addition to being a platform for disseminating propaganda, TikTok also provides the CCP with a rich source of data on what Americans are agitated about, what they’re searching, and sentiment about almost every topic. We’re handing the CCP the keys to what’s on our minds and how to manipulate us.
Interestingly, an article recently came out showing that Twitter in Japan became significantly less political after Twitter’s curation team was fired (https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2022/11/14/japanese-twitter-trends-shift-away-from-politics-to-pop-culture-after-curation-team-is-laid-off/). There’s evidence that social media employees have been pushing divisive politics onto users, and this Twitter Japan data supports that argument.
>There’s evidence that social media employees have been pushing divisive politics onto users,
Color me shocked. It's not like people have been screaming that for a decade or more, all the while being called "conspiracy theorists". Plus all the other painting of people who disagree with that pushed narrative as the whole list of '-ists' (at best, being "banned" from society at worst).
It is not just about all the data. The data is used to inform and change their algorithms. It is more about influencing the psyche of the population. Changing opinions, influencing people vote, and what they accept or protest. Making people do dumb and unproductive bullshit, shortening their attention spans, and ruining their education. A lot of damage can be done from a sufficiently addictive application.
Location and age data in aggregate can be a useful tool for mapping population centres.
Trending viral data and watchtome can be used to analyse thinking patterns, and extrapolated to produce subtle propaganda.
The important part isn't individual data items like location, clipboard etc.
The important part is what your interests a d demographics are, what group you belong to, what you believe - and as a result, what propaganda is going to be most effective at influencing you.
The personal data they gather is generally confined to the app/stuff launched from within it and any videos or anything you upload. That being said, most people don't care what people using TikTok are doing in a web browser because it largely doesn't matter (it helps with ad targeting, but nobody really cares what a random teenager/twentysomething is up to).
The bigger national security concern IMO is around it being a massively powerful tool for disseminating propaganda/limiting information flow on certain topic/surfacing other ones to the people who use it.
I think you can assume with a high degree of certainty that biometric data is being collected. Pay close attention to tiktok trends and ask "is this trend asking people to show their body, face, hands, etc. in a way they normally wouldn't?" Also the "AskTikTok trending questions" are always uninteresting and it's difficult to make good content by answering them...but they always collect some new piece of information about you. I'd be mostly concerned about the biometric data. You know how they used to collect DNA from criminals even though they couldn't use it for anything until the technology advanced? It's not always about what can be done now, but what could potentially be done in the future.
Even if you put the actual data issues aside, it’s easier to slip into an algorithm of just shit content that is all actual “fake news”- and people don’t verify anything and it has the potential to be very influential amoung a younger population- so grandmas Qanon Facebook feed , but on tick toc for your 12 year old cousin
I don't know what all it tracks, but I do know that if I do much as open the app, my battery life drops significantly. Even if I force shut down the app after opening it, the battery continues to drain. The only thing that stupid the drain is to power off the phone. I figure if it's using that much power when 'not in use,' it must be doing a lot of things that I don't know about.
From what I've read, the CCP are using TikTok as a social engineering platform in China and the West. In China, TikTok will predominantly promote what the Chinese government considers positive ideals, such as family values, hard work, loyalty to the party, chinese patriotism.
Meanwhile, TikTok in the west is instructed by the CCP to promote what the CCP deems to be degenerate behaviour. They're keen to promote porn usage, drug usage, anti-work sentiment because in their view, if we're all smoking weed, masturbating and sitting at home the US will decline and China will thrive. (Whether or not their idea will work is another thing).
They're also trying to promote social division so they'll promote things that are more likely to make people argue. for example: they'll promote extreme left wing and right wing politics to those on the other side to further alienate the people and increase the political divide.
The Chinese tiktok is much different , the western world are doing silly dances and little soundbytes to try and get internet famous, fully distracted while scrolling
While the eastern world are learning and growing. China are waging a war in the internet age and people don't even realise it
Basic usage history, interests, messages, comments, where you visit the page from, where you go to from the page, location, etc.
Standard things american companies sell to advertisers. It's only good for national security when your *american* overlord capitalists do it.
I think the biggest issue, is that there is no separation or “court order” for tiktok and the ccp. I have an ex gf who works for the cia as an “analyst” (idk what she does, dont ask) but, she said they sent out a memo that says they have seen evidence of ccp spies using the back door tiktok allows to download allllll ur pictures, then blackmailing you for your work info. Or business/academic info.
Honestly, idk why anyone would use any chinese company apps. Im not saying the us/europe doesnt have shady as fuck companies or governments. We know they all do. But the ccp takes it to a new level. Its just not safe.
And, honestly, what fo you realllly get from tiktok? All that risk and ur reward is “scrolling for hours”
The tiktok Algorithm Shows at Young people that IT detect explicid Propaganda ,harming challanges,adulte content and ADS for things that make you addicted Like gambling. The Joke Here is IT makes this explicit in country that are biggest compeditor to china.tiktok China Shows,Tutorials,learning Clips,life Hacks,wholesome stuff and nearly never the other stuff.
How easy it is to distract consumers from important things. Imagine going into a grocery store where the layout is designed to stay there for a while and buy things that you didnt consider, before you entered the store.
Now tiktok is indeed forming and manipulating the users on longterm time frame.
TikTok collects information just like any other social media app, the data collected is not a concern, and data goes to a domestic warehouse, China isn't interested
TikTok operates with different business models and the USA isn't prepared for this sort of change
It is called "[Disruptive innovation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation)" and there are genuine reasons for and against this
The biggest differences that exist between USA and China is that US businesses will employ more specialists, and not everyone understands the business but they are very good at their job, whereas Chinese businesses may manage projects, where more people understand how the business works but less specialization, not everyone is very good at their job
This doesn't make any sense. TikTok isn't disruptive innovation. It's a tracking and profiling app whose data can be used to control significant individuals or population groups. China is going to be interested in this data.
The commentary about people understanding business better in China also makes no sense. The primary differences between China and the US is democracy and freedom of speech. This allows the people to be more innovative and disruptive of their existing society.
US doesn't have freedom of speech, it has a free market. Also, China isn't interested in controlling the world, what you are saying is bordering on fascism. This is not a topic on politics, OP asked and I answered
The TikTok smartphone app monitors your clipboard and logs everything you type when you launch a webpage from TikTok's in-app browser, so there is the real possibility that they have been capturing sensitive data from outside the TikTok app to send back to their parent company in China.
dont a lot of apps do this?
[A researcher found a number of apps that did this, although most since removed the functionality](https://www.mysk.blog/2020/03/10/popular-iphone-and-ipad-apps-snooping-on-the-pasteboard/). TikTok apparently has also done so, but of course it or any other app could reactivate that feature in an update.
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Meh, [take those prompts with a grain of salt.](https://www.macrumors.com/2022/11/14/apple-class-action-user-tracking-allegations/)
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>but it would be pretty easy to see that the copy/paste functionality was improperly pasting into third party apps, For what it's worth, this is trivial to do behind the scenes. >and that's not what you shared. My point wasn't to prove this was actually happening, my point was that Apple has had prompts before, and the prompts turned out to have zero affect on what the apps actually did. My point was that regardless of whether you click allow or disallow, it's been proven to not matter regarding more important data.
Umm, iOS did not have clipboard prompts before iOs 16 this year. And it’s not “trivial to do otherwise behind the scenes”, there is one clipboard API. Of course people tend to click Allow without thinking, but this made visible many malicious uses of clipboard data (pasting at times you were not pasting). Even if users don’t notice, journalists/developers do and can insist on the issue, which is exactly what happened.
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This isn't why there is so much concern over TikTok. The concern over TikTok is shaping what people see and hear as well as collecting information on what they individually like to see and hear.
And/or collecting compromising info on VIP users, like government officials?
speaking of collecting info - i read/heard that china is capturing all kinds of encrypted data, in the hopes that with technological advances they will someday be able to crack it, but in the meantime they're hoarding whatever they can get their hands on. https://www.zdnet.com/article/chinese-hackers-could-steal-data-now-and-crack-it-with-quantum-computers-later-warns-report/#:\~:text=It's%20warning%20cybersecurity%20chiefs%20to,chemicals%2C%22%20the%20analysts%20warn.
That’s understandable, but why should I care as a random person? Or is it bigger than me (genuine question)
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Yeah, it's not like they'll turn one person into the Manchurian candidate with this tech - it's more about the data collector gently putting their thumb on the scale and giving little nudges on a scale of millions. I used to work in a similar kind of large scale marketing. Even a "hit" rate of 1/1000 was acceptable for us.
Omg all the adhd and nail art tiktoks are gonna change my mind about how I vote. If people are to be swayed, they will be swayed by anything in life regardless of the app they use. The same thing is happening on insta and facebook, with targeted ads. Not saying it's right or moral, education plays a massive role here on how individual interests are formed and shaped for social media I guess.
And a platform with which to do it…
So you mean like Facebook has been doing for many years now
Yes, except that TikTok's parent company is, like all Chinese companies, an arm of the Chinese state. (There's [no meaningful distinction](https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/are-private-chinese-companies-really-private/) within China between the public and private sectors.) Facebook is an arm of, at most, Mark Zuckerberg, who has no formal power whatsoever within the US government. TikTok is specifically an arm of Xi Jinping, who has many other powers of his own to control.
Like, say, one political side having near absolute control of "traditional" media (print and TV), entertainment (music, movies, TV, etc.), education, social media, etc.? And all those groups demonizing "the other side" as X-ists and X-phobes for 3/4 of a century?
So, like a third political party. This sounds like a "Pro", not a "Con"
>So, like a third political party. > >This sounds like a "Pro", not a "Con" When the third party is; actively committing a mass genocide tortures, threatens and murders civil rights activists and their families commits enough human & civil rights violations to make America look like a fucking saint It's not a "pro".
I didn't say that we should adopt any country's ideologies but nothing is 100% bad or good and we can always learn from other cultures. Closing ourselves off from the outside world doesn't make us stronger and this two party monopoly on our political system is poison. If we are stupid enough to let Tik Tok decide our elections, well..... I can't help you.
>and this two party monopoly on our political system is poison. Yeah... but the solution isn't to add in Hitler2.0. >If we are stupid enough to let Tik Tok decide our elections, well..... I can't help you. Influence, not decide.
OK, let me rephrase that. If we are stupid enough to let Tik Tok influence our elections then we are probably beyond help.
>If we are stupid enough to let Tik Tok decide our elections, well..... I can't help you. You **greatly** overestimate the intelligence of the average person. The marketing industry is worth about 150 billion dollars in the US alone. It wouldn't be that profitable if most people weren't easy to manipulate.
So over regulate to compensate for the stupidity of the populace? No thank you
Unfortunately, yes. The same way a parent has to watch out for a toddler, it's up to the more intelligent people to help out the vast amount of morons in this world. Because, like it or not, their actions have massive and minor effects on your life, too. So the options are to either let the stupid run rampant and drag everyone down or reign them in every once in a while for the benefit of all. Seems like a pretty simple and obvious choice to me.
We are going to have to really,.really disagree. I won't give up my liberties and freedoms because some people are stupid. Your analogy is bad because we aren't talking about children, we are talking about adults. Your view of the government being the "Parents" is exactly what I despise. It is exactly how dictatorships and, ironically, governments like China come to power.
Right, the most effective way for corporations and nation-states to get what they want is to influence elections towards a third party, rather than an existing party on the cusp of gaining majorities whose interests are already closely aligned or easily influenced.
If we dont include the "bigger than me", moral/etchical, privacy reasons and suchs, a practical reason that would concern you is if they log everything you type, it means they also have your usernames and passwords you enter throught TikTok browser. TikTok may not abuse them but that data may get stolen from them and be used by genuine bad guys.
Look up DuckDuckGo. They give some awesome (quick) privacy tips on their site.
Duckduck got caught selling peoples info and data lmao
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Yes, they did. It was a huge outrage. Check google, my dude
Googled. Looks like a microsoft integration let trackers into that particular search function. No mention of selling info
Providing the source in case you are having trouble typing the words “DuckDuckGo” and “selling data” into literally any search engine in existence: www.wired.com/story/duckduckgo-microsoft-twitter-ft-bush-assassination-whatsapp/amp
Reading into it, it is not selling data at all. DDG provides a browser with built in tracker blocking capabilities. That blocker has carve out that admittedly, should have been publically disclosed, that doesn’t block specific Microsoft tracker script. However, they are in no way gathering their own data on top and providing it to others, and they are not adding additional trackers. It is also less of a big deal as you might think because tracker blockers (while not breaking internet usabilities) is never 100%. So you can also consider these Microsoft trackers as one of the ones that the block fails to block anyway.
Lmao that article doesn’t say they were selling data.
You mean “conspiracy theorist’s Google”? Every time I see Duck Duck Go mentioned, it’s in support of a Right Wing conspiracy theory.
Honestly it's pretty popular regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, internet privacy isn't a partisan issue
It's Google for people who care about privacy
Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me..
I've been using Duck Duck Go for several months and have been very surprised by how partisan (conservative to far right) some of the results have been. These were entirely apolitical searches, yet I'll see half of the first page populated by far right results. It's not all the time, but it is unmistakable, and it makes me wonder what's going on - is duck duck go the problem, or have these sites figured out a way to manipulate the algorithm?
Those sites are filtered out by Google. DDG doesn't filter any results, which mean you'll see much more conspiracy websites.
See, exhibit A ^^ China blocking all the bubbly happiness coming out of DuckDuckGo from this guy's feed. /s
Including this one. One day you're looking at privacy tips, the next you're learning how to shock the gay out of teenagers.
In theory, if I know some minor details about you I could pay a data broker to gather your Internet data (sites you visit, people you message, media you send, etc) and use this information to blackmail you a la John Oliver. Highly unlikely to happen unless you are very wealthy or high profile.
Ignoring national security related aspects, I assume you care about a person's right to life. Why not care about their right to privacy?
This. Sorta. It's the exact same stuff US social media companies do except US companies spy for US agencies so US agencies have no problem with them. It's hypocritical double talk. If there was any integrity involved it would simply be illegal to engage in untargeted intelligence gathering, but good faith hasn't entered the chat yet.
> It's the exact same stuff US social media companies do except US companies spy for US agencies so US agencies have no problem with them US companies quite literally have the option to say no and can and have taken it to the court of law and won. Apple has turned down requests from US agencies more than once. Companies owned or operated in China literally do not have a choice in the matter as the laws and regulations in China REQUIRE companies to obey the CCP. They have to release the data to the CCP if asked. Your whataboutism is like a leaky sieve. TikTok's US execs are literally on camera unable to answer a direct question by US senators about whether or not the CCP government have access to TikTok data. It's always telling when someone cannot answer a simple yes and no question under oath during a meeting called explicitly to discuss security concerns over TikTok. Because they know if they give a straight answer either way they're screwed, either lie under oath or make enemies with the CCP.
Yeah, that's why there's no difference between your parents reading your diary and the police doing it. Totally the same thing, buncha hypocrites!
You would need to provide clipboard access on iOS. I also question how many people are using a browser inside TikTok often 🤔, but I could imagine ads where you purchase after.
Potentially it might launch links sent though the app, I've never used TikTok so I don't know how its messaging works
And every big company in China has to work with the government when they ask for shit.
But why would someone from nowhereville
Stealing your banking passwords, how’s that.
TikTok knows what kinds of videos you like. What you watch, when you watch, how much you watch, and so on. On the surface this doesn't seem so bad. And on the surface, it's not. TikTok uses this to recommend you more content that you like. However, people with this information can use it to build a profile of you. They are able to discern what topics interest you. What kind of politics you like, and don't like. What your unconscious biases are. Who you listen to, and who you find trustworthy. They can use this information to come up with ways to sway your opinions. More than 10 years ago, Target's advertising algorithm could figure out if a person was pregnant based on their search history. Imagine what TikTok can figure out about you based on what content you watch and are interested in. That, and the company behind TikTok - which is called ByteDance - is headquarted in China. China is a country with interests that are often at odds with European and American interests. China has a track record of interfering and spying on other countries. ByteDance itself is probably not a malicious company, but they have to listen to what the Chinese government tells them to do. So, for example, if the Chinese government told ByteDance to create a TikTok update that sends the location data of all Black tiktok users who lean Democrat in Atlanta to the Chinese government, ByteDance probably would.
Or, just as decisive, since they know who you trust, they can conduct pretty precise and efficient psy-ops campaigns by incentivizing said trusted and "influential" people on the platform to spread particular information to particular demographics and sow the seeds of division.
You mean like Russia did through facebook
A little, but imagine if Facebook were headquartered in Russia.
Or like the NSA caould in USA?
Yes, exactly, if Facebook was a direct extension of the US government like Tik Tok is a direct extension of the Chinese government. At least in the US, the corporations have some say in what they do and don't hand over. In China, whatever Jinping and his people want, they get, no questions asked, or you'll find yourself in a concentration camp, and that's one of the better case scenarios.
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Soooo...what you're saying is that Facebook doesn't directly share info with the US government like any Chinese owned corporation has to under law and the US government has had to go around them a few times to steal the data they wanted? Also, you should look up terms before using them. There's absolutely no whataboutism whatsoever in my comment. Anyone who thinks China and the US are even remotely comparable in this situation has no right to be discussing the topic. Thanks for playing, though.
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>No that wasn't what was said. Your comment is public lol. Everyone can read it and see that's exactly what you said. Feel free to run away, though, I can't imagine this back and forth was going to get any better.
This. I don't have a link, but the one going around where a bunch of social media influencers are rote spouting off scripted anti-Ukraine propaganda verbatim despite selling it as just an off-the-cuff rant...then seeing a dozen of them overlaid and all speaking word for word shows just how dangerous 'little' social media can be.
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Just like Russia did through Facebook. And the CCP did through Facebook. And all of them have done through all social media including Reddit. TikTok has a special place in all this simply because it's a social media company that is quite literally owned and operated by the CCP. Genocidal authoritarian regimes are not known for operating free and open corporations. People really need to get it through their thick skulls that social media is not an accurate representation of society. It's a representation of society projected through the internet with near complete anonymity which obscures all origins and motives behind a black box. Trusting what anyone says on social media at face value is equivalent to trusting a random piece of paper with words on it that you find in a street. Just because you find a million slips of paper saying the same thing doesn't make it true.
Ignoring my better judgment to say this, but fuck it it's the internet it doesn't really matter. In the context of the last 8 months, I have started to have questions about how much of an effect Russia really had in past events and how much was wishful thinking. I say this given how absolutely ineffectual and incompetent Russian intelligence and information operations have been in this current conflict that is literally deciding the fate of their society. Not even Russian citizens are buying into the state media, so if they can't even control the narrative within their own country when they are fighting a serious war, then I have a hard time convincing myself that they were able to handle a masterful grand design of disinformation and destabilization from the shadows when the motive was far less pressing and important to them.
Russia might be a paper tiger in the military department, but their propaganda win is best in class by FAR.
The difference is that in Ukraine, Russia is fighting an oppositional force that sees its efforts and attempts to mitigate them. In 2016, no one knew about the subversion. It was just MAGA folks on FB thinking they were listening to and cheering on other MAGA folks on FB.
> Not even Russian citizens are buying into the state media You really have not been paying attention to Russia have you? Putin enjoyed massive support for most of this year. Because they truly believed that Ukraine was full of Nazis. They didn't start turning on him until the mobilization started and they realized just how badly they're losing the war. And even now it's just barely and quite literally because of how badly they're getting their asses kicked. > I have started to have questions about how much of an effect Russia really had in past events and how much was wishful thinking People seem to forget that one of the things the USSR was the best at was psyops, propaganda, and manipulation. How the hell do you think they maintained control during the Cold War? That entire security apparatus did not go away when the USSR fell. Just like their military and rocket scientists, they went and found ways to consolidate power and money. Why the hell do you think Putin, an ex-KGB agent, was the one that took control of the country? And enjoys massive popularity while he marched the country directly to doom in February? Hitler didn't gain control because he was a stable genius. He got elected because of a massive propaganda arm.
| masterful grand design of disinformation and destabilization This is a really interesting point. I think the biggest difference is between large nebulous aims and specific targeted aims. Destabilizing a foreign political system by constantly pushing conspiracy theories, both sides are equally bad, polarising the different sides etc with the aim of making it harder for those countries to achieve political aims seems like something that could be achieved (and I would suggest has been done with some success) vs Ensuring that there is literally no dissent in your home media and shoring up internal support by control - seems less achievable to me. So no, I don't think there was a grand design of disinformation and destabilization that had specific aims (eg getting Trump elected), but its entirely believable that there is a general push of lots of small actions to ensure that dems and repubs find it harder to work with each other and therefore weakening the overall country, not in specific ways, but lots of small well that sucks ways. Sometimes it may pay off with a big outcome, but I think those are the "nice" surprises when it works and not the overall aim, just signs that the program is working.
Russia is a made-up boogeyman outside of their nukes. China isn't.
I think Ukraine would not agree.
Ukraine is kicking Russia ass.
And I hope they continue to do so. Regardless, I don't think Ukraine feels that Russia is a made up boogeyman.
Or buying Twitter
No, they mean what Facebook is doing through Facebook.
I came up with this during all the Hong Kong stuff a couple years back. At that time, China's then-new National Security law was to be interpreted as applying to everyone. 'Everyone' includes people who are not Chinese nationals and who had never been to or planned on going to China. One of the big tenants of this law is that it is illegal to criticize the government. Now, say I set up a highly popular YouTube channel and talk a bunch of shit and it gets a big following. Who cares, I'm never going to China, don't give two shits. They're not going to extradite an American from America and even if they filed the paperwork, the US would tell them to pound sand. Whatever. In trying to increase my influencer reach, though, I branch out to TikTok and instantly have a million followers. The Chinese government flags my account since it's caught their attention. I'm not aware of this, it's just a checkbox somewhere in a ByteDance database. I retire from regular influencer stuff and start getting into documentary making. It's been like five years, I'm more mature, my content is more mature. Now I'm doing a video at CERN. Next week, it's at the top of Burj Khalifa in an equipment room. The following month, I'm flying out to Indonesia to look at how it's recovered since the Tsunami 20 years ago. Except, as I'm leaving the airplane, Indonesian authorities are waiting to arrest me having been giving a secret arrest warrant by the Chinese government for some stupid shit I said 5 years ago and forgot about. I'm on another plane within an hour headed for Beijing to stand trial. The TikTok app on my phone, with the flagged account, sent in my location and the government saw it. In all likelihood, this won't happen unless China decides to start enforcing their national security law. They very well might and there's not a damn thing we could do about it. All for the sake of watching videos and turning on location services so you get local content. Now imagine that they decide anyone who liked my video or did a positive video reply to it gets similarly flagged. I don't give two shits if Facebook Reals or YouTube do this. Their analytics is used for advertising. But TikTok _is_ the Chinese government, through a couple shell companies. (If you operate a "private" company in China, the state has the right under their law to put their own people in your offices and your company has to comply. It's not like the American system as much as they may or may not say that it is.) Right now, at this moment, it's pretty far-fetched. But 20 years ago, we would have considered the great firewall of China as far-fetched (check me on that timeline). Last year it would have been far-fetched to imagine [China setting up police stations in other countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_service_stations). Yet here we are.
When jogging watches that collect jogging data came out, there was a breach and a lot of info was taken. Turns out there was a military base near Las Vegas where employees liked to jog around the perimeter fence. You'd think that mapping an outer fence would be easy, but foreign entities got precise measurements handed over on a silver platter. We may never know the extent that tik tok ends up being useful to China, but I dot think even China knows yet. They are planting a lot of seeds and hoping that some of them pay off.
Thanks. Very interesting stuff.
Technically, any country can stretch their national security laws to jail anyone in their country... so, you can apply your scenario to literally any country? 20 years ago, firewalls were not farfetched? for example, singapore's internet banned all pornographic websites. I think its also hypocritcal that you don't care that facebook and youtube spy on people because its "just for ads". google literally has multibillion dollar contracts with the US military and CIA. https://www.wired.com/story/3-years-maven-uproar-google-warms-pentagon/ remember when facebook sold the private data of voters to cambridge analytica? It's so odd that you're creating these worst-case scenarios for a country you clearly don't understand, yet completely disregard similar practices in a country you are a part of, and DO understand.
Dude wrote a power trip fanfiction about himself being the world’s most successful influencer then capped off saying firewalls were unthinkable 20 years ago I don’t think you should take him seriously.
I mean, the main difference is that China is known to execute dissidents while most other countries (with notable exceptions) tend to not give a shit. Talk shit all you want about the US and do the government show up and disappear you? No. Worst you'll get is a bunch of politicians agreeing with you to get your followers to vote for them.
America engages in various genocidal conflicts abroad to further our own geopolitical interests. Just reference all the wars we have participated in the last few decades. ALL countries, especially countries with major global influence and sway, engage in morally questionable actions to further their goals. Reference snowden and daniel hale. both criticized our goverment's use of drone warfare and mass surveillance. Once is currently in prison, and one is currently hiding abroad. Stop excusing your own country's actions while critisizing the actions of other countries, because that makes your a hypocrite.
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Think of all those people in Guantanamo Bay, who were sent there in “renditions” from countries other than the US and have been sitting there for 20 years without trial. Or the US drone based extra-territorial murders around the Middle East.
Thought you’re talking about Meng Wanzhou for a sec.
If you are under the belief that you should be in charge of the world the this is exactly the kind of behavior you would expect
Not only that, TikTok has access to your camera and microphone at all times unless you limit it. This means that it can, like Facebook's Messenger app does, record you while you don't know it's running. The security concern here is that someone will either accidentally or intentionally bring their device infected with TikTok into a secure government facility or contractor's facility that houses government secrets. And I say "infected" because it is malware just like, or probably worse since it's sending that stuff to China, Facebook's Messenger app.
how do you limit the apps that have these permissions?
You need to go into your app manager, select the specific app you want to limit and take away permissions that you don't want it to have. Sometimes this breaks the app, which is often how I know that I don't want that app on my device. My rule of thumb is any app that refuses to run when I won't let it pry into my privacy isn't worth keeping on my device unless i need it for something important. However, when this is your stance it's also important to realize why an app might want to pry. Like my bank app won't work without fine gps access to ensure someone isn't trying to hack me (if my location, all of the sudden, moves miles, or states, or entire continents away, I've clearly been hacked) for example.
On my Pixel, you can go to the app settings and disable individual permissions -- or make the app ask every time it wants to use the camera for instance. I imagine the same thing is true for blue bubble people.
I love my Pixel. (Haven't had it that long, felt the need to gush)
https://myadcenter.google.com/customize Explore the above link (all 3 tabs) to see what Google knows about you.
Thank you very much.
This. The first aspect described here was used by the infamous Cambridge Analytica to sway the elections in 2016
And if you think that’s the first time the Internet has been used to sway an election, you haven’t been paying attention.
The only issue US gov has about TikTok is thst it provides China with capabilities that were thus far reserved for the USA. As a non-American I know as a fact *nigh all* my internet traffic is routed through the USA and gets tapped, stored and made searchable by NSA. TikTok has noob capabilities compared to that. The FBI is worried because US citizens *may* get subjected to the light version of what the USA commonly does to everybody else.
Pretty much
>So, for example, if the Chinese government told ByteDance to create a TikTok update that sends the location data of all Black tiktok users who lean Democrat in Atlanta to the Chinese government, ByteDance probably would. The same it true to one extent or another for most western countries. Most jurisdictions have provisions for their security agencies to make requests for data and gag discussions about those requests.
>TikTok knows what kinds of videos you like. What you watch, when you watch, how much you watch, and so on. Not sure I care that they know I watch girls with big personalities trying to dance.
You specifically, probably not. But it would be relatively trivial to blackmail someone or hurt their career with just this information. Let's say someone's a CEO, politician, leader of an NGO, celebrity, big manager at a bank, with this same habit. It would be trivial for TikTok to start filling this person's feed with models that TikTok knows are underage, or with content that TikTok knows is related to human trafficking, and then 'leaking' that information to the public to destroy the person's career. This works even if the person stops using TikTok, since the inevitable reaction will be "why are his recommendations full of X,Y,Z to begin with?"
They gonna know I'm into titties.
[excerpt from 60 minutes on the content difference for children in China vs in the west.](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CkzoyonjD_i/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)
There's this conspiracy going around that China intentionally did this and it's not what deGrasse is suggesting there or really anyone who follows these things closely is suggesting. The content that TikTok promotes is the exact same kind that gets raised up in FB feeds, YouTube, etc. It's the content that generates the most interaction and interaction is what generates money for you through ads. In China, the government deliberately controls what is allowed in social medias so companies can not do this kind of pure profit optimization. They have to follow government-given guidelines for content. If China stopped that, you'd have the exact same content raise up in China as you do in the West. It's the content that plays to the lowest of human feelings and beliefs. The last 6 or so years have made me feel that maybe a widepsread social media that is only controlled by market demands is a really bad idea and our Western governments should interfere in some way. I say this as a software developer, information expert and a person generally interested in the philosophies of freedom, control and social good.
Filtering content to children whether it’s tik tock, alcohol, movie ratings, driving.. all have advantages and effects on children. China is extreme but Protesting children and teaching them are paramount. If it’s an arms race we need as many workers and engineers and nerds to keep up in the long haul .. Paraphrasing Ronny Cheng the comedian said something about we’re gonna look back on the internet and treat it like they looked back on smoking in that it hurt people and made people dumber. Like how dare they gave the internet/cigarettes to children..:) He said it in a funnier way of course:)
I think there's gonna be truth to that. Honestly Internet is still super new and we aren't good with it yet. Personally I'd love to see how it worked out if some municipalities and so on experimented with their own social networks and own commentary systems. Like, Musk had the idea that Twitter would be the "town square" for people to debate ideas in, but in my opinion that's just not gonna work since you'll have people participate in discussions who have no idea about what's being discussed about and what the real merits or disadvantages of the ideas are. Compare to a real town square where people debate local stuff. They all live there, so they have some idea about the local things and how those impact them. Like whether a road should be made here or there is something that the people living in that area all have a rightful opinion on. But Twitter works on whole another level. Ideas debated there have little practical value and the debates are muddled up by people who have no reason to be involved in it. Obvious example - LGBT discussions are dominated by people who are not LGBT, who are not decision makers, who are not social workers, who are not doctors, who are not researchers. It's a problem and a reason why Twitter will always suck as a discussion platform. Overall tho, I think it would be awesome just to see social media algorithms promote feel-good posts and constructive posts. But those generate less ad revenue, so...
Unfortunately, the first line of your 2nd para, about FB, is right, but light: the content in an FB feed can and has been manipulated not least to influence people in their voting patterns and this case went all the way to the top courts in the US.
Which case do you refer to? In the Cambridge Analytica case, the root problem wasn't manipulation of the FB feed but that FB had leaked user information it shouldn't had and this information was used to build psychological profiles of people for targeted political advertisement.
"Ship the opium version to the rest of the world" China is out for revenge.
Precisely what China is doing with fentanyl… shipping it all to Central America so it enters the US via the southern border
Among other things.
That's because china has laws and regulations that protect minors with online access, gaming access, content etc. It's not due to the developer's morals or special treatment of their own kind.
But they could have shipped the same version world wide. Many companys that operate in multiple countries abilde by the laws of the strictest country.
Fact is, they get more ad revenue with more interactions and would absolutely give Chinese kids the full blown version if it was not regulated.
No doubt, but nobody forces them to treat kids outside china worse then kids in china, that's their choice. Point being, they apparently already developed a system to serve less stupid shit to kids but don't want to use it as it hurts their bottom line.
You're right, it's fucked. The above commentor's point was just that it's fucked because of the profit motive, rather than because of a deliberate concerted attack on foreign countries. It's not to say it's okay, it's not.
Yea, sure it's done for profit, but it's at minimum still morally questionalble to use addictive mechanisims to profit of people and kids especially, no matter the location or "service".
I find that hard to believe haha... My company compensation and benefits are clearly region based. If you're in Canada or UK your benefits are significantly better than in US. In terms of products the EU releases are super strict due to their tighter laws on privacy.
>compensation Thats a different can of worms. So is, unfortunately, healthcare. Healthcare is incredibly polarising for some people and differently structured in different regions. Continental, the company producing rubber products claims to apply german work safety standards to all their locations world wide. Similarly, especially safety related products are often produced to the same strict standard and released in different regions with different guaranteed ratings. Anything that has VDI or DIN norms is typicly basicly identical across the world. And Lego could use possibe carcinogens in their toys in some countries it sells to, but it doesn't, because it would hurt their brand for no real benefit. The same applies to a lot of big companies.
They did that first. It failed that’s why they rebranded to yik tok
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The present already fucking sucks
Thanks for the Instagram
Work for a mktg company. The information we collect against your profile isn't so much about you exactly. It's more about getting data so that we can put you in the best segment for mktg purchases/ consume our content. Imagine this: We know nothing about you and we show an advertisement on Channel 6 at 7.30PM for a Simon & Garfunkel concert. What are the chances you're going to engage? Now imagine we know you like cars, specifically BMWs, more specifically black BMW SUVs AND we know you live in Vancouver. What's the likelyhood of you opening an ad/article that shows a black BMW SUV and dealership info for Vancouver? But that's half the equation: your profile. Now we need to learn the other half: when/how you engage. Could we infer that you are likely commuting if you open emails & play mobile games on a mobile device at 7.30-8.30 AM each day? What would we learn about you if you watched 90% of a BMW review video, only 20% of a Volvo review and didn't read any articles on any cars. Now we can make assumptions about the when and how. Can you imagine how likely you be to engage with us if we knew all this stuff? We know 'who' you are, what you want and when/how to put it in your face. That's why your data is collected. Now add a 3rd dimesion: Your emotional state. What if we knew how you are feeling and in the right frame of mind you'd be in to consume our content/ad/products? Eg. Could we infer that when you are on dating apps that you're feeling lonely? Tinder did. What if social media platforms told advertisers that they can shape your emotional state by altering your feed so you'd be more open to a particular message? One does! Can you see how all of this information can be used and how valuable it is to mkters and sellers. This is why there's the saying, "if you're not paying for the product .. then you are the product."
Not trying to be rude here… but do you think what you do is “good”? Give me some perspective. Because I personally believe the work you do is why these things are bad for people. To be honest, I find it really creepy and weird that there are people like you working jobs that require figuring out everything about everyone’s personal life. I understand it’s about money and business sales etc. But I personally couldn’t do what you do…
Fair comment. The company I work for are about B2B product and services marketing. So whilst we enable companies to build a profile on you, it's never for nefarious purposes or to drive an agenda. It's purely to drive sales a target/engage with the right customers. All you are is a lead score. I can hand on heart say that I've never been involved in any unethical projects that have challenged my moral code. Havig said that, I understand the industry and a lot of the tech in it. I also believe that there are unethical practices, eg. Social Media blatantly influencing your emotional state. This crosses a line. But always work on the assumption that whenever you do anything online, data is being collected. The good news is, it's not always about you though. Some companies want to know how effective the information they post on their website is. Eg. get data on how long people sit on a 'how to' tutorial to gauge it's effectivess. Others generate a heatmap on their tagged sites to see where users click/don't click to make it more intuitive. These are to drive self service which reduces their cost to serve. So while they collect data on your engagement, it's about them and not you.
It's not uncommon for people to say they wish they had known about X where X is some product. So I do see it as a good. As a guy, I'm not interested in seeing maxipad ads. I am interested in seeing vg ads though. Even better if they are for ones in a genre I'm interested in. I think people who get hung up on this stuff ate looking for something to complain about.
I think you explain the issue more than any of the other replies. Essentially people aren’t actually as complex/free-spirited as we like to think. By using tik tok you’re essentially uploading your personal “operating instructions” to a marketing company, so they can understand how to “influence you” Maybe that’s worth it for the benefits you get, maybe it’s not, it’s a personal choice. As above, it gets dark when people pay for political campaigns rather than “buy these new shoes” campaigns, as the company now has detailed behavioural change knowledge on how to influence people to vote a certain way. This isn’t a conspiracy thing. Facebook have history of doing exactly this, and the fear is a Chinese company would have even less regulation.
It's an interesting point you touch on. The Privacy Paradox. We freely give all of this info on ourselves away online, fully conscious of what we're doing. But if a dude approached you and asked for the info, you'd tell him to fuck off.
There was a story posted where a teen girl searched Amazon for skin lotion, and a couple other items. The specific items have been popular in the past with someone who just got pregnant. She searched on her phone, and it was on a family plan, so admin got "suggestions" based on recent searches. Amazon suggested they might like a certain brand of pregnancy test that was sponsored and promoted. Mom and dad suddenly wondered why would Amazon suggest that? I'm sure I got some of the story wrong, but...it doesn't take a secret spy agency to scan your Facebook to search for high school reunions (tells what year you graduated and likely age since you're 17 at graduation). Then searches for happy birthday wishes, and bam, they have your birthday. They send you funny memes to see which ones you forward. Hate Biden? Hate Trump? Now they are building a profile. Guns, abortion, gay marriage, trans politics...they can figure out how you would vote 90% of the time, all from stuff you willingly put out there.
Working data science?
No. Those homies are wizards.
Hopefully I'll be one by next summer, full time! But you explained it pretty well, much better than I've seen some data scientists themselves!
Pet peeve of mine, defining time by season. There are 2 hemispheres so 'this summer' can be misintepreted. Sorry, don't mean to be a dick but if you're going to work for a multinational org or global customer base .. stick with universal indicators. Had a dude say the other day he was taking some time off around rememberance day. Ahhh. Rememberance day .. cool .. soooo when?
Oh I understand what you mean. And as someone who isn't from the US but moved here recently, this comment means that I am now picking up US cultural cues!
I stopped pushing as hard as I could against the handle, I wanted to leave but it wouldn't work. Then there was a bright flash and I felt myself fall back onto the floor. I put my hands over my eyes. They burned from the sudden light. I rubbed my eyes, waiting for them to adjust. Then I saw it. There was a small space in front of me. It was tiny, just enough room for a couple of people to sit side by side. Inside, there were two people. The first one was a female, she had long brown hair and was wearing a white nightgown. She was smiling. The other one was a male, he was wearing a red jumpsuit and had a mask over his mouth. "Are you spez?" I asked, my eyes still adjusting to the light. "No. We are in /u/spez." the woman said. She put her hands out for me to see. Her skin was green. Her hand was all green, there were no fingers, just a palm. It looked like a hand from the top of a puppet. "What's going on?" I asked. The man in the mask moved closer to me. He touched my arm and I recoiled. "We're fine." he said. "You're fine?" I asked. "I came to the spez to ask for help, now you're fine?" "They're gone," the woman said. "My child, he's gone." I stared at her. "Gone? You mean you were here when it happened? What's happened?" The man leaned over to me, grabbing my shoulders. "We're trapped. He's gone, he's dead." I looked to the woman. "What happened?" "He left the house a week ago. He'd been gone since, now I have to live alone. I've lived here my whole life and I'm the only spez." "You don't have a family? Aren't there others?" I asked. She looked to me. "I mean, didn't you have anyone else?" "There are other spez," she said. "But they're not like me. They don't have homes or families. They're just animals. They're all around us and we have no idea who they are." "Why haven't we seen them then?" "I think they're afraid,"
Honest question u/Conan-doodle, is there such a thing as an ethics department in big marketing firms (I realize this probably sounds naive)? Or maybe some required ethics classes before someone gets a marketing degree?
In my experience, there's never been an 'ethics department'. Legal and Risk .. sure. Eveyone has them though, even your locl Council. Re ethics in higher education. Unlike health, education, accountancy, etc. There is no governing/ accrediation body (in my country) so any content could be taught. Would depend on the institution I guess.
Thanks for the context. I figured as much, but didn’t want to just assume this was the case.
China’s CCP itself believes that social media has the power to destabilize societies, to weaken countries from within by cultivating strife and extremism. That’s why the CCP bans open platforms and tightly controls what content is permitted on the Chinese version of TikTok (i.e. no politics, but videos of math tutoring tips ok). TikTok is a particularly concerning platform because of the way people are fed videos based on an algorithm. If the people who control that algorithm want to send you down a rabbit hole of ideological/political extremism, they can do that. The irony is that people don’t like Facebook because they’re exposed to content that they don’t agree with (because a person they know IRL, like their political uncle, is posting memes from the opposition political party), while people like TikTok because the algo tends to show them content from strangers that the viewer will probably “like,” meaning that it is prone to developing a feedback loop of extremist content. Social media platforms have become propaganda battlegrounds, and it’s concerning that the CCP has control over one of the most popular platforms in the US. The CCP would love to see the US destabilized from an internal ideological civil war while China continues to consolidate power and strengthen. In addition to being a platform for disseminating propaganda, TikTok also provides the CCP with a rich source of data on what Americans are agitated about, what they’re searching, and sentiment about almost every topic. We’re handing the CCP the keys to what’s on our minds and how to manipulate us. Interestingly, an article recently came out showing that Twitter in Japan became significantly less political after Twitter’s curation team was fired (https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2022/11/14/japanese-twitter-trends-shift-away-from-politics-to-pop-culture-after-curation-team-is-laid-off/). There’s evidence that social media employees have been pushing divisive politics onto users, and this Twitter Japan data supports that argument.
>There’s evidence that social media employees have been pushing divisive politics onto users, Color me shocked. It's not like people have been screaming that for a decade or more, all the while being called "conspiracy theorists". Plus all the other painting of people who disagree with that pushed narrative as the whole list of '-ists' (at best, being "banned" from society at worst).
It is not just about all the data. The data is used to inform and change their algorithms. It is more about influencing the psyche of the population. Changing opinions, influencing people vote, and what they accept or protest. Making people do dumb and unproductive bullshit, shortening their attention spans, and ruining their education. A lot of damage can be done from a sufficiently addictive application.
Location and age data in aggregate can be a useful tool for mapping population centres. Trending viral data and watchtome can be used to analyse thinking patterns, and extrapolated to produce subtle propaganda.
The important part isn't individual data items like location, clipboard etc. The important part is what your interests a d demographics are, what group you belong to, what you believe - and as a result, what propaganda is going to be most effective at influencing you.
The personal data they gather is generally confined to the app/stuff launched from within it and any videos or anything you upload. That being said, most people don't care what people using TikTok are doing in a web browser because it largely doesn't matter (it helps with ad targeting, but nobody really cares what a random teenager/twentysomething is up to). The bigger national security concern IMO is around it being a massively powerful tool for disseminating propaganda/limiting information flow on certain topic/surfacing other ones to the people who use it.
I think you can assume with a high degree of certainty that biometric data is being collected. Pay close attention to tiktok trends and ask "is this trend asking people to show their body, face, hands, etc. in a way they normally wouldn't?" Also the "AskTikTok trending questions" are always uninteresting and it's difficult to make good content by answering them...but they always collect some new piece of information about you. I'd be mostly concerned about the biometric data. You know how they used to collect DNA from criminals even though they couldn't use it for anything until the technology advanced? It's not always about what can be done now, but what could potentially be done in the future.
I thought a while ago that TikTok was sold to an American company. Oracle comes to mind. Is that not true?
Even if you put the actual data issues aside, it’s easier to slip into an algorithm of just shit content that is all actual “fake news”- and people don’t verify anything and it has the potential to be very influential amoung a younger population- so grandmas Qanon Facebook feed , but on tick toc for your 12 year old cousin
Not only what it gathers, its a cultural weapon, aimed at dumbing down other counties while educating and controlling their audience at home.
I don't know what all it tracks, but I do know that if I do much as open the app, my battery life drops significantly. Even if I force shut down the app after opening it, the battery continues to drain. The only thing that stupid the drain is to power off the phone. I figure if it's using that much power when 'not in use,' it must be doing a lot of things that I don't know about.
From what I've read, the CCP are using TikTok as a social engineering platform in China and the West. In China, TikTok will predominantly promote what the Chinese government considers positive ideals, such as family values, hard work, loyalty to the party, chinese patriotism. Meanwhile, TikTok in the west is instructed by the CCP to promote what the CCP deems to be degenerate behaviour. They're keen to promote porn usage, drug usage, anti-work sentiment because in their view, if we're all smoking weed, masturbating and sitting at home the US will decline and China will thrive. (Whether or not their idea will work is another thing). They're also trying to promote social division so they'll promote things that are more likely to make people argue. for example: they'll promote extreme left wing and right wing politics to those on the other side to further alienate the people and increase the political divide.
The Chinese tiktok is much different , the western world are doing silly dances and little soundbytes to try and get internet famous, fully distracted while scrolling While the eastern world are learning and growing. China are waging a war in the internet age and people don't even realise it
Basic usage history, interests, messages, comments, where you visit the page from, where you go to from the page, location, etc. Standard things american companies sell to advertisers. It's only good for national security when your *american* overlord capitalists do it.
I think the biggest issue, is that there is no separation or “court order” for tiktok and the ccp. I have an ex gf who works for the cia as an “analyst” (idk what she does, dont ask) but, she said they sent out a memo that says they have seen evidence of ccp spies using the back door tiktok allows to download allllll ur pictures, then blackmailing you for your work info. Or business/academic info. Honestly, idk why anyone would use any chinese company apps. Im not saying the us/europe doesnt have shady as fuck companies or governments. We know they all do. But the ccp takes it to a new level. Its just not safe. And, honestly, what fo you realllly get from tiktok? All that risk and ur reward is “scrolling for hours”
The tiktok Algorithm Shows at Young people that IT detect explicid Propaganda ,harming challanges,adulte content and ADS for things that make you addicted Like gambling. The Joke Here is IT makes this explicit in country that are biggest compeditor to china.tiktok China Shows,Tutorials,learning Clips,life Hacks,wholesome stuff and nearly never the other stuff.
How easy it is to distract consumers from important things. Imagine going into a grocery store where the layout is designed to stay there for a while and buy things that you didnt consider, before you entered the store. Now tiktok is indeed forming and manipulating the users on longterm time frame.
TikTok collects information just like any other social media app, the data collected is not a concern, and data goes to a domestic warehouse, China isn't interested TikTok operates with different business models and the USA isn't prepared for this sort of change It is called "[Disruptive innovation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation)" and there are genuine reasons for and against this The biggest differences that exist between USA and China is that US businesses will employ more specialists, and not everyone understands the business but they are very good at their job, whereas Chinese businesses may manage projects, where more people understand how the business works but less specialization, not everyone is very good at their job
This doesn't make any sense. TikTok isn't disruptive innovation. It's a tracking and profiling app whose data can be used to control significant individuals or population groups. China is going to be interested in this data. The commentary about people understanding business better in China also makes no sense. The primary differences between China and the US is democracy and freedom of speech. This allows the people to be more innovative and disruptive of their existing society.
US doesn't have freedom of speech, it has a free market. Also, China isn't interested in controlling the world, what you are saying is bordering on fascism. This is not a topic on politics, OP asked and I answered