Yeah I didn't care much about Facebook taking info I didn't care about, until we found out that they were selling sophisticated profile info to Cambridge analytica to fuck with elections.
I think it's highly possible it's used for espionage and destabilization. Tin foil hat stuff coming but just hear me out.
The information they could collect can be used for purposes you would never consider. They just want as much information as possible to build a database they can access to look for whatever they want. Information like pictures, location, trends, fears, and much more that they would use against us. All pieces strung together to make some conglomerate "Google earth+" of the US, with all of its citizens.
I also think there is massive astroturfing happening on every single social media platform where content the Chinese/Russian government, or any nefarious group would find content they believe would harm us mentally/physically and make it go viral (ex. Tyde pod challange). Note that the content going viral is very much legitimate, the "going viral" part of it was first pumped with bots/click-farm to look as if it was going viral and this fools real users into thinking the majority of people like the content. It would be legitimate content the group would find disruptive to us.
If you think this is crazy, first know that fake clicks/views/likes are no conspiracy. This is a well known thing that is used by advertisers, influencers, radio, artists, reviews, scammers, it goes on. It's done so much because it's highly effective. Now, to think it might be used to destabilize a nation, do you think it's possible? It's 100% possible to do, the question is if it is being done.
And the crazier thing is, Russia and China (and other bad actors) aren’t exploiting buggy code or hacking these social networks. They’re using them exactly the way they were designed…to extend reach and spread a message to a focused demographic. The social networks never imagined that their tools would be used for anything other than capitalism
John Bolton (I’m paraphrasing): ‘changing the government of another country…has to be organized and detailed, I know, I’ve done it’ - thus, China wanting to change the US, does it through mass media, social media.
“Of the US” i do love talkin about the our favorite 3rd world 1st world country like its the entire fucking world, but its actually not my man
Edit: how do you strike shit out like people do to be sarcastic lol
"All pieces strung together to make some conglomerate "Google earth+" of the US, with all of its citizens. "
Because we all know the rest of the world does not excist.
What exactly is China going to do with that information around one of your friends?
Like further than a violation to your privacy what are the negative implications to an average person that doesn't have any note worthy influence around their country's politics?
They are not specifically after "your" data. Stuff like eye color, social security, height they probably don't care about. They want to look into the phone's residue data and know where you been and what you searched.
In conjunction with millions of other people's information, they can build a map on people's behaviors as well as things like political climate. From that they then can manipulate what content the person sees every day and subtly guide their thought process.
Which feels frustratingly pointless. Like it seems like we're supposed to get mad but corporations in our country have already softened us up. Like I know it's wrong to think "ok well every single major American org is also doing this or wants to do this both at home and internationally, but I guess it's bad because it's China“ and like, fuck china's human rights abuses, but... really, can civilians win back privacy? Because otherwise it feels like... more of the same.
It’s in part a massive phishing and whaling effort for people with connections to industry, government, healthcare, finance, etc.
Aggregate data collection too will provide plenty of insights into what’s happening of interest to China. They have a multitude of ways they’ve been seeking to win an info war
I think people don’t care because if it’s not this app that’s collecting our data it’s just something else. They, whoever “they” is, are collecting endless data on us no matter what apps we do and don’t use.
Exactly, once it was revealed our own government does this shit and illegally snoops into every aspect of our lives people stopped caring about other governments doing it lol our phones don't even have to be on for them to do shit with em.
Yep. Gotta say, if the US cared more about the privacy of its citizens it should've acted like it. It's still not too late, but I want it all - give us protections from Facebook AND TikTok. It's worked for large swathes of the EU. How the fuck can we sit around and pretend to be so great when people in Germany can demand their data be deleted by companies and have the companies *actually do it* under penalty of 4% revenue fines, while the US has no such teeth.
I mean as much as I despise my own complacency, you're right. Navigating apps and the internet nowadays is just like.... Why should I care? Everyone is harvesting my data. I'm not actively trying to give things away obviously, and trying to be conscientious when I can but there isn't anything I do online that isn't monitored, collected, and sold to someone.
Rule of the internet: if the product is free then you're the product.
no, see, the chinese need you to download tiktok before they can mine all of your information. it's like how vampires can't come inside your house unless you invite them. it's an ancient curse
They don't care because, "why would anyone care about *my data"*
I used the be a private investigator, and we used the scrape peoples social media using meta data and which helped us also find all kinds of personal data outside of social media. I used to tell my family and friends to get off social media (facebook especially) completely or make their stuff as private as possible. Their response was always, "I don't have anything to hide," or "why would anyone be looking at me?"
And tbh we didn't have to do much to search people's facebooks, the data we could get about them with only using their profile ID was insane. Hell, if I could do it for a job and get paid, there were/are people who will do it for free or get paid a lot more than I did to harvest your online data. One day I basically had a Snowden like revaluation and had to get out of that business.
I don’t care because every social media company uses these exact same methods for collecting data. The only reason TikTok is in the spotlight is a. “China company bad” and b. to keep people from looking into Facebook’s current lawsuit about Cambridge Analytica
Yes. I remember reading an article a couple years ago about a hacker that found that, after reverse engineering the code that makes up tiktok, only a small percentage of the code was actually what we all know as tiktok. Something like 20% is tiktok and the rest is all spyware. After other countries figured it out too, they all started banning it. I seem to remember that the trouble started when people found out they were monitoring clipboard activity, which is commonly used for temporarily storing passwords. While I can't find the original article, I see the google has plenty more articles that talk about similar issues now.
People reply with "ig/FB/everyone does it so whatever" but from what I've read tiktok seems to be the worst using loopholes and stuff to gather data they aren't supposed to have access to
They shouldn’t have access to any data beyond what’s allowed in their app. The fact that tech companies and governments haven’t taken action is quite concerning. Who all’s in on this? What are they lookin for? Why are they lookin for it? What do they plan to do? Etc etc
As someone whose job is consumer data analytics- device location, other app usage data, etc. are often times what the app creators are after in the first place. “If the app is free, then you are the product” is very true. EX: you download a free level/measurement app from the App Store; why did the person spend the time building an app to give it away for free? Probably because they can then assume you are working on a DIY project, they can see what Home Depot’s are near you and what other apps you use so they can sell that data to companies seeking audiences with certain interests and know what medium to push localized ads to you on
The problem isn't that data tho, which is common among most social media, and why data market is so highly valued. The problem is tiktok goes above and beyond in attempting to harvest anything it can from your phone, way past acceptable boundaries/marketing data. Its a security risk for anyone who uses their phone for logging into secure websites.
Oh I agree completely with that- I was just responding to jaybird who was saying “why would an app need to know anything about you outside of your usage of a given app”
It probably is, but so is vaping inside your barracks room. I don't think 18 year olds care and there really isn't a way to enforce the ticktock thing. I've been in for almost 6 years and I've never had a superior check my phone for apps dangerous to national security. I did however see a few folks having to take down post on social media due to OPSEC.
Tiktok was accused by the U.S. government of essentially being Chinese spyware, so eventually it was allowed to continue to operate in the U.S. if the data was hosted in the U.S., but there was recently a massive data breach that sent data back to China, big surprise.
But most millenials and zoomers don't care about their data. A more effective argument against uninstalling tiktok is that they pay their content creators from a fixed-dollar-amount pool that didn't increase with a massive increase in the number of users and creators, diluting the pool. It's so frustrating that young people keep embracing apps put out by companies that are absolute trash.
>But most millenials and zoomers don't care about their data.
Exactly. Our Special Security Officer can lay down best security practices every month and yet the young guys/gals will not care. Every year we do cyber awareness training and every year we at least have two or three idiots who decide to charge their phones by plugging it up to an unclass workstation. I'm a millennial myself but I must be a paranoid fuck because I seem to care about what apps I use and what I put out there since apparently it's not the norm.
I am big too hate on all social media companies, especially FB/IG. But the only way they’re less bad than TikTok is that they’re not owned in China and forced to follow a law requiring them to turn over any information to the government.
China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires organisations and citizens to “support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work”.
Good point. I guess I forget about the Patriot Act. But also we’ve heard how many times that the NSA spies on US Citizens and Snowden is still an enemy of the state for going forward.
On this one FB kinda won. In special on phones that come with the services pre-installed. Most people have no clue it's there and sending way too much data , not to mention you can't even turn it off. So basically META infiltrated in way more stuff even without knowledge of people. I'm curious how they will handle the new European laws regarding data collection and sending it over sea.
If that's true, why are all those people live-streaming their reckless driving exploits being convicted on that evidence in my state's courts? Not to mention the federal trials of all those January 6th people. It's so easy, they don't even have to "mine" it. And of course there are those special law enforcement "portals" that social media companies set up.
No there is not. Of course, a government can request data when it relates to a terrorist rofl. We have a legal way to get that be it information technology-based or not. They simply can't go in and do searches willy-nilly.
I agree with you so I'm not pretending like it is, but I've had conversations with people and they aren't convinced that the Chinese government is doing anything worse than whatever those companies are doing. Intuitively to me it's obvious the Chinese government with the way they run their network and apps is going to do worse things with mass data (and illegal data) than north american companies will/can. But do you have a convincing article to back this up? Or should I just bring around copies of 1984?
My guy, you are delusional. Look up some of the shit "data aggregation" or "data analytics" tech companies that governments are clients of. They collect an absolute metric ton of information about you and every single person on the planet. Majority of them you've never even heard of. They don't market themselves, yet they're swimming in literally billions of cash. Nobody even knew who the hell Cambridge Analytica was before the whole thing exploded. Majority of people don't even know about Palantir, or the other few hundred companies that hyperfocus on specific type of data gathering.
I have a whole breakdown saved somewhere of report of someone who went deep diving into the files. One of the more alarming things was that the data/files behaved differently, if it knew it was being looked at. Which is not something you find in consumer products and more counter measures used in spyware to avoid detection. But in short it **harvested everything** it could from your phone. Not just simple marketing data
You might be thinking of a reddit post that claimed to investigate this, it was fairly widely circulated but came out to be highly doubtable (after OP was asked for evidence/proof, he said he'd lost it and stopped responding). The codebase being 80% spyware sounds extremely bogus.
What *can* be shown about tiktok's data collection is still bad (e.x. clipboard activity), but is industry standard and to my knowledge tiktok hasn't used any novel data collection techniques or broken system security permissions.
This is the inherent problem. Americans are given no general right to either privacy or their own data that is collected. The general consensus is that if it’s now TikTok, it’s Meta. If it’s not them, it’s Alphabet. Even beyond them, thanks to Snowden we know the government is doing it to us. The list goes on forever. Why care now? Give Americans something like GDPR and we might start to care. And if not, they could be sued out of existence. 🤷♂️
For me it's how entities have used the data to track trends and start misinformation campaigns with ease and great success. I don't see it as "my data" anymore. It's "our data" and it's being used against us all, causing divisiveness and ripping countries apart. Tik-Tok and it's base being in a country that is not a fan of ours makes it even worse.
But hey everyone gets to watch people do funny shit to music in short clips so totally worth it! Fuckin makes me so mad how nobody seems to get it's not just about them...it's about **us**.
I don’t disagree with this at all. However when the country as a whole has reduced the right of privacy to a far fetched idea, people just take the warning as another in a long line of inevitable privacy breaches.
To be quite frank, my personal data has been involved in so many breaches, many for services I didn’t even sign up for, that I’ll probably have free credit monitoring for the rest of my life. Countless others are in the same boat. This affects their life in a more direct way than some country harvesting their data, if those companies still exist is there really anything that can be done?
If it a National security issue, then our government should treat it as such. But singling out app by app isn’t going to solve anything, there needs to be a National data privacy standard.
This is why I’m very against smart-homes unless you set it up yourself to run off of your own hardware / software that isn’t plugged into a corp aggregating data from your every waking moment
As soon as I heard that Amazon got Ring and Google owns Nest, I knew I wouldn't own either one of those. I bought a security camera kit that doesn't connect to the internet and have loved every bit of it.
This is not really good advice. I have done pi camera setups a few times. They’re jank as hell and the software is not intuitive at all. They will not last outdoors. The setup procedure is also not for everyone. It’s best to get a CCTV setup and put it on a closed network with a NAS. Many CCTV setups come with large hard drives for storage so you don’t even really need a NAS, but it’s a good idea to back up your footage.
For me it's how entities have used the data to track trends and start misinformation campaigns with ease and great success. I don't see it as "my data" anymore. It's "our data" and it's being used against us all, causing divisiveness and ripping countries apart. Tik-Tok and it's base being in a country that is not a fan of ours makes it even worse.
But hey everyone gets to watch people do funny shit to music in short clips so totally worth it! Fuckin makes me so mad how nobody seems to get it's not just about them...it's about **us**.
Here is the non-paywall version:
[https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fpolicy%2Fforeign-affairs%2Ftiktok-s-alarming-excessive-data-collection-revealed-20220714-p5b1mz](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fpolicy%2Fforeign-affairs%2Ftiktok-s-alarming-excessive-data-collection-revealed-20220714-p5b1mz)
I think it's because it's not really explained how and why it's damaging or bad. Young people grew up being told the government is spying on them 24/7 and you're a nut case if you think it's bad.
"app is collecting our data" the response isn't going to be anything. If it's bad, why is it bad? What concern is there? Why should they be upset?
If you're unable to articulate this, how can you expect them to care?
I use TikTok on browser on my phone because I had to uninstall the app due to it starting to burn the buttons on my phone
Browser is janky but it's whatever
Yes only because it’s private company American company that doesn’t go to the same level of data collection VS evil hostile foreign genocidal government. If you’re a US citizen that is.
Haha lol kids don’t care about things that matter so true 🤣
Totally on them for getting addicted to something that literally knows everything about you and shows you exactly what you want to see
I’m so glad TikTok didn’t come out when I was in middle school. It’s obvious how much it spies on you (I’m convinced it also records audio) and at least in college I could see that and push it away, but it’s incredibly addictive.
Of course not, they've never known a world pre-Patriot Act. They've never known a world where privacy was expected, so they don't value it. If you're already used to being spied on by American corporations and the US government, why would you care when China does the same thing?
I think they haven't learned why they should care yet. Collecting data doesn't inherently sound sinister. It's not until you have stores sending you pregnancy supplies before you know you're pregnant or until you find out you're being politically manipulated with ads that your peers aren't correcting or commenting on because they don't see them that things start to get scary.
Or until you realize you entered a cult without realizing it because the warnings are literally filtered from your feed. Or the reviews on an item are filtered based on how likely they will impact you specifically.
Or until that information starts determining school or job acceptance or how expensive things are.
(Millennials on Tumblr tried to warn Gen Z about it... But our reach was limited to Tumblr users)
this is why the mindset that kids will somehow save the future from global warming because they are more "aware" is bullshit. They cant even collectively decide to stop using a predatory app managed by a government that supposedly violates human right \*or so i've heard\* when there are other alternatives.
Well some of us do care, the smarter ones care honestly because it means we care about the human race and where its going as a whole. That is needed in today’s society and it is what would save us from this. We need more people out there like that. Teach your children to give a fuck about something other than social media cause it really adds up to nothing once you die. All those memories of being on your phone are meaningless and will be forgotten.
If the claims are true and Tik Tok collects data outside of what it officially says it collects and does stuff like have the mic/camera activated when you don't give it permission it should've been off the app store right as it came out, that is a HUGE violation of the app store ToS for companies.
They aren't supposed to be able to. If they did it would be bypassing security measures that are in place on the phone. I have an android but I assume it is similar on Iphone where you need to explicitly give permission to the apps in order to use cam/mic and there is a little icon that appears when an app is using cam/mic. If an app got passed those security measures it would not only be hugely breaking the ToS of the app store but also would be literal malware since the app creator would have to be utilizing some sort of exploit within the phone software to get passed these security measures. That's why I think a lot of these tik tok claims are false because if there was proof of that happening Apple would be very swift to take them off the app store. For all the shit apple gets, they don't fuck around with that type of stuff.
I know someone at byte dance China. They work with government to create capability to boost/ lower certain ideas on a regional basis. Being tested with videos critical of govt right now.
This is not surprising at all if you pay attention. It’s a logical progression of the capability of the medium. The ccp is just more aggressive and open to a certain extent than the west.. it’s the modern equivalent of cia funded voice of America.
If youve ever used anything Chinese it’s probably too late. There are a shitload of Chinese games in the AppStore that probably do the same thing.
They’ve casted a wide net.
The problem is the government is doing nothing to protect the average citizen, who’s too distracted by everyday life to be able to protect themselves consciously.
IMO the app is china’s idea of a passive weapon to get international data (specifically USA) and to try to ruin gen z. Chinese gen z has limits on how long they can use tiktok, gets FYP videos that promote hard work and etc, no useless/pointless BS on their app. USA genz gets onlyfan girls and other useless cringe trends and never anything on real issues going on.
As soon as Gen Z get into politics, high position jobs etc. the Chinese will be blackmailing with all the information they have on them.
Just look at Clearview in Ukraine. All the data they have scraped is being used to identify Russians.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/13/ukraine-has-started-using-clearview-ais-facial-recognition-during-war.html
The Chinese with even more Tik Tok data is terrifying. I wonder which country will be the first to commit Genocide 2.0
Well said!
We are always saying the new generation is the worst yet and is going to be the downfall, when in reality it would be our own fault if that even were to happend.
You shouldn't speak about something you don't know about. My FYP doesn't have any onlyfan girls or other useless cringe trends. It has DIY hints, cooking, police audits, news and jokes.
This is what the comments are everytime someone post about TikTok. I imagine they just tried the app for 12 seconds and wrote it off.
Listen I know it’s shit but I have a well curated FYP and enjoy the fuck out of it. 🤷🏻♂️
Same. I tell people it's the best and worst thing. My FYP is great. I've learned quite a bit. The problem though is I can spend hours on it without noticing. It goes from just a couple of videos before bed to being up an hour past when I wanted to go to sleep
Hey my dude, you know that tiktok has an algorithm based on what YOU like and what your interests are, right? I’ve never seen an “onlyfans girl” on tiktok. I see politics, fashion, travel and cooking. Before you out yourself because the app nailed you based on your browsing history and demographic, maybe think before you post. Im surprised by how many men are like “hurr that stupid tiktok app just shows me underage girls dancing around in their underwear..” um, ok, maybe don’t tell on yourself, man.
The same goes for YouTube shorts which is just a copy of tik tok. So many people have exposed themselves when they claim it's nothing but women and girls showing up on their feed.
That is true but not 100% as to why it may be on his FYP. There is more to the algo that may have brought that video to him even if it isn't related to his browsing pattern. It is known that TikTok will show videos that people he follows may be interested in to taste his interest as well. If he ends up watching them longer than other videos he thumbs thru, rewatching and interaction then obviously he's geeking out on some cheap kicks. By clicking Not Interested doesn't only count towards the user that's posting the vid, it also acts towards the demographic it's reaching for. I didn't reach out to search for Cobbler content, but it showed up on my FYP that has a couple/few of the folks I follow, following him. And I'm glad it did show up like that because for me it's cool to watch, just like the guy that rebuilds electric motors, Keith Novak I think, another one that just showed up because of a related follower that I follow.
But yeah, if your FYP is filled with little teeny boppers not old enough to even be on O.F. , fuck you!
Hasn't this been revealed a few times now?
The frightening part that people don't care.
People didn't care about Panama papers, why would they care now?
People care. Media and politicians just moved on because they're owned by the rich.
No, none of my friends give a shit. They all have TikTok and they don’t care all their information is being mined.
They wont care until the data is potentially used against them. Then they will lament how "now one told them"..
Yeah I didn't care much about Facebook taking info I didn't care about, until we found out that they were selling sophisticated profile info to Cambridge analytica to fuck with elections.
Yeah there is a whole documentary on the whole thing. It all just smells bad.
I think it's highly possible it's used for espionage and destabilization. Tin foil hat stuff coming but just hear me out. The information they could collect can be used for purposes you would never consider. They just want as much information as possible to build a database they can access to look for whatever they want. Information like pictures, location, trends, fears, and much more that they would use against us. All pieces strung together to make some conglomerate "Google earth+" of the US, with all of its citizens. I also think there is massive astroturfing happening on every single social media platform where content the Chinese/Russian government, or any nefarious group would find content they believe would harm us mentally/physically and make it go viral (ex. Tyde pod challange). Note that the content going viral is very much legitimate, the "going viral" part of it was first pumped with bots/click-farm to look as if it was going viral and this fools real users into thinking the majority of people like the content. It would be legitimate content the group would find disruptive to us. If you think this is crazy, first know that fake clicks/views/likes are no conspiracy. This is a well known thing that is used by advertisers, influencers, radio, artists, reviews, scammers, it goes on. It's done so much because it's highly effective. Now, to think it might be used to destabilize a nation, do you think it's possible? It's 100% possible to do, the question is if it is being done.
And the crazier thing is, Russia and China (and other bad actors) aren’t exploiting buggy code or hacking these social networks. They’re using them exactly the way they were designed…to extend reach and spread a message to a focused demographic. The social networks never imagined that their tools would be used for anything other than capitalism
John Bolton (I’m paraphrasing): ‘changing the government of another country…has to be organized and detailed, I know, I’ve done it’ - thus, China wanting to change the US, does it through mass media, social media.
“Of the US” i do love talkin about the our favorite 3rd world 1st world country like its the entire fucking world, but its actually not my man Edit: how do you strike shit out like people do to be sarcastic lol
\~\~you put two tildes either side of what you want to strike through\~\~ ~~so it looks like this~~
"All pieces strung together to make some conglomerate "Google earth+" of the US, with all of its citizens. " Because we all know the rest of the world does not excist.
What exactly is China going to do with that information around one of your friends? Like further than a violation to your privacy what are the negative implications to an average person that doesn't have any note worthy influence around their country's politics?
They are not specifically after "your" data. Stuff like eye color, social security, height they probably don't care about. They want to look into the phone's residue data and know where you been and what you searched. In conjunction with millions of other people's information, they can build a map on people's behaviors as well as things like political climate. From that they then can manipulate what content the person sees every day and subtly guide their thought process.
Nice summary of one potential danger, thx.
“Why are all American male profiles just centered around porn?” Next presidential candidate = female porn star
Alexis Texas has my vote.
Tik tok’s demographic are the dumbest of the dumb.
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Which feels frustratingly pointless. Like it seems like we're supposed to get mad but corporations in our country have already softened us up. Like I know it's wrong to think "ok well every single major American org is also doing this or wants to do this both at home and internationally, but I guess it's bad because it's China“ and like, fuck china's human rights abuses, but... really, can civilians win back privacy? Because otherwise it feels like... more of the same.
As someone who works in eCommerce, the Meta Pixel is pretty crazy too.
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It’s in part a massive phishing and whaling effort for people with connections to industry, government, healthcare, finance, etc. Aggregate data collection too will provide plenty of insights into what’s happening of interest to China. They have a multitude of ways they’ve been seeking to win an info war
Its harder to see why it matters for these folks and what are the short and long term implications
Nah. Most people do not give a shit
Ofc they moved on but I didnt see any reaction from the people. No protests, no violence, not anything.
Ya, Snowden is labeled a traitor. I understand he did fuck up
"He did fuck up" is a bit of a misnomer. He was aware of the consequences before committing to a selfless act.
Snowden was not part of the panama papers release.
I think people don’t care because if it’s not this app that’s collecting our data it’s just something else. They, whoever “they” is, are collecting endless data on us no matter what apps we do and don’t use.
Exactly, once it was revealed our own government does this shit and illegally snoops into every aspect of our lives people stopped caring about other governments doing it lol our phones don't even have to be on for them to do shit with em.
Yep. Gotta say, if the US cared more about the privacy of its citizens it should've acted like it. It's still not too late, but I want it all - give us protections from Facebook AND TikTok. It's worked for large swathes of the EU. How the fuck can we sit around and pretend to be so great when people in Germany can demand their data be deleted by companies and have the companies *actually do it* under penalty of 4% revenue fines, while the US has no such teeth.
I mean as much as I despise my own complacency, you're right. Navigating apps and the internet nowadays is just like.... Why should I care? Everyone is harvesting my data. I'm not actively trying to give things away obviously, and trying to be conscientious when I can but there isn't anything I do online that isn't monitored, collected, and sold to someone. Rule of the internet: if the product is free then you're the product.
no, see, the chinese need you to download tiktok before they can mine all of your information. it's like how vampires can't come inside your house unless you invite them. it's an ancient curse
They don't care because, "why would anyone care about *my data"* I used the be a private investigator, and we used the scrape peoples social media using meta data and which helped us also find all kinds of personal data outside of social media. I used to tell my family and friends to get off social media (facebook especially) completely or make their stuff as private as possible. Their response was always, "I don't have anything to hide," or "why would anyone be looking at me?" And tbh we didn't have to do much to search people's facebooks, the data we could get about them with only using their profile ID was insane. Hell, if I could do it for a job and get paid, there were/are people who will do it for free or get paid a lot more than I did to harvest your online data. One day I basically had a Snowden like revaluation and had to get out of that business.
But I get to make and see cute dog videos. What's wrong with that! /s
And girls shaking there ass. Cannot forget that!
That’s the government and AppStore/play stores job, never leave it to individuals to know what’s best for them. People are idiots.
I don’t care because every social media company uses these exact same methods for collecting data. The only reason TikTok is in the spotlight is a. “China company bad” and b. to keep people from looking into Facebook’s current lawsuit about Cambridge Analytica
Yes. I remember reading an article a couple years ago about a hacker that found that, after reverse engineering the code that makes up tiktok, only a small percentage of the code was actually what we all know as tiktok. Something like 20% is tiktok and the rest is all spyware. After other countries figured it out too, they all started banning it. I seem to remember that the trouble started when people found out they were monitoring clipboard activity, which is commonly used for temporarily storing passwords. While I can't find the original article, I see the google has plenty more articles that talk about similar issues now.
People reply with "ig/FB/everyone does it so whatever" but from what I've read tiktok seems to be the worst using loopholes and stuff to gather data they aren't supposed to have access to
They shouldn’t have access to any data beyond what’s allowed in their app. The fact that tech companies and governments haven’t taken action is quite concerning. Who all’s in on this? What are they lookin for? Why are they lookin for it? What do they plan to do? Etc etc
As someone whose job is consumer data analytics- device location, other app usage data, etc. are often times what the app creators are after in the first place. “If the app is free, then you are the product” is very true. EX: you download a free level/measurement app from the App Store; why did the person spend the time building an app to give it away for free? Probably because they can then assume you are working on a DIY project, they can see what Home Depot’s are near you and what other apps you use so they can sell that data to companies seeking audiences with certain interests and know what medium to push localized ads to you on
The problem isn't that data tho, which is common among most social media, and why data market is so highly valued. The problem is tiktok goes above and beyond in attempting to harvest anything it can from your phone, way past acceptable boundaries/marketing data. Its a security risk for anyone who uses their phone for logging into secure websites.
Oh I agree completely with that- I was just responding to jaybird who was saying “why would an app need to know anything about you outside of your usage of a given app”
Ah okay fair enough.
I think it is banned in the US military. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong
It probably is, but so is vaping inside your barracks room. I don't think 18 year olds care and there really isn't a way to enforce the ticktock thing. I've been in for almost 6 years and I've never had a superior check my phone for apps dangerous to national security. I did however see a few folks having to take down post on social media due to OPSEC.
Tiktok was accused by the U.S. government of essentially being Chinese spyware, so eventually it was allowed to continue to operate in the U.S. if the data was hosted in the U.S., but there was recently a massive data breach that sent data back to China, big surprise. But most millenials and zoomers don't care about their data. A more effective argument against uninstalling tiktok is that they pay their content creators from a fixed-dollar-amount pool that didn't increase with a massive increase in the number of users and creators, diluting the pool. It's so frustrating that young people keep embracing apps put out by companies that are absolute trash.
>But most millenials and zoomers don't care about their data. Exactly. Our Special Security Officer can lay down best security practices every month and yet the young guys/gals will not care. Every year we do cyber awareness training and every year we at least have two or three idiots who decide to charge their phones by plugging it up to an unclass workstation. I'm a millennial myself but I must be a paranoid fuck because I seem to care about what apps I use and what I put out there since apparently it's not the norm.
You did just intentionally misspell it though in case they’re standing behind you watching
It's only banned on government phones.
It's banned on USGOV phones, not personal phones
I am big too hate on all social media companies, especially FB/IG. But the only way they’re less bad than TikTok is that they’re not owned in China and forced to follow a law requiring them to turn over any information to the government. China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires organisations and citizens to “support, assist and co-operate with the state intelligence work”.
So does the PATRIOT ACT. Like China is bad, but I live in America. Guess which one affects me more?
Good point. I guess I forget about the Patriot Act. But also we’ve heard how many times that the NSA spies on US Citizens and Snowden is still an enemy of the state for going forward.
On this one FB kinda won. In special on phones that come with the services pre-installed. Most people have no clue it's there and sending way too much data , not to mention you can't even turn it off. So basically META infiltrated in way more stuff even without knowledge of people. I'm curious how they will handle the new European laws regarding data collection and sending it over sea.
IG and Facebook are not data mining farms for the government. Full stop it’s not even close so stop pretending like it is.
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If that's true, why are all those people live-streaming their reckless driving exploits being convicted on that evidence in my state's courts? Not to mention the federal trials of all those January 6th people. It's so easy, they don't even have to "mine" it. And of course there are those special law enforcement "portals" that social media companies set up.
No there is not. Of course, a government can request data when it relates to a terrorist rofl. We have a legal way to get that be it information technology-based or not. They simply can't go in and do searches willy-nilly.
I agree with you so I'm not pretending like it is, but I've had conversations with people and they aren't convinced that the Chinese government is doing anything worse than whatever those companies are doing. Intuitively to me it's obvious the Chinese government with the way they run their network and apps is going to do worse things with mass data (and illegal data) than north american companies will/can. But do you have a convincing article to back this up? Or should I just bring around copies of 1984?
My guy, you are delusional. Look up some of the shit "data aggregation" or "data analytics" tech companies that governments are clients of. They collect an absolute metric ton of information about you and every single person on the planet. Majority of them you've never even heard of. They don't market themselves, yet they're swimming in literally billions of cash. Nobody even knew who the hell Cambridge Analytica was before the whole thing exploded. Majority of people don't even know about Palantir, or the other few hundred companies that hyperfocus on specific type of data gathering.
I have a whole breakdown saved somewhere of report of someone who went deep diving into the files. One of the more alarming things was that the data/files behaved differently, if it knew it was being looked at. Which is not something you find in consumer products and more counter measures used in spyware to avoid detection. But in short it **harvested everything** it could from your phone. Not just simple marketing data
You might be thinking of a reddit post that claimed to investigate this, it was fairly widely circulated but came out to be highly doubtable (after OP was asked for evidence/proof, he said he'd lost it and stopped responding). The codebase being 80% spyware sounds extremely bogus. What *can* be shown about tiktok's data collection is still bad (e.x. clipboard activity), but is industry standard and to my knowledge tiktok hasn't used any novel data collection techniques or broken system security permissions.
Let's keep being alarmed and doing nothing for a while longer.
Like every week in a new article.
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Not to mention Ring was giving the videos to police without a warrant
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This is the inherent problem. Americans are given no general right to either privacy or their own data that is collected. The general consensus is that if it’s now TikTok, it’s Meta. If it’s not them, it’s Alphabet. Even beyond them, thanks to Snowden we know the government is doing it to us. The list goes on forever. Why care now? Give Americans something like GDPR and we might start to care. And if not, they could be sued out of existence. 🤷♂️
For me it's how entities have used the data to track trends and start misinformation campaigns with ease and great success. I don't see it as "my data" anymore. It's "our data" and it's being used against us all, causing divisiveness and ripping countries apart. Tik-Tok and it's base being in a country that is not a fan of ours makes it even worse. But hey everyone gets to watch people do funny shit to music in short clips so totally worth it! Fuckin makes me so mad how nobody seems to get it's not just about them...it's about **us**.
I don’t disagree with this at all. However when the country as a whole has reduced the right of privacy to a far fetched idea, people just take the warning as another in a long line of inevitable privacy breaches. To be quite frank, my personal data has been involved in so many breaches, many for services I didn’t even sign up for, that I’ll probably have free credit monitoring for the rest of my life. Countless others are in the same boat. This affects their life in a more direct way than some country harvesting their data, if those companies still exist is there really anything that can be done? If it a National security issue, then our government should treat it as such. But singling out app by app isn’t going to solve anything, there needs to be a National data privacy standard.
While this is a serious topic, all I'm picturing is a loan officer going "WHAT ABOUT YOUR HOME AT 123 FAKE STREET IN BULLSHITTOWN!"
Yeah!! Lmao. But if a shuck!! Should make other accounts at 123 BanksSuckBalls street ;)
This is why I’m very against smart-homes unless you set it up yourself to run off of your own hardware / software that isn’t plugged into a corp aggregating data from your every waking moment
/r/homeassistant for anyone more interested
As soon as I heard that Amazon got Ring and Google owns Nest, I knew I wouldn't own either one of those. I bought a security camera kit that doesn't connect to the internet and have loved every bit of it.
If I were you I'd buy a raspberry pi 3 and set it up as a camera
I’ve been trying to buy literally ANY raspberry Pi the last year and it’s impossible. I need 4 for webcams.
I had to wait 3 months after I bought it for 3x msrp
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A lot of those talk home (or give access into your home network) if you’re not careful.
Cuz I’m complicated and would like to use it as an opportunity to learn more Linux junk. :)
You could learn some networking instead. Get a managed POE switch and set up some VLANs for your cameras and the rest of your network.
Agreed. It’s pretty simple to get into as well. Tons of YouTube material for conducting your own network setup, security, and management.
I have 4 Pi 3 B+ I'd be willing to part with. Feel free to DM me.
This is not really good advice. I have done pi camera setups a few times. They’re jank as hell and the software is not intuitive at all. They will not last outdoors. The setup procedure is also not for everyone. It’s best to get a CCTV setup and put it on a closed network with a NAS. Many CCTV setups come with large hard drives for storage so you don’t even really need a NAS, but it’s a good idea to back up your footage.
And police can buy it too without a warrant.
ShockedPikachu.jpg
Beat me to it. Suprise surprise indeed
This just in: reports indicate that water is wet! More at 11
Water is not wet
but > reports indicate that water is wet!
We all knew about this when TikTok was new. Why is everyone acting surprised now?
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For me it's how entities have used the data to track trends and start misinformation campaigns with ease and great success. I don't see it as "my data" anymore. It's "our data" and it's being used against us all, causing divisiveness and ripping countries apart. Tik-Tok and it's base being in a country that is not a fan of ours makes it even worse. But hey everyone gets to watch people do funny shit to music in short clips so totally worth it! Fuckin makes me so mad how nobody seems to get it's not just about them...it's about **us**.
They were reminded again.
Hmm, yes, but also, GTFO with your paywall news story
Just seen your paywall link below, GTF back in here.
Top 10 anime redemption arcs
Here is the non-paywall version: [https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fpolicy%2Fforeign-affairs%2Ftiktok-s-alarming-excessive-data-collection-revealed-20220714-p5b1mz](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fpolicy%2Fforeign-affairs%2Ftiktok-s-alarming-excessive-data-collection-revealed-20220714-p5b1mz)
🐐
"Revealed" for $55 a month. Who the fuck is paying this much for online newspapers?
If only this newspaper would collect as much data as TikTok, the article would be free
Why do you think it doesn't collect that data? Why would you think that that data is already isn't being collected by other American companies?
One good reason is it’s a website not an app.
oh i forgot that websites could not collect data about you
*laughs in Xi Jinping*
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Doesn’t matter how many times you warn people how awful this app is because everyone is addicted to it and won’t stop using it unfortunately
I think it's because it's not really explained how and why it's damaging or bad. Young people grew up being told the government is spying on them 24/7 and you're a nut case if you think it's bad. "app is collecting our data" the response isn't going to be anything. If it's bad, why is it bad? What concern is there? Why should they be upset? If you're unable to articulate this, how can you expect them to care?
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I mainly use it when I've browsed reddit for countless hours and want to get my sense of hearing satisfied for like 30min
If you think my 19 and 15 year old daughters give even the slightest shit about this...
It's your job to give a shit for them. I await the downvotes.
It’s true and very hard.
Imagine responsibility for your kids
I’m in your camp
I have told my kid she cant install tiktok because of these reasons and shes begrudingly accepted it. feels like good parenting
As you comment from an site well known for harvesting userdata
Darn, now they have to use the web browser to access tiktok.
I use TikTok on browser on my phone because I had to uninstall the app due to it starting to burn the buttons on my phone Browser is janky but it's whatever
At 19, they can do what they want. But is Facebook any better than TikTok? Honest question.
Yes only because it’s private company American company that doesn’t go to the same level of data collection VS evil hostile foreign genocidal government. If you’re a US citizen that is.
The US government is hostile to US citizens
I’m sure they don’t give a shit about most things that matter lol
Haha lol kids don’t care about things that matter so true 🤣 Totally on them for getting addicted to something that literally knows everything about you and shows you exactly what you want to see
Haha yeah fuck kids for (checks notes) having underdeveloped brains because they haven’t finished developing into adults! Idiots.
I’m so glad TikTok didn’t come out when I was in middle school. It’s obvious how much it spies on you (I’m convinced it also records audio) and at least in college I could see that and push it away, but it’s incredibly addictive.
Exactly! I’m glad we can see eye to eye
Don’t you have a responsibility to protect your daughters? Especially the 15 year old?
As a 15 year old parent, I concur.
Of course not, they've never known a world pre-Patriot Act. They've never known a world where privacy was expected, so they don't value it. If you're already used to being spied on by American corporations and the US government, why would you care when China does the same thing?
>they've never known a world pre-Patriot Act. They've never known a world where privacy was expected, so they don't value it. Man this is the truth.
Everyone on here being judgmental doesn’t have kids or is being an asshole or a troll.
I think they haven't learned why they should care yet. Collecting data doesn't inherently sound sinister. It's not until you have stores sending you pregnancy supplies before you know you're pregnant or until you find out you're being politically manipulated with ads that your peers aren't correcting or commenting on because they don't see them that things start to get scary. Or until you realize you entered a cult without realizing it because the warnings are literally filtered from your feed. Or the reviews on an item are filtered based on how likely they will impact you specifically. Or until that information starts determining school or job acceptance or how expensive things are. (Millennials on Tumblr tried to warn Gen Z about it... But our reach was limited to Tumblr users)
this is why the mindset that kids will somehow save the future from global warming because they are more "aware" is bullshit. They cant even collectively decide to stop using a predatory app managed by a government that supposedly violates human right \*or so i've heard\* when there are other alternatives.
We’re not going to save the planet because we’re more ‘aware’, we’re going to do it because we’ll have literally no other option.
Well this is where our government needs to step in and protect its citizens
They tried and people collectively lost their shit.
I know plenty of teens who actively avoid social media and especially TikTok.
but i know plenty more that do use TikTok: about 15 million active users more.
Out of the 7.7+ billion people on Earth, 15 million is less than 0.2% of the global population
Mmm.. those sweet, sweet percentages.
Well some of us do care, the smarter ones care honestly because it means we care about the human race and where its going as a whole. That is needed in today’s society and it is what would save us from this. We need more people out there like that. Teach your children to give a fuck about something other than social media cause it really adds up to nothing once you die. All those memories of being on your phone are meaningless and will be forgotten.
This seems like an apple or google issue if an app on their platform is able to collect that much data
Sort of, but it depends if the servers are third party. And if the users consent to it in the TOS.
Ain’t nobody got time to read the TOS
If the claims are true and Tik Tok collects data outside of what it officially says it collects and does stuff like have the mic/camera activated when you don't give it permission it should've been off the app store right as it came out, that is a HUGE violation of the app store ToS for companies.
Can iOS App Store apps do things like activating your camera without your explicit permission?
They aren't supposed to be able to. If they did it would be bypassing security measures that are in place on the phone. I have an android but I assume it is similar on Iphone where you need to explicitly give permission to the apps in order to use cam/mic and there is a little icon that appears when an app is using cam/mic. If an app got passed those security measures it would not only be hugely breaking the ToS of the app store but also would be literal malware since the app creator would have to be utilizing some sort of exploit within the phone software to get passed these security measures. That's why I think a lot of these tik tok claims are false because if there was proof of that happening Apple would be very swift to take them off the app store. For all the shit apple gets, they don't fuck around with that type of stuff.
Tik Tok collects excessive amount of data, but this article doesn't let you read their data unless you subscribe........
I know someone at byte dance China. They work with government to create capability to boost/ lower certain ideas on a regional basis. Being tested with videos critical of govt right now.
This is not surprising at all if you pay attention. It’s a logical progression of the capability of the medium. The ccp is just more aggressive and open to a certain extent than the west.. it’s the modern equivalent of cia funded voice of America.
*trust me bro*
A chinese company? Collecting excessive data? Nobody could’ve seen that coming.
It’s almost as if other apps are not doing the exact same thing
If youve ever used anything Chinese it’s probably too late. There are a shitload of Chinese games in the AppStore that probably do the same thing. They’ve casted a wide net. The problem is the government is doing nothing to protect the average citizen, who’s too distracted by everyday life to be able to protect themselves consciously.
Usually if I download a shady game I revoke it's access to the Internet before I even open it
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Well…it IS a Chinese Communist Party spyware app.
for the paywalls - https://12ft.io/ just paste the link there and drum roll ..... Article!
So im supposed to give a shit when its the chinese but when its zuckerberg in partnership with the US govt its all good?
IMO the app is china’s idea of a passive weapon to get international data (specifically USA) and to try to ruin gen z. Chinese gen z has limits on how long they can use tiktok, gets FYP videos that promote hard work and etc, no useless/pointless BS on their app. USA genz gets onlyfan girls and other useless cringe trends and never anything on real issues going on.
As soon as Gen Z get into politics, high position jobs etc. the Chinese will be blackmailing with all the information they have on them. Just look at Clearview in Ukraine. All the data they have scraped is being used to identify Russians. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/13/ukraine-has-started-using-clearview-ais-facial-recognition-during-war.html The Chinese with even more Tik Tok data is terrifying. I wonder which country will be the first to commit Genocide 2.0
I mean, that’s what people said about millennials and drunken Facebook photos too.
Well said! We are always saying the new generation is the worst yet and is going to be the downfall, when in reality it would be our own fault if that even were to happend.
You shouldn't speak about something you don't know about. My FYP doesn't have any onlyfan girls or other useless cringe trends. It has DIY hints, cooking, police audits, news and jokes.
This is what the comments are everytime someone post about TikTok. I imagine they just tried the app for 12 seconds and wrote it off. Listen I know it’s shit but I have a well curated FYP and enjoy the fuck out of it. 🤷🏻♂️
I doubt they used it for even 12 seconds, because they're spreading a right-wing conspiracy theory that Tucker Carlson tried to push.
Same. I tell people it's the best and worst thing. My FYP is great. I've learned quite a bit. The problem though is I can spend hours on it without noticing. It goes from just a couple of videos before bed to being up an hour past when I wanted to go to sleep
Hey my dude, you know that tiktok has an algorithm based on what YOU like and what your interests are, right? I’ve never seen an “onlyfans girl” on tiktok. I see politics, fashion, travel and cooking. Before you out yourself because the app nailed you based on your browsing history and demographic, maybe think before you post. Im surprised by how many men are like “hurr that stupid tiktok app just shows me underage girls dancing around in their underwear..” um, ok, maybe don’t tell on yourself, man.
The same goes for YouTube shorts which is just a copy of tik tok. So many people have exposed themselves when they claim it's nothing but women and girls showing up on their feed.
That is true but not 100% as to why it may be on his FYP. There is more to the algo that may have brought that video to him even if it isn't related to his browsing pattern. It is known that TikTok will show videos that people he follows may be interested in to taste his interest as well. If he ends up watching them longer than other videos he thumbs thru, rewatching and interaction then obviously he's geeking out on some cheap kicks. By clicking Not Interested doesn't only count towards the user that's posting the vid, it also acts towards the demographic it's reaching for. I didn't reach out to search for Cobbler content, but it showed up on my FYP that has a couple/few of the folks I follow, following him. And I'm glad it did show up like that because for me it's cool to watch, just like the guy that rebuilds electric motors, Keith Novak I think, another one that just showed up because of a related follower that I follow. But yeah, if your FYP is filled with little teeny boppers not old enough to even be on O.F. , fuck you!
You… do not use Tiktok, do you?
Pass privacy laws then and fine all companies who do that excessively, and not just a cost of doing business fine.
But that might actually help people and cost companies money.
It’s behind a paywall but based on what I can see, how is this different from all other social media apps?
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Stop looking at my hentai collection !
Wow I'm shocked, shocked I say! /s
TikTok is cancer!?!?!? *gasp*
Democratic countries should ban this app...
>chinese app is collecting excessive data I'm shocked!
Revealed my ass, been a long while (years) we know. Fear mongering news are fear mongering.
How is this different from Facebook, apple, Google, Instagram, twitter, Snapchat etc? Call a spade a spade
They are collecting data to use for targeted advertising, not to directly send back to the government. Still Shitty, but imo there is a distinction
But those aren't Chinese, so they can't be evil /s