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American TikTok user data stored in China, video app admits (www.telegraph.co.uk)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes let's not be like reddit:

I've looked for the "source" of the leaked guidelines from the Guardian, but I can not find them. They only say that someone from The Guardian has access to these leaks. The rest of the evidence of censorship is anecdotal at best, unless you have a more direct source.
Data collection is done by all in app browsers from major social media platforms, not just TikTok. Don't believe me? Then let's ask the guy who wrote the report. What's the name of that report again? Oh it's iOS Privacy: Instagram and Facebook can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser. Why do none of the hundreds of articles mention that? It should be noted that as of this comment you can open any webpage in your native browser in TikTok. Seems strange to only be talking about TikTok in this regard.
Again, this article is citing something they have "obtained" and yet, won't post for the public to consume. Unless you have the information the cnn is reporting on, we can't know for sure what it even says. We know that the employees in question were fired apparently, and that the IP address used to connect to TikTok was viewed, but no information on the intentions and from what I can tell, nothing was published. Regardless, in a linked article from the CNN article, it's mentioned that: Uber was delivering politicians a different version of their app to avoid regulations.. This information should make you outraged, but it won't because the US media has decided this is not something you should worry about. There were no congressional hearings about this, no outrage, no endless news reports.

There is a clear pattern here, and it's one that shows just how little the American population cares about their own country exploiting them. There isn't even clear evidence of exploitation in regards to TikTok. They appear to be engaging in all the same practices as US tech giants. Last I knew, China could just buy your data and use it for their own means. I mean, that's what was happening with the Cambridge Analytica stuff right?

You prevents Cambridge Analytica type events by regulating or abolishing Surveillance Capitalism in the US. Instead the US propaganda network has us talking about ghosts in TikTok's shell.

[–] MercuryUprising 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay, but this thread and its related article is about TikTok. Yes, western social media and surveillance is a major problem, but every single time an article critical of TikTok shows up, a million minions appear out of the woodwork to criticize Facebook and Twitter instead.

Here's the thing: those companies have numerous articles about their surveillance practices hitting the news all the time, and yet you don't see an army of people jumping into those threads to say "Well what about TikTok?" That's because this sort of approach does nothing but derail the actual subject and steers it towards something that you feel is more important than the actual topic being discussed.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Firstly, you do not get to dictate how I engage with this thread. Secondly, right wing and neo-liberal progressive government officials spent the better part of two years concern trolling over china and their vaguely evil intentions with TikTok. Something the US tech monopoly has hardly had to deal with, since they have the privilege of operating within the imperial core. The goal with this rehtoric isn't to ensure privacy for the American people, because if it was, we'd hold Silicon Valley to the same standard. Instead It's to stoke fear over the communist "threat" that is finding its way into your phones like a Trojan Horse.

It's spread wild and baseless conspiracies about political censorship, all the while priming the American people to embrace actual censorship through a ban on the distribution of TikTok. Something you might find on the other side of the Great Firewall of China ironically enough.

America's own social media industry has been caught red handed participating in clear and present evil. From developing eating disorders in young girls. To stoking genocide. Something Zuckerberg was interested in policing both sides of. The evidence of their evil is all around us, they do not even attempt to hide it. Yet curiously, when the media makes similar clames about TikTok, the sources are never revealed or published for consumption. I can go read the internal slide decks of Instagrams conclusion on it's ability to induce eating disorders. If the evidence is so damning, why not publish it? And yet with all this, these corporations walk free with a slap on the wrist, if that. Ironically enough, Facebook is doing exactly what TikTok is being accused of in the above article.

You should ask yourself, why are American pundents, politicians, and their media apparatus so interested in "protecting" citizens from TikTok? What material interests might drive them to ban a platform that is actively being imitated by nearly every major player in the social media space? Could it be that the lobbyists that line their pockets are more interested in ensuring they maintain their dominance? [1]][2][3][4] Or could it be they know that they'll be left out of the game they accuse China of playing? [1][2][3 26% removal rate for US]

The real threat is inside your walls, not on the other side of the ocean.