[HN Gopher] TikTok shares your data more than any other app and ...
___________________________________________________________________
TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it's unclear
where it goes
Author : underscore_ku
Score : 406 points
Date : 2022-02-09 14:01 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| blakesterz wrote:
| I found the actual report this is based on even more interesting:
|
| https://app.urlgeni.us/blog/new-research-across-200-ios-apps...
|
| Just a few of the highlights:
|
| Magazine apps had the highest number of total network contacts
| (28), and the highest percentage of third party domain contacts
| (93%)
|
| Social apps, followed by Games apps, made the fewest number of
| network contacts, 6 and 7 respectively.
|
| Apps making the most number network contacts included iHeartRadio
| (56), Wall Street Journal (48), ESPN (42), Popeyes (42), and
| WattPad (36)
| waffleiron wrote:
| Also, the report makes the title seem very biased. Home Depot,
| Reuters, WSJ are all using more 3th party trackers.
| phsh wrote:
| I think who they are sharing with (potentially) matters more
| than the number of orgs they are sharing with.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Agreed, the underlying was more interested than the summary.
| And also seems to be a case of measuring what's conveniently
| measurable.
|
| The fact that {product} has only 1 connection to {product first
| party domain} doesn't say a lot about anything, given they
| could be internally proxying to and from who knows how many
| partners?
|
| It'd be more helpful to at least see total traffic per domain.
|
| It made me curious that the highest "first-party ratio"
| companies tended to be tech companies capable of realizing
| their own architectures (Amazon/Google/Apple).
| zerocrates wrote:
| Yes, third-party direct connections from apps is useful
| information in some ways and I'd prefer to keep it down
| rather than spread things around widely.
|
| But what people are really worried about with Facebook or
| TikTok or whoever building and aggregating information about
| them, doesn't require talking to a third party at all, and if
| you clamp down on these direct connections everything could
| just pass through the "first party" and through to whoever
| they wish on the server side where you can't see the
| connections anyway.
| fernandopj wrote:
| Revenue streams.
|
| These network contacts provide $$$ to those companies. They're
| low effort, easy revenue for them. Privacy for customers be
| d*mned.
|
| I once met a senior-level dev who worked for a company, they
| wouldn't have their own app on his phone, due to those invasive
| practices tracking his behaviour.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I thought the most curious was the ratio of third:first party
| domains for magazines and news.
|
| It suggests they control very little of their technical,
| revenue-generating infrastructure.
|
| Which is interesting when the narrative is "The internet is
| destroying journalism." But another way to phrase it might be
| "All of these companies drastically underinvested in
| web/mobile, and continue to do so." (Although the NYT seems
| to have a higher ratio than most, but I believe they divorced
| themselves from Google and brought a lot back in-house?)
| The-Bus wrote:
| It's a matter of scale in relation to your audience and
| data. Your local news site with users in the tens of
| thousands, is unlikely to have the capital to invest in
| geographic and demographic tracking necessary to provide a
| robust ads business. Easier to plug into a number of
| providers who already have that data about their visitors.
|
| These sites have to do that to remain competitive.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| When you're from Europe, it's funny (in a cringe way) to see the
| Americans cry because the Chinese spy more than them!
| champagnois wrote:
| Society would rejoice if most of the social media entities were
| banned or blocked.
| [deleted]
| McHankHenry wrote:
| The title and article smells of China-bad-clickbait.
|
| There's no uncertainty here. Like in every other case, it goes to
| any company that is willing to purchase it. Overwhelmingly it
| will be American companies using it for direct marketing.
| saturdaysaint wrote:
| I feel like TikTok is significantly underdiscussed, almost like
| the tech and business press are assuming it's a flash-in-the-pan
| more similar to Snapchat than Facebook. It is almost certainly
| having a major impact on the business of some of the most
| prominent publicly traded companies in the US, yet there are just
| a handful of articles discussing their impact on Facebook's
| disastrous quarterly results.
| duxup wrote:
| I wonder if the accessibility as far as the media goes to
| Facebook staff and willingness to engage with the press exposes
| Facebook a bit more than TikTok.
|
| That's kinda a scary situation...
| tupac_speedrap wrote:
| The users of TikTok are mostly teenagers and young adults,
| that's why. Nearly everybody in journalism is late 20s or 30+.
| They just don't get it, though to be fair vine had a similar
| type of content and that failed.
| Graffur wrote:
| I this take is wrong. TikTok might be mostly teenagers but
| it's not an under the radar platform. It's mainstream and
| used by all ages.
| t-writescode wrote:
| There is absolutely a strong 20s-30s and even 40s userbase on
| TikTok. "The Algorithm", though, is _very very_ good at only
| showing people what they want to see, so much so that two
| people can have wildly different experiences.
|
| For example, my TikTok is full of LGBTQ+, PNW housing
| complaints, DnD and religion.
|
| Edit: and a good percentage of them are around 30.
| sidlls wrote:
| I'm in my mid-40s: there's nothing deep or mysterious to
| "get" about TikTok. It's short-form video snips/vignettes,
| mainly of people showing off for their friends, trying to
| cash in on short-lived audio trends and meme pipelines, and
| sometimes both. It reminds me of the kind of bravado/showing
| off my peers in middle- and high-school did: because that's
| essentially what it is. Edit for more context: I happen to be
| dating someone who is a young adult (early/mid-20s), so I
| have even more context/insight into what makes this app
| interesting to them: I stand by what I wrote.
|
| Those late 20s and up journalists get it, but they recognize
| (correctly) that like all social networks of this sort the
| early adopters (kids/young adults) are going to turn into
| adults with spending power and either change the nature of
| the platform or move on to something else. In either case,
| what TikTok is _now_ is largely irrelevant (not to mention
| trite and shallow).
| vmception wrote:
| If you were writing this in 2019 I would agree with you.
|
| This perception is just already 3 years old now and so that
| social network has already gotten its additional audiences
| and many of those high schoolers (and their influencers)
| have grown up.
|
| There is a similarity of looking at Facebook in 2005 and
| looking at Facebook in 2008, and add in a much faster
| adoption cycle and infrastructure.
| asdff wrote:
| OTOH what happens to companies with teen users who grow
| up is that they lose their userbase and they die out
| along with other big influences of that current
| generation. You just don't have the time to stare at
| ticktock for 3 hours at 25 years old that you had at 15
| years old, whether you are at the top or the bottom of
| the economic ladder. We see that trend in every social
| network.
| vmception wrote:
| In one large segment it has turned into a streaming
| platform like twitch, as in a side screen and additional
| chat people keep up while also streaming on twitch
|
| I dont see a vine-like fate for tiktok
|
| Bytedance is so much better positioned as well and
| already monetizing it
| Osmium wrote:
| > I'm in my mid-40s: there's nothing deep or mysterious to
| "get" about TikTok. It's short-form video snips/vignettes,
| mainly of people showing off for their friends, trying to
| cash in on short-lived audio trends and meme pipelines, and
| sometimes both.
|
| What this misses is that TikTok is a radically different
| experience for different people.
|
| For some people, this description is very accurate. For
| other people, they would barely recognize TikTok on the
| basis of this description.
|
| This is what has led to so many mis-representations of
| TikTok in the media, and the misunderstandings that result
| from that.
| hammock wrote:
| >For other people, they would barely recognize TikTok on
| the basis of this description.
|
| Not following. Who are the "other people" and how would
| they describe it otherwise?
| Osmium wrote:
| TikTok has a very good algorithm for suggesting content
| for users, and this can end up with different users being
| exposed to radically different subsets of content offered
| through TikTok: in scientific terms, it's very easy to
| get stuck in different local minima.
|
| So for many users, TikTok will not involve "showing off
| to friends", will not involve audio trends, and will not
| involve memes at all.
|
| These users would describe it as containing short-form
| video content relevant to whatever their particular niche
| or interest may be.
| comboy wrote:
| I'm not much younger and tried it after some HN thread.
| Basically the algorithm is really good, as it should be on
| more platforms. So if you don't like memes and dance and
| beauty contents, you won't get that. It can be just DIY
| videos, niche musicians and short science videos if that's
| what you want to see.
|
| I don't think it's shallow. I've learned a lot from it. It
| just gives you what you want to watch and what you want to
| watch may be based on the idea that you have about the
| platform.
| sidlls wrote:
| The algorithm is really good! At overfitting. Snark
| aside, what you describe is short form videos intended to
| show off or cash in to a trend: that it's not stupid cat
| videos, or dance-offs or whatever doesn't change that.
| guelo wrote:
| Facebook has generated so much well-earned hate that even the
| most nationalistic Americans aren't going to come to its
| defense.
| Day1 wrote:
| An odd contrast considering non-nationalistic Americans are
| usually the first to defend Big Business and Big Government.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I think you are each using nationalist a different way. I'm
| pretty sure the GP meant it as "buy American" nationalists
| and you meant it as "I want an ethnostate" nationalists.
| bertil wrote:
| The aspect that worries me the most is the recommendation:
| Facebook and Twitter discovered a little late that they had the
| ability to to influence opinion with simple tweaks. That raised
| internal questions and that model is under close surveillance
| by people who have talked about those questions in public and
| who I know have and would raise, at least internally, their
| concerns. People can explore the updates from their friends and
| can identity ommissions. Snap is more secretive, but their
| employees are loud Californians who can about justice, they
| have access to journalists if they feel the need to push back.
| Users can also see updates from their friends and people their
| follow without just having to trust the flow.
|
| I don't believe that TikTok has a similar internal culture of
| debate. I haven't seen anything published by their academic
| team. I don't believe that you can check on your friend's page
| to see what they posted lately. They are examples of topics
| that they have favoured or censored that was worrisome and they
| didn't adress the controversy. The pool of possible content is
| much larger so there's more opportunity to fill strategically.
|
| I know people who work for one but not the other, so I
| understand that this influence my judgement but I believe that
| their are objective difference in company values and product
| design that make TikTok more able to manipulate.
|
| I haven't seen anyone discuss that, and I have plenty of people
| who discuss those questions profesionally in my feed.
| dogleash wrote:
| >but their employees are loud Californians who can about
| justice
|
| In my experience, Californians care about justice the same
| way they care about anything, fashion. Only the injustices
| that are fashionable to be against ever get any attention.
|
| If you need proof they don't care about justice look no
| further than they fact the keep electing Peloci.
| toyg wrote:
| Nobody cares because (it is perceived that) there is no
| political discourse on TikTok yet.
|
| It was the same for Twitter and Facebook. Then Trump happened
| and People With Important Jobs started paying attention to
| them. There has not been such a catalyst event for TikTok yet.
| Like with Zoom, there is a vague feeling among the security-
| paranoid that the Chinese are leveraging it for data-gathering,
| but as long as they get bazillion videos of teenagers pulling
| faces, who cares?
| Karunamon wrote:
| It exists, but unlike, say, Twitter, it's extremely easy to
| remove from your attention.
|
| TikTok's recommendation algorithm is really second to none.
| sjg007 wrote:
| There was plenty of political discourse on TikTok in the last
| election cycle. Every tiktok meme had a pro Trump anti Biden
| version.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| It 100% depends on what you like. I've been using tiktok
| forever and a day and all I see is funny stuff that is
| relevant to me. Very obscure niche things that have 1000
| hearts - it's scary good at recommending relevant content.
|
| If you are seeing political content, it's just because you
| told the algorithm that you enjoy interacting with that
| type of content.
| toyg wrote:
| That's why I said "perceived". Eventually something will
| happen and Important People will pay attention. It just has
| not happened yet.
| tiepoul wrote:
| We should be aware that any free app that we can use has its
| business model or any method that somehow benefits the company.
| yumraj wrote:
| Except in this case it's not just the company but rather the
| country, China, and the CCP
| Kaze404 wrote:
| What makes you think this is an exception?
| robbedpeter wrote:
| It's not unclear at all. It's Chinese data harvesting software.
| They'll do token public appeasement to avoid negative pressure,
| but every feature in the app is designed to collect biometrics
| and behavioral data.
|
| China is not a good faith operator. Given the data needed to
| influence public opinion and voting, they will engage in
| manipulation favorable to their interests. That alone is
| sufficient to run tiktok at a loss, but the market manipulation
| possible, advertisement platform potential, and other
| monetization makes it look like just another app.
|
| Google's been caught red handed deliberately manipulating
| political content.
|
| https://mygoogleresearch.com/
|
| The idea that tiktok isn't used for the same type of manipulation
| is dangerously naive.
|
| There's a need for social media manipulation watchdogs that can
| monitor content being delivered to different users so the
| companies and countries involved can be held accountable.
|
| It's sad that a massively scaled invasion of privacy can only be
| countered by more surveillance. Because of the ephemeral nature
| of tiktok interactions, the only way to combat manipulation is to
| surveil the content being delivered to user feeds and compare
| subsequent opinion poling and purchases.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Thank you for mentioning this.
|
| My personal pet theory about the recent rise in various
| 'challenges' is effectively weaponization of this particular
| medium in an attempt at social manipulation. It is all fun
| games now, but as recent 'gun challenge' shows, it can be
| easily turned into mayhem.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I try to remain grounded and check myself, and this may be me
| in tin foil hat territory, but the game here on the part of the
| CCP is long. If ever there is a time for 'think of the
| children', this is it. Political scandals are already getting
| more and more private - just imagine what it will be like in 20
| years when the current crop of teens are starting to run for
| high office. And in case you're thinking, well too bad for
| them, plenty of teens don't do dumb things - that's true, but
| this will be dream kompromat for nation states controlling this
| data. I know Meta et al have the same data and are insanely
| powerful, but they're not nation states and are at least in
| theory, accountable.
| varispeed wrote:
| cm2012 wrote:
| TikTok should be banned in the US. China banned all of our
| homegrown social networks, its pretty standard international
| precedent to ban theirs, given the security risks.
| yibg wrote:
| I'd rather have a generally applicable law in place. If we
| think massive data collection shouldn't be allowed then ban
| that.
| cortesoft wrote:
| How would you ban data collection happening in a foreign
| country?
| echelon wrote:
| Require servers to be hosted domestically. This doesn't
| prevent exfiltration, but it can be more closely
| regulated and inspected.
|
| Many countries ask this of US companies, so there's no
| reason we shouldn't adopt a similar stance.
| yibg wrote:
| You can't. But you can ban apps that don't comply to
| these laws. Similarly to how China band google and
| Facebook for not complying with their laws.
| angio wrote:
| Introduce general data protection rules, then forbid data
| transfers to countries that cannot guarantee protection
| of users' data. That what's happening in the EU with US-
| based software.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| It's common trade policy to block imports in response to
| another country blocking our exports. Although in reality
| it's usually a matter of leveraging tariffs. One doesn't
| need a general policy to respond in kind.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| It feels like debate is a generation behind practice here.
| The greatest danger isn't from data collection, but from
| algorithmic recommendation.
|
| The data collection horse is out of the barn, has
| legitimate uses, and is an incredibly thorny issue to
| legislate appropriately. And will be adjusted for the next
| 20+ years.
|
| What needs to be done _now_ is to say that (1) at a certain
| user count ( "too big to democratically ignore") then (2)
| production recommendation algorithms must be auditable.
|
| Allow the details of audits to be kept secret from public
| record, but the DoJ should be able to go to Google,
| Facebook, Netflix, or TikTok and say "Show me how this
| works, now."
|
| It's burying your head in the sand to suggest this doesn't
| have a clear impact on democracy and is currently solely in
| control of private companies _and_ completely opaque. And
| it 's the opaqueness that's the biggest danger.
|
| Fundamentally, modern media/social is different from
| everything that came before because of the economic
| feasibility of microtargeting. Newspapers couldn't afford
| to track their customers individually & print a unique
| paper for each of them, which resulted in an auditable
| public record. All of the companies above can do exactly
| that, without leaving any public record.
| dTal wrote:
| You're absolutely right, but I don't think you go far
| enough. If a company is too large to ignore - if they
| insinuate themselves into "infrastructure" roles - then
| we need to treat them like government. They need to be
| subject to FOI requests. They need to justify that their
| work is in the public interest. They must not be
| permitted to "lobby" (i.e. bribe officials).
|
| I can't see exactly _how_ we do all this, but the root
| cause of _many_ a social ill is that corporations are
| taking over social roles from government. This _must_ be
| arrested, somehow, or we 'll sleepwalk into the dystopian
| future of every damn 70s scifi film.
| mindslight wrote:
| No, we should not give up on regulating data collection.
| The GDPR is a straightforward legal framework that gives
| individuals the ability to opt out of corporate
| surveillance, including post-hoc auditing and deletion of
| surveillance records. The US desperately needs an
| equivalent if we're to have any digital trust that lets
| us exist between the extremes of "complete abstinence"
| and "totalitarian free for all".
| beardedetim wrote:
| > Show me how this works, now.
|
| Let's say we had this. We had some ML/AI team go up to
| Congress/DoJ and show them some tensors, some "back
| propagating LSTM" horseshit. How does that help the
| people that don't understand how the ad model works?
|
| Hell, I bet there is _no one_ using AI or tensors or any
| of that shit that can tell you _why_ their model output
| Foo instead of Bar.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Just because the 84-year-old Sen. Hatch (who retired in
| 2019) asked a dumb question doesn't mean there aren't
| smart people in government. ( _Edit_ : Although I might
| have been misreading your ad model sentence as the above)
|
| If explainability is a problem (e.g. "We don't know why
| our algorithm recommends higher-interest rate loan
| products to African Americans"), then that's a rabbit
| hole that needs to have funding put towards digging up as
| well.
| beardedetim wrote:
| > doesn't mean there aren't smart people in government.
|
| agreed and I was flippant to make a point. I did not mean
| to say there aren't smart people in government. But I
| would venture to say that people who understand ML/AI are
| _not_ working in the government. Or put more correctly,
| the _odds_ of a person working in government being up to
| date on how LSTM works today is such a low number, that I
| would be fair to say it is extremely unlikely that anyone
| on any board would be smarter than Sen Hatch _in this
| domain_.
|
| > then that's a rabbit hole that needs to have funding
| put towards digging up as well.
|
| Agreed and is the larger point I was trying to make: we
| currently, no matter how smart you are, have _any_ way of
| knowing what your "algorithm" is doing. Or if you do,
| it's a rule-based system and isn't AI/ML. We should
| though! And I think pursuing that will give us much
| higher rate of return than our black-box strategy
| everyone seems to be using.
| chrischen wrote:
| The government can retain its own experts for opinions,
| just like how in court they can get expert testimony
| rather than relying on the judge or jury to know and
| decide all.
| laurex wrote:
| Instead of "the government" how about an independent NGO
| that was comprised of people who included industry or ex-
| industry ML/AI folks as well as academic or government
| people? There's a fairly robust emerging group of "ethics
| in tech" people who have worked on the industry
| algorithms and could be resources if their were policy
| requirements for audits.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Auditable for what, though? What would you find there
| that you would have the government ban?
| echelon wrote:
| Preferential treatment of anti-democratic messages and
| rhetoric or anti-US sentiment.
|
| This should be measurable.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| That sounds like a recipe for authoritarianism. Sorry, X
| thing that I don't like is "anti-US sentiment".
| ethbr0 wrote:
| That's why in matters of redress, I always skew towards
| visibility over modification. The latter is too powerful,
| in the hands of too few.
|
| I've had this same argument with military friends
| lamenting the prevalence of ex-military citizens among
| right wing nationalist groups. IMHO, "make people attend
| classes to fight indoctrination" is too easily repurposed
| by a future administration to do the exact opposite.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Agreed. Well, critical thinking classes might be a good
| idea! Just spoken word Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit
| on repeat for 8 hours a day.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I hadn't ever listened to that. Queued! Potential
| downside: no one could unhear "billions"
| ecshafer wrote:
| That is a massive rabbit hole. "anti-democratic messages"
| and "anti-us sentiment" is going to inevitably be used to
| further undemocratic process and imperialism. An article
| "The US blew up a hospital" gets flagged as anti-us
| sentiment, and buried. A journalist covering political
| contributions gets buried by "anti-democratic messages".
| This is basically inevitable.
| echelon wrote:
| I totally get you and absolutely agree, but we're
| entering into in a vastly new world and your concern
| isn't the only one anymore.
|
| If a foreign nation's service uses algorithms to promote
| its interests and quell that of its adversaries or
| attempts to alter election outcomes to be favorable, then
| we're in for trouble.
|
| Imagine social media creating worker strikes, riots,
| getting certain politicians elected, influencing the next
| generation of kids to prefer limits on free speech,
| influencing kids to not pursue science and engineering,
| etc.
|
| This is a complicated issue.
|
| The algorithm can be used for warfare.
| zerocrates wrote:
| But can the government legally restrict that kind of
| activity? It would be pretty cut-and-dried viewpoint
| discrimination triggering the most severe First Amendment
| scrutiny.
|
| Beyond that, I'm not sure how easy it would really be to
| detect. Seems like the method for that kind of thing
| would more likely be to have networks of
| users/bots/whatever that take advantage of facially
| neutral recommendation algorithms. So would you catch
| that by auditing the algorithm?
| hillbillydilly wrote:
| yea these convos really make me think 'all hope is lost'
| when you get some decent idea fleshed out re: adtech
| algorithm auditing and your first thought is: yea lets
| root out anti american sentiment in the algo. _facepalm_
| strong fox news vibes around here these days
| echelon wrote:
| > lets root out anti american sentiment in the algo.
| _facepalm_ strong fox news vibes around here these days
|
| I said _measure_. We need to understand if we 're being
| manipulated, and if so, figure out what an appropriate
| response should be. Maybe it's as simple as releasing a
| report and letting the media talk about it. Knowing gives
| us the ability to develop a response.
|
| Filter bubbles are relatively new, and it's not yet clear
| the extent to which they can be used to shape a
| democratic society.
| wyre wrote:
| > We need to understand if we're being manipulated
|
| We don't need to find that out because we are being
| manipulated. These are algorithms designed to maintain
| attention and sell ads. It is impossible for that to not
| be manipulative. The goal shouldn't be to _understand_
| the algorithms, but to stop them from ruining our lives.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Isn't this an issue that US First Amendment law has dealt
| with since the founding of the country?
|
| My understanding (vastly simplifying) is that the current
| standard is: does not infringe on rights of protected
| classes, does not incite imminent violence, & subject to
| national security concerns.
|
| All of which are fuzzy lines, subject to court
| interpretation on a case by case basis, as they should
| be. (Even national security, which courts have
| traditionally granted wider latitude to)
|
| All three are plausible rationales under which to bring a
| hypothetical "antidemocratic" case (to use a catch-all
| term that encompasses what people seem to be implying).
|
| At core, and first principles, what "we" probably want as
| a nation is a sliding scale that moves from primacy of
| shareholder / owner to primacy of public, according to
| user count & market percentage.
|
| Aka if you're a 10,000 user app, and you think (non-
| inciteful) racist content will make you the most money,
| that's your (terribly immoral) business.
|
| But if you're a 100,000,000+ user multi-app company, then
| public and democratic interest takes primacy over your
| shareholders. Don't like that? Spin off some products.
| npx13 wrote:
| Completely agree. Just like we have financial audits for
| a reason, we also need some form of algorithm audit
| process. Present day algorithms optimised for engagement
| and ad revenue growth are a clear and present danger to
| democracy as we have known it.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| As a European, I would be happy to ban TikTok, but also
| Facebook and all its subsidiaries (Instagram, WhatsApp) and
| Google and all its subsidiaries.
|
| It's not like others are better, but those three are the
| worst when it comes to spying shaping public opinion only
| because they are the biggest and most powerful.
|
| If I had to choose who will influence the public in my
| country, let it better be some company (or government) that
| has my country interest first, and not China or the USA
| interests.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| I understand the point, but I don't see how companies can
| be "nationalist", or think in "their country's interests".
| They only care about money and who knows who really control
| any corporation with the size that a competing social
| network service would require?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| That's part of the point though: in most of the developed
| world, it is possible to know who controls a given
| corporation.
|
| Because there's a rule of law, legal records, required
| disclosures, all subject to investigation and enforcement
| by an independent judiciary that creates a public record.
|
| We can bemoan that wealthy people control a majority of
| assets or that some exceptions slip through the cracks at
| smaller scale (e.g. offshore shell companies owning
| assets). But by and large there's no question as to "Who
| owns Exxon? Or Google? Or Facebook?"
|
| China does not have that.
| voxl wrote:
| No thanks, don't need any more authoritarian moves from
| presidential over reach. Privacy laws for companies making X$
| in yearly revenue is much saner approach.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Countries deciding that foreigners can't use their
| citizen's data willy-nilly is neither authoritarian nor
| over-reach, and neither is restricting those foreigners
| from access when they don't comply.
|
| For a generally accepted instance, see the EU GDPR.
| Steltek wrote:
| I think parent was commenting on the "China bans US tech,
| we should ban TikTok", which is just reflexive poop
| throwing between two countries. GDPR is totally
| different: it's a level headed statement of principles
| for how ALL tech companies should treat user data.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| I just have a hard time accepting that the people who
| made every website implement a cookie warning that is
| equivalent to the "don't use in bathtub" stickers all
| over appliances know enough about to write airtight laws
| that would actually solve any of this.
| Karunamon wrote:
| The cookie warning as irritatingly implemented is a bit
| of false-flagging by people who make their money from
| adtech surveillance. They intentionally make the
| experience suck as much as possible, then point at the
| law and say "talk to the government, they're making us do
| this" when challenged.
| jdlshore wrote:
| The GDPR is an excellent law and has nothing to do with
| the cookie warnings you see. I'm speaking as someone who
| read it carefully for implementing compliance in a small
| business.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| GDPR applies to european companies too.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And only competitive advantage it really gives is that
| data must remain inside EU. Which seem pretty reasonable
| ask. And not too big hurdle for any company with enough
| power to enter the market.
| rootsudo wrote:
| It was tried, but people cried racism.
| https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-
| orde...
| varispeed wrote:
| Not only that. You can't operate an online store in China,
| but Chinese sellers can sell good to Europe or the US. It's
| baffling why this lack of reciprocity is allowed.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| People like having access to cheap goods.
| snehk wrote:
| China didn't specifically "ban" US social networks because
| they were US social networks. The companies themselves didn't
| want to comply with Chinese laws so they cannot operate
| there.
|
| It's the same as Facebook now threatening to leave the EU if
| they have to comply with EU data protection laws.
| Steltek wrote:
| China structures things overwhelmingly in favor of its
| domestic companies to the point of ridiculousness. It's
| well past simple tariffs when you need joint ventures, a
| license to operate a website, source code disclosure, key
| escrow, government censors, Taiwan/Tibet/Hong Kong/Uiyghur
| tiptoeing, and who knows what else.
|
| A US company operating in China under its own international
| brand is a sucker who fell for a pretty blatant con.
| coliveira wrote:
| US companies go to China because they want to make money.
| Pure and simple. China has laws, that they need to comply
| with. Nobody is being forced to do things, in one side or
| another. If US companies want to operate overseas, they
| need to follow other countries rules, the same way that
| happens inside the US. If US companies don't want to make
| money from the Chinese market, they can just chose to
| leave.
| piggybox wrote:
| 1) In FB's own words:
| https://about.fb.com/news/2022/02/meta-is-absolutely-not-
| thr... so mass media just put the word into FB's mouth
|
| 2) On "China didn't ban ...", that's the case for Google
| and Linkedin China, but it's actually a kind of "soft" ban
| that the cost to meet the regulatory requirements is too
| high to afford even for biggest companies in the world.
|
| 3) FB case was a bit different. It was never given any
| opportunity to operate in China, so FB didn't "chose" to
| leave. We would never know what FB would do if given the
| chance. Maybe leave all user data there inside the great
| wall, as Apple does in its special version of iCloud in
| China.
| loudthing wrote:
| Not quite. The Great Firewall of China has the ability to
| shut off access to specific sites, services, and even
| communications protocols very easily and very effectively.
| Trying to access Google from China doesn't result in a page
| from Google apologizing that they won't comply with Chinese
| laws. It's as if the services simply doesn't exist and you
| get a 404 error.
|
| Also, Google actually has a sizeable office in Beijing. I'm
| not sure what they do specifically since it's not easy to
| access any of their public services without an obscure VPN
| (the most popular ones get blocked pretty quickly).
| vorpalhex wrote:
| They didn't want to comply with laws requiring giving the
| Chinese government full access to their data.
| snehk wrote:
| It really doesn't matter. We can say that it's good that
| companies like Google or Facebook don't want to be part
| in any of this or we can say that even the slightest
| interest in user privacy makes it morally impossible for
| companies to operate in China. What's simply not true is
| the idea that Google or Facebook not being in China has
| anything to do with them being American companies.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Well I mean the US kinda does that too. That's why
| Schrems II was able to invalidate EU-US Privacy Shield.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Tried that already, didn't work..
| duxup wrote:
| They banned tik tok ?
| twofornone wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikT
| ok_...
|
| Trump admin tried to restrict its use, at least among
| government/military, and perhaps predictably he was
| accused of racism/sinophobia...but the threat was just as
| real then as now.
| duxup wrote:
| That doesn't really seem like "tried that" to me.
| dahfizz wrote:
| There was literally an executive order which banned
| TikTok if the Chinese parent company did not sell the
| platform[1]. That's a pretty real "tried to ban tiktok".
|
| [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13942
| duxup wrote:
| To me an executive order doomed to fail in the courts
| really isn't a real attempt.
| dymk wrote:
| Pray tell what a real attempt looks like to you?
| duxup wrote:
| Legislation, a department taking action within their
| legal powers.
|
| In the US it really does matter how you do things. Just
| the whim of the president is not enough for it to happen.
|
| Trump had no legal basis for his order. He liked to act
| like he was doing things with grand strokes, many of them
| were doomed to fail. I'm not convinced that he or those
| around him even cared if they did or not.
|
| I don't think you can read much into an amateur hour /
| foolish attempt.
| twofornone wrote:
| Are you sure that the head of the executive branch does
| not have authority to ban federal employees from using an
| app which potentially poses a national security threat?
|
| I don't think its so clear cut. In any case its hardly
| the first time that a president made a potentially
| unconditional to be ruled upon by courts later.
| duxup wrote:
| >have authority to ban federal employees from using an
| app
|
| Not sure what we're talking about at this point. Trump's
| executive orders about tiktok that were thrown out of
| court were something different.
|
| Trump or just the department who owns a given device can
| of course say "don't put X on government phones" and so
| on, but that's way different than what Trump tried and
| failed to do with tiktok.
| seneca wrote:
| The possibility of failure is inherently involved in
| "attempting". Otherwise it's just "doing".
| duxup wrote:
| The failure was known the moment Trump took his action.
| We're talking about a guy who I don't know if he really
| even cared if it was legal / carried out or not.
| babypuncher wrote:
| If you attempt something knowing full well it has a 100%
| chance of failure, was it really a meaningful action?
| mannerheim wrote:
| Why was it doomed to fail in the courts? Trump banned
| Huawei with an executive order as well.
| duxup wrote:
| The short answer is Trump's order had actual legal
| grounds to stick as far as Huawei goes.
|
| Regarding Huawei , Trump basically told the Commerce
| Department to take action, Huawei was already (or was in
| the process of being) blacklisted by the commerce
| department, the commerce department does have the legal
| right to do that given the nature of Huawei's products
| and sensitivity of communications equipment.
|
| The commerce department doesn't currently (although I
| believe lawmakers are looking into it) have the authority
| to simply blanket ban an app like tiktok on a whim /
| order. They simply can't do that for any old reason the
| POTUS says.
|
| As I noted in another comment, in the US it does matter
| HOW you do things, the courts are independent (compared
| to say China) regardless how "right" someone might be
| they need to follow the law.
| mannerheim wrote:
| My understanding was that the real teeth behind both EOs
| is that they prohibited American companies from doing
| business with Huawei and TikTok. So Huawei would not be
| able to sell through American retailers, and TikTok
| wouldn't be available in the Apple store or the Play
| store, and they couldn't get an American CDN.
| duxup wrote:
| I think that's just another facet of what a ban would
| look like.
|
| But as far as tiktok until someone gives the commerce
| department or someone else new powers, so far that seems
| out of reach.
|
| Granted, I believe there are efforts to give them that
| option.
| mannerheim wrote:
| Those are the only powers that would be necessary to
| effectively ban TikTok from the US. Without app store
| access and without CDNs, TikTok would be dead in the US.
| And from my understanding of the Huawei situation, doing
| these by prohibiting US companies from doing business
| with TikTok is within the power of the President.
| ferrumfist wrote:
| The prevailing sentiment had nothing to do with racism, I
| recall the more liberal circles of the Internet
| lambasting his "small government, pro-business" stance
| while he uses executive orders to clamp down on private
| businesses.
| [deleted]
| nsajko wrote:
| Trump tried doing something like that in a predictably
| half-assed, illegal and obviously inappropriate manner:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok_v._Trump
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikTok
| _co...
| freebuju wrote:
| This ban was presumably done under the same guises as the
| one done for Huawei. I don't see anyone shedding tears
| for Huawei.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah I almost don't count any of Trump's one off "i'm a
| despot right?" type actions that inevitably failed ...
| not so much on what he wanted to do, but that he / the
| folks around him were ignorant about HOW you do it.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| long_time_gone wrote:
| > Trump it mobilized the 99% of people who don't have
| beliefs as much as they have
|
| I thought it was the judicial branch and an injunction
| that stopped it.
|
| >> On 23 September 2020, TikTok filed a request for a
| preliminary injunction to prevent the app from being
| banned by the Trump administration. This request was
| filed with the District Court for the District of
| Columbia. The preliminary injunction was approved by
| Judge Carl J. Nichols on September 27.
|
| Then, the current President rescinded it and ordered an
| actual review of the risks. Something we probably should
| have done prior to the attempted banning.
|
| >> In June 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive
| order revoking the Trump administration ban on TikTok,
| and instead ordered the Secretary of Commerce to
| investigate the app to determine if it poses a threat to
| U.S. national security.
|
| I'm confused on exactly what you think happened.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump%E2%80%93TikT
| ok_...
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Yes, I was being glib, thanks for calling it out.
|
| As the wiki article you shared lays out, there was a
| decent amount of nonpartisan momentum behind narrower
| limitations on Tiktok, along with serious consideration
| of it as a national security threat. Trump's threat of an
| outright ban immediately polarized the conversation and
| deflated much of that momentum, helped along by the fact
| his specific approach and messaging were typically
| incautious instead of incremental.
|
| The courts did indeed issue an injunction against Trump's
| EO, and I don't have any reason to believe they were
| wrong to do so. Biden, again typically, _has_ taken the
| first steps of an incremental approach towards assessing
| the risks that tiktok poses. But as implied by the
| Wikipedia page you linked, we're nowhere near the level
| of Congressional and institutional attention that we were
| at in 2019 and 2020, and it's pretty reasonable to
| attribute this to Trump's engagement with the issue
| reorienting the political valence of the conversation.
| Specifically, the "Trump vs tiktok" association is so
| strong that (eg) a Senator that makes too much noise
| about it will now be loaded with an association that he
| may not want.
|
| I actually don't have a strong opinion about tiktok's
| ban, see risks in both courses of action, and am a fan of
| the Biden admin's ostensible careful approach. I just
| resent the degree to which the idiocy of the public
| drives so many issues further away from thoughtful
| engagement with reality and towards partisan sportsball.
| duxup wrote:
| I honestly can't parse that sentence, it seems pretty
| loaded to the point that it makes no sense to me.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think it's too late for that. If we tried to ban TikTok in
| the US, there'd be a public outcry.
| marvel_boy wrote:
| Better late than never.
| rootsudo wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-
| orde...
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Right, I actually see this as a very simple trade issue!
| China doesn't allow US social networks in China, so the US
| shouldn't allow Chinese social networks in the US.
|
| Doing anything else means that Chinese companies have the
| ability to build international platforms--where both Chinese
| and US citizens can participate--and US companies do not.
| Furthermore, those international platforms could potentially
| be made to enforce the CCP's standards for speech, setting
| the tone for conversations about Uyghurs and Taiwan
| worldwide.
| babypuncher wrote:
| To do this, we can't just say "Chinese social networks are
| not allowed in the US", because that is not what China is
| doing. You need to outlaw whatever it is TikTok is doing
| that you do not like in the first place.
|
| Facebook is not allowed to operate in China not because
| they are American, but because they do not want to comply
| with Chinese law.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| US social networks _are_ allowed to operate in China, they
| just have to follow the local law. Facebook was banned
| after denying the authorities the data of Uighur protesters
| after a deathly riot in 2009. Imagine the outcry here if a
| riot that left more than a hundred people dead was
| organized on facebook, and then the company decides to
| protect the rioters. Google and Twitter decided that the
| backlash back home wasn 't worth the attempt to enter the
| market, since they would have to comply with strict
| censorship laws. Some US social media platforms do operate
| within China.
|
| TikTok does follow US law, so instead of flat out banning
| it, the reasonable thing to do would be to enact sensible
| privacy legislation... But oh wait, then tech giants can't
| exploit the local population anymore.
| piggybox wrote:
| Let me remind you that once upon a time a US company gave
| some email data to the authorities of China, the CEO of
| the company was sued in US and later resigned. That
| company was Yahoo!
| rootsudo wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/trump-executive-
| orde... Tried and failed.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Snowden exposed the wholesale, unauthorized data collection
| operation the US NatSec complex was performing and we haven't
| banned the us government from peering to the internet.
|
| Why should we ban people voluntarily using a short video
| service that shows them things they like and whose business
| model is virtually identical to every other social media
| company?
| boc wrote:
| There's a difference between listening and engaging.
|
| The NSA listens.
|
| TikTok listens, engages, and suggests new content and ideas
| to millions.
| dragonelite wrote:
| No US tech just doesn't want to follow Chinese law so they
| left, kind of like how facebook threatened to leave EU
| recently. If the EU continues with their cyber law.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| They aren't: https://about.fb.com/news/2022/02/meta-is-
| absolutely-not-thr...
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| > You're not banned from my house, but if you come to
| visit, you're required to beat my children.
| loudthing wrote:
| I for one am a proponent for free and open internet and net
| neutrality. Banning any sites/services in the US is a
| slippery slope. There has to be better ways to deal with
| these problems.
| consumer451 wrote:
| My one nitpick is that I believe it would be best to replace
| "China" with "CCP" in your statement. It's important to be
| specific in cases like these. I think it likely that it is not
| geographical China, nor all Chinese people you are attempting
| to reference, but their leadership the CCP.
| cgriswald wrote:
| That's not a nitpick. That's redefining the way we talk about
| nations. It's already clear from context he's not talking
| about "all Chinese people."
|
| "China to enter talks with the United States about social
| media" would not mean all Chinese people will talk to all
| Americans. This is true whether the content is positive,
| negative, or neutral.
| netcan wrote:
| >> China is not a good faith operator.
|
| Who is? I don't mean to be trite or contrary, but TikTok is
| coming into an environment where _norms_ are pretty damned
| shady. Google as you and the article say, also consume user
| data quite unethically.
|
| FB likewise surveil us for their advertising businesses. They
| both also happen to host and control a good chunk of political
| and politically adjacent content within that framework. Police
| and regulate it with no transparency. FB are also gave us our
| first big "scandals" with third party trackers and/or data
| sharing.
|
| Other countries (including, but definitely not exclusively)
| also use tech companies as espionage assets.
|
| TikTok is just a new pig at the trough.
| saas_sam wrote:
| Every tech company executive in the USA is not required to
| operate as an agent for one political party by threat of
| being disappeared. Our entire internet is not locked down to
| prevent political dissidents from sharing their views. Our
| government doesn't pay to flood our social media networks
| with astroturfing to create the illusion of popular support
| for its policies. These things add a more serious tone to the
| conversation, don'tcha think?
| angio wrote:
| US-based tech companies where collaborating with the NSA on
| their illegal mass surveillance programmes.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| > Our government doesn't pay to flood our social media
| networks with astroturfing to create the illusion of
| popular support for its policies.
|
| How would we know if that was or was not happening, either
| here or, more aptly (for the analogy to be accurate),
| abroad?
| hammock wrote:
| Give it a few years.
| Ekaros wrote:
| No, but they intelligence agencies do the same stuff. And
| private hidden funders of politicians do the
| astroturfing... I don't really see much difference if it
| done by government or people who pay the politicians
| running the government.
| xinniethepooh wrote:
| Politicians are voted in by the people, and giving money
| to politicians to advance an initiative isn't guaranteed.
|
| You don't really see much difference? Democratically
| elected politicians versus central party that allows no
| dissent and has complete control over information and
| actions of its citizens to the point of genocidal
| assimilation.
| cvlasdkv wrote:
| > Democratically elected politicians versus central party
| that allows no dissent and has complete control over
| information and actions of its citizens to the point of
| genocidal assimilation.
|
| You're saying the Chinese government is so powerful and
| competent that they have complete control over
| information and actions of over one BILLION people? Wild
| claims like this one should be substantiated.
|
| Although your name is wildly sinophobic and racist so I
| doubt there is any evidence you can pull up.
| ketzo wrote:
| I think it's hugely disingenuous, to the point of bad
| faith, to pretend there's not a _massive_ difference
| between the internet in the U.S. and in China.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| There's a massive difference in the internet itself, but
| the topic of discussion here is data collection, which
| isn't really a massive difference.
| netcan wrote:
| Exactly. This isn't a general comparison of china to the
| US. It's a specific comparison of how bad data collection
| practices and the only (IMO) sane conclusion is that it's
| all quite terrible. One is not disconnected to the other
| either. The reason tiktok _can_ collect all this data is
| precedents and norms established _by_ google and FB.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I think it would be a mistake for anyone to conclude that
| because none of these companies is good, they're all equally
| bad. There is a lesser and greater evil in this case.
| netcan wrote:
| OK... What's the case for lesser or greater.
|
| Bear in mind that we don't really know much about how our
| data is being used at any of these, either directly by the
| company or by security agencies in their home countries. US
| security also has access to foreign citizens' FB & Google
| data via prism or its successors.
|
| The whole argument here seems (to me) to be [1] TikTok
| collects a scary and unjustifiable amount of data about its
| customers, just like youtube, FB Etc. [2] We don't know
| exactly what's collected and why [3] TikTok are chinese.
|
| Singling out Tiktok is neither helpful nor honest, IMO.
| topspin wrote:
| > Who is?
|
| That was my thought. Listing the 'good faith' operators might
| be feasible, if only because the list would be very short.
| dogleash wrote:
| >TikTok is just a new pig at the trough.
|
| This issue isn't a bee stuck in my presonal bonnet, but this
| is a fraudulent response that convinces nobody that didn't
| already agree with you. I'll explain why.
|
| The people complaining about TikTok were probably complaining
| about the others for ages too.
|
| Those complainers were shouted down with some version of
| "well, they're not THAT bad."
|
| Now there is one actor that is seen (at least by some) as
| worse than the others. The difference in the actor is being
| raised as a reason to care about their actions (and maybe
| renew concern about the category of actions at large).
|
| Your response that their actions are not novel is either
| ignorant or perpetuating a fraud.
| hangonhn wrote:
| Agreed. Rather than targeting a specific country or specific
| company, make it a large category. Grey areas are where
| companies, regardless of national origin, can optimize and
| manipulate. We need to shift the conversation away from
| "China bad; ban Chinese companies" to one about protecting
| people and their right to privacy. After all, this is the
| goal, right? We don't want to be saying "Privacy violations
| are OK as long as the companies are Western." but rather
| "People have a right to privacy."
| classified wrote:
| Just in cast it makes any difference to you, the Chinese
| government, who collects all the TikTok data, is a bunch of
| oppressive mass murderers. Say what you will about Facebook,
| Google, et al., but they haven't come that far yet.
| netcan wrote:
| Then what does it have to do with TikTok?
|
| If the underlying assertion is "ccp is evil," where and why
| does this relate to TikTok specifically? Why not every
| other item you are probably consuming?
|
| >> Say what you will about Facebook, Google, et al., but
| they haven't come that far yet.
|
| They're tech/media companies, not governments. FB & Google
| _are_ however responsible for the norms under which TikTok
| can collect data for whatever purposes they want. They 're
| the ones who normalised this sort of shady behaviour. It's
| a pretty straight line between one and the other.
| uoaei wrote:
| Reading more of the recent work of this Dr. Epstein and
| something tells me his broader intentions for such an
| initiative have less to do with "big tech" than the "moral
| corruption of modern society" and is primarily animated toward
| the cause because things went the other way 4 years after 2016.
|
| Everything he rails against was present in both recent US
| elections but for whatever reason he seems content to focus
| only on the most recent one.
|
| Maybe he's spineless and holds that line because right-wing
| hosts are the only ones that will host him to get his message
| out. Maybe he really does believe that and is being a complete
| hypocrite. Neither option is respectable.
| gtsop wrote:
| Well, same as facebook and US.
| lelandfe wrote:
| > Google's been caught red handed deliberately manipulating
| political content
|
| Sorry, do you have a better link handy? This primarily looks
| like a fundraising page.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| A really strange fundraising page too that claims to be non-
| partisan but quotes three different far-right hacks.
| cloutchaser wrote:
| I'm really curious, can you name someone who you think is
| just "right"? Like who isn't "far-right" in your opinion?
| [deleted]
| Spellman wrote:
| David Frum
|
| Liz Cheney
|
| Mitt Romney
|
| David French
|
| Reason media (Libertarian)
|
| Andrew Sullivan
|
| These all tend to fall under the more 80s/90s
| Neoconservative or Liberalism banner instead of the more
| aggressive New Right
| maxehmookau wrote:
| I'm from the UK, so it's a relative concept. The US,
| except for some fairly small pockets of actual socialist
| left-wing thinking, is much further to the right. A lot
| of western europe loved Obama, but in reality he was
| closer to the UK Conservative party than the UK Labour
| party.
|
| But I'm even more curious, would you not describe Tucker
| Carlson as far right in his views?
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| On social issues average European and its country is way
| more conservative than average American. You're comparing
| economical standpoint here and I agree with that.
| rtsil wrote:
| Certainly not Western Europe.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| I mean it's simply not true, ask any non-European person
| who has lived on both continents where he feels more
| welcome.
|
| On what social issues are excatly Euros more left wing
| compared to Americans?
| rtsil wrote:
| Universal healthcare, unemployment benefits, workers'
| rights, LGBTQ rights, prison policy, police behavior and
| control, social safety net, lack of religion in politics,
| free or extremely cheap education including higher
| education, and that's just off the top if my mind?
|
| > ask any non-European person who has lived on both
| continents where he feels more welcome.
|
| I gladly concede this, but this is just one element of
| social issues.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| LGBT rights are definetly better off in America and then
| you listed a lot of economical issues that have very
| little to do with left or right in Europe. Matter of a
| fact in Eastern Europe the left wing economical policies
| are what is keeping socially Conservative people in
| power.
| [deleted]
| conjectures wrote:
| > On social issues average European and its country is
| way more conservative than average American.
|
| Dubious.
| ericmay wrote:
| At great risk here, I have to say I agree based on my own
| experience. Often times people conflate government-funded
| systems like healthcare or taxpayer-funded university as
| being socially progressive. I wouldn't do that. You can
| have universal healthcare and ban gay marriage in your
| country, for example.
| boringg wrote:
| Tucker Carlson is unhinged from reality and espouses wild
| conspiracies which falls squarely in the far right.
| spinny wrote:
| > wild conspiracies
|
| which ones ?? russiagate hrc lies ??
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I would generally call most of the "never Trump"
| conservatives "right but not far-right". I.e. people like
| Rick Wilson and Mitt Romney.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| That's a coverage artifact - if Google is manipulating
| politics in favor of democrats, then the only coverage
| you'll find is going to be on the center to the right wing
| platforms. American media in all its glory.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| jppittma wrote:
| I can't believe I'm seeing junk like this on HN. I thought
| this forum was populated by people who actually work in
| tech?
| mhh__ wrote:
| HN on politics is not HN on tech sadly. The discourse
| around the George Floyd murder was really horrid at times
| [deleted]
| lelandfe wrote:
| On that Wikipedia page, the two Robert Epstein sources (one
| a PNAS paper[1], the other a Politico article[2]) are
| theoretical ("whether they could be manipulated") and
| pre-2016. The other main source[3] is similarly theoretical
| and provides policy recommendations to combat SEME.
|
| It also has a Washington Post article[4] discussing a
| (since-deleted) video that purportedly showed potentially-
| manipulated differences between how Bing and Google
| autocompleted "Hillary Clinton" searches. But none of the 3
| main sources cover what the impact of autocomplete could
| be.
|
| Do you have any links about Google being caught red-handed
| politicizing ranking order?
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4547273/
|
| [2] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-
| google-c...
|
| [3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jinfopoli.9.2019.0
| 370#m...
|
| [4] https://archive.is/fHzW8. Is Politifact trustworthy?
| They investigated this and found "Google's suggested
| searches, for the most part, avoid offensive suggestions
| for everyone, not just Clinton." That isn't a total debunk,
| of course.
| https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/jun/23/andrew-
| nap...
| robbedpeter wrote:
| >>The 2020 presidential election monitoring project
| successfully recruited a diverse group of 732 registered
| voters in three battleground states: Arizona, Florida,
| and North Carolina. It preserved more than 500,000
| ephemeral experiences on Google, Bing, Yahoo, YouTube,
| and Facebook. These are the fleeting experiences that Big
| Tech companies use to influence votes and opinions
| worldwide and that are normally lost forever.
|
| >>A preliminary analysis of the data shows that Google
| search results (but NOT search results on Bing or Yahoo)
| had a significant liberal bias - enough to have shifted
| at least 6 million votes in the months leading up to the
| election.
|
| You need to know the methodology being used to understand
| the results, as they tracked ephemeral experiences using
| surveillance software with volunteers.
|
| This guy needs a website team in the biggest way. It's
| hard to find the information and it's scattershot. It's
| very frustrating because the work he's doing is solid.
| Don't let the shitty web presence deter you.
|
| The Rogan podcast was awkward af but he does provide a
| lot of substantive content if you're open to listening.
|
| https://www.aibrt.org/index.php/internet-studies is
| probably the most coherent site, but there's no salient
| tldr breakdown, to learn more you'll need to watch the
| videos.
|
| https://youtu.be/-7qT_38iRSc is the most comprehensive
| video, but I'll need to spend more time later to gather
| better links.
| jjulius wrote:
| Preface: I'm pretty big on the "fuck Google/Big Tech"
| train.
|
| >Google's been caught red handed deliberately
| manipulating political content.
|
| >https://mygoogleresearch.com/
|
| There's no research on that page. Many of the linked
| articles that this individual has written also are vague
| on actual details/proof and only contain vague "this
| _could_ happen! " comments. Beyond that, many of them
| also end with a plea for more fundraising.
|
| >This guy needs a website team in the biggest way. It's
| hard to find the information and it's scattershot. It's
| very frustrating because the work he's doing is solid.
| Don't let the shitty web presence deter you.
|
| All he needs to do is spend a little more time uploading
| data and evidence, and less time shoving as many "DONATE"
| buttons onto his page as he can. _None_ of this looks
| like solid work, even his television appearances; it
| looks like someone who goes around throwing out lots and
| lots of loose speculation while asking to be paid to do
| so.
| lelandfe wrote:
| OK, his SEME bias analysis is based on recruiting people
| through a "passive monitoring system," which recorded
| SERP rankings over time (what Epstein deems "ephemeral
| experiences"). Participants' SERP rankings, _and_ raw
| HTML of each of the top X links, were stored on Epstein
| 's servers. He then had "online workers" (likely mturk?)
| rate each archived page as pro-Trump or Clinton.[0]
|
| He submitted a paper on this in June 2021 to the AABSS
| but they have yet to publish it. He also has 5 other,
| earlier SEME papers submitted for publication.[1]
|
| I appreciate you going the distance on providing these
| links but I'm loath to trust this data until it's been
| peer-reviewed.
|
| His AIBRT presentation[2] has some seemingly spurious
| logic. Here's one slide: https://i.imgur.com/t4rGv3e.png
|
| The graph depicts 300k undecided voters resolving to a
| party over time. Here's Epstein talking about it:
|
| > _...by the time we hit election day, we have an
| enormous gap - more than 100,000 people - between the
| conservatives and liberals. And we 've created that gap
| with our biased search results._
|
| Assigning that movement to a single cause seems unlikely
| to me.
|
| His presentation does include a relevant WSJ article
| titled "Google Workers Discussed Tweaking Search Function
| to Counter Travel Ban."[3] That's not "red-handed," since
| they didn't do it, but it's very relevant. HN at the
| time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036353
|
| [0] https://hackernoon.com/taming-big-tech-5fef0df0f00d
|
| [1] https://drrobertepstein.com/pdf/vita.pdf
|
| [2] Video:
| https://www.aibrt.org/downloads/EPSTEIN_et_al_2021-Large-
| Sca...
|
| [3] https://archive.is/tM18I
| nsajko wrote:
| Podcasts are entertainment, they're a wildly inappropriate
| medium for rational argumentation or giving evidence or
| anything similar.
|
| Put another way, you can't expect me to spend my time
| listening to a podcast just to be able to guess at what
| your argument is.
| natvert wrote:
| I agree with your assessment, however I don't think the
| response is more surveillance. If recent data breeches have
| taught us anything it is that data aggregation (necessary for
| surveillance) is just another source of Chinese intelligence.
|
| The solution to this (and other problems of social engineering)
| is to educate the general (democratic) population, so they are
| aware of and resilient against such attacks. I don't think it's
| possible to stop everyone from using a given service, but if
| every user understands the real tradeoffs, then we have a
| chance. If individuals (and more importantly voters) cannot
| think and reason for themself, given the facts of a given
| subject, democracy has no future.
|
| In general though, I think people are smart. They make
| decisions and tradeoffs with the information they have. The
| problem here is that they don't understand the real risks. More
| than the loss of privacy and security, the real problem here is
| that a hostile nation state seeks to influence the thoughts of
| free citizens of other (democratic) countries. This is how wars
| are won and lost -- in the hearts and minds of the people. If
| everyone who used TikTok saw the situation in a similar light,
| I doubt it would have the adoption it currently has.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I don't think we'll ever be able to avoid mass manipulation
| with the technology we have available - which makes large scale
| democracy useless and easily controllable by foreign state
| actors and local political parties.
|
| The growing inequality and the increasing government overreach
| which strangely always seems to benefit a few rich uber-
| companies is a symptom that our institutions are fairly
| unreliable.
|
| An alternative to more regulation and more surveillance to
| prevent mass manipulation would be NOT to have the power of
| millions of people in the hands of a handful of barely-elected
| representatives and to keep that power in local communities.
|
| No more taxes that go to Washington and gets "redistributed" -
| aka used to enrich the usual lobbyists. No more public services
| - aka monopolies. Just private local companies providing
| services to local citizens.
| new_stranger wrote:
| tikTok collects data like a great many other companies,
| unfortunately they aren't just doing it sell more ads.
|
| With a few days of interactions, you can very precisely
| logically profile a person enough to figure out how to socially
| engineer them. You also have enough interest and behavioral
| data to be able setup a blackmail scheme.
|
| It is not hard to imagine how the close integration with the
| government allows the law enforcement to conduct very skilled
| operations using the psychological map that can be built about
| a person.
|
| The CCP is way past knowing if you vote dem/rep or are a 21yr
| old female.
| snehk wrote:
| The "Chinese data harvesting software" has less trackers than
| the site reporting about it (CNBC.com).
| lpcvoid wrote:
| Yet the site does not have access to biometrics. What point
| are you making?
| snehk wrote:
| Neither does TikTok if you don't upload anything.
| uoaei wrote:
| Techniques for recovering certain biometric data from
| accelerometers, microphones, etc. is well-established.
|
| Obviously the behavioral profiles are unaffected by this,
| considering it focuses primarily on browsing habits.
| yua_mikami wrote:
| ailef wrote:
| All of this applies to Instagram, FB, etc... too?
|
| Also > How much are the CCP paying you to defend TikTok
| in all these comments?
|
| This is surely not the way to have a rational
| conversation about the topic?
| StopDarkPattern wrote:
| ok123456 wrote:
| They're using industry standard techniques for user
| tracking.
|
| If you find them objectionable, change the industry.
| bduerst wrote:
| Accusing HN users of being paid shills doesn't add to the
| conversation. If we can't scrutinize overtly-vague
| technical criticisms w/o being called names then what's
| the point?
| classified wrote:
| Yes, many trackers, for many different companies that all
| serve their own ends. TikTok on the other hand only serves
| _one_ master, the Chinese government. They only need this one
| tentacle, no need for multiple trackers.
| selfportrait wrote:
| I don't refute anything you say, but linking to a page that
| features Glenn Beck, Mark Levin and Tucker Carlson doesn't help
| your case. Not to mention the clear partisanship and call for
| donation to the "American Institute for Behavioral Research and
| Technology" - a rabbit hole I'm happy to avoid.
| [deleted]
| robbedpeter wrote:
| That's an artifact of the politics. If a company had been
| tilting this in favor of the right, you would find Maddow,
| Lemon, and other left wing bobbleheads instead of right wing
| bobbleheads.
|
| Don't let guilt by association bias your thinking in this,
| but give the subject the deliberation it deserves. If you
| value the integrity of democracy and public discourse, ignore
| the messengers for whom the optics are politically convenient
| and focus on the message.
| dessant wrote:
| No, we should not ignore the messengers. There are enough
| credible people and content supporting your arguments, and
| there is no need to shove in the fundraising campaigns of
| opportunistic people that regularily argue against human
| rights.
| selfportrait wrote:
| This isn't guilt by association. That website is purely a
| grift, starting from its appeal to authority, leading into
| the Fox News nonsense and pseudoscientific slant, all the
| way to its Rush Limbaugh, early 2000s aesthetics. It
| doesn't take a scientist to know that this isn't how
| credible scientists operate, especially with the partisan
| hackery on display.
| msrenee wrote:
| What am I supposed to see on that site besides a guy trying
| to market a monitoring system that he made?
| bduerst wrote:
| Isn't the whole, "TikTok spies for China" meme also
| politically motivated, per the last Republican president?
|
| I don't doubt that Bytedance shares Chinese TouTiao user data
| with the Chinese government, akin to how Apple does it with
| iCloud, but Bytedance has been pretty adamant that TikTok is
| external to China and doesn't share data. Even when there was
| an executive order to ban TikTok for being a national
| security threat, they couldn't prove that it was.
|
| Does anyone have actual evidence of TikTok sharing with the
| Chinese government, outside of political hit pieces like the
| one above?
| mdoms wrote:
| > Bytedance has been pretty adamant that TikTok is external
| to China and doesn't share data
|
| Oh well if they've been _adamant_ then I guess it's true.
| friedman23 wrote:
| Explicit evidence of Tiktok sharing information with the
| Chinese government is not needed because there is already
| sufficient evidence that
|
| 1. The Chinese government does not deserve our trust.
|
| 2. All Chinese businesses are extensions of the Chinese
| government.
|
| The default assumption should be that your information is
| being sent to China and that China is using Tiktok as an
| extention of their propaganda arm.
| cvlasdkv wrote:
| Sounds like xenophobia to me. I would have thought the HN
| crew a bit more educated. You claim there is "sufficient
| evidence" yet provide none.
|
| In the event that information _is_ sent to China...I'm
| less worried than if it were used by American companies
| to target me specifically for ads.
| friedman23 wrote:
| > You claim there is "sufficient evidence" yet provide
| none
|
| Do I need to provide evidence that the Chinese government
| should not be trusted and that China has control over all
| businesses based within its borders? This is common
| knowledge.
|
| > I'm less worried than if it were used by American
| companies to target me specifically for ads
|
| You should try practicing what you preach regarding so
| called xenophobia. Also your defensiveness in this regard
| is misplaced because my post is not pro American ad
| companies and it is not pro data collection. I am anti
| data collection. So not only am I against tiktok because
| it's controlled by a genocidal dictatorship that has
| raised a legion of indoctrinated nationalists, I'm anti
| tiktok because it represents the absolute worst of social
| media.
| cvlasdkv wrote:
| > Do I need to provide evidence that the Chinese
| government should not be trusted and that China has
| control over all businesses based within its borders?
| This is common knowledge.
|
| Yes, because it's likely your "common knowledge" is a
| misunderstanding or misrepresentation of reality. Just
| down thread there was someone claiming the Chinese
| government has total control of all their citizens. You
| display your ignorance in this comment any way with
| ludicrous cries of "genocidal dictatorship" and calling
| the Chinese a "legion of indoctrinated nationalists".
|
| > You should try practicing what you preach regarding so
| called xenophobia. Also your defensiveness in this regard
| is misplaced because my post is not pro American ad
| companies and it is not pro data collection. I am anti
| data collection.
|
| I am also anti data-collection. China doing it doesn't
| bother me any more than the rest of the world doing it.
|
| What xenophobia? As someone who lives in the West, what
| the West does affects me directly. My data in China or
| India or anywhere doesn't affect me at all.
|
| > because it's controlled by a genocidal dictatorship
| that has raised a legion of indoctrinated nationalists
|
| Ironically this is most of the world's opinion of
| America.
| friedman23 wrote:
| > Yes, because it's likely your "common knowledge" is a
| misunderstanding or misrepresentation of reality
|
| Fine, you disagree with me, I'm not putting in any more
| effort discussing this with you because I don't believe
| you are arguing in good faith. I'll let the reader of HN
| decide using their own judgement.
|
| > Ironically this is most of the world's opinion of
| America.
|
| You keep up bringing up America despite me not mentioning
| them or even defending the country. This is a classic
| tactic for derailing conversations.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| > genocidal dictatorship
|
| Do you believe in earnest that China is not a genocidal
| dictatorship?
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| People are talking about the other parts pretty well, but
| the idea of a "propaganda arm" seems a little funny to
| me. What is the propaganda they want to push? To what
| end?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Why do countries use propaganda? Why do companies use it?
| Why do people use it?
|
| Because changing what is important to a group or people
| can make pushing your agenda easier.
|
| What would be important to China's propaganda wing? Most
| important would be to maintain control over China and
| downplaying anything that reflects negatively. So
| controlling negative speech or shifting blame to someone
| else if a covid virus is discovered to original from
| territory you control would be important.
|
| Tiktok's algo focuses on keeping you occupied in a state
| of mind where you zone out.
| friedman23 wrote:
| > What is the propaganda they want to push? To what end?
|
| Propaganda is not just about "pushing" a message but also
| about smothering discussion. In fact, pushing a message
| via something like Tiktok is ham fisted, what the Chinese
| government can do instead is stifle any discussion
| related to topics that they consider "dangerous". For
| example, shadow banning any tiktok videos related to the
| Uighur genocide.
|
| They can blame any manipulation on some ranking
| algorithm.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| But then isn't this circular? They create the app to
| harvest the data to help them stifle the conversation
| they have made possible by creating the app in the first
| place!
| friedman23 wrote:
| You are assuming that the platform would not exist if the
| company didn't create it. But if tiktok doesn't exist the
| discussion would just happen somewhere else. I should
| also say that I'm not suggesting that tiktok was created
| for the sole purpose of pushing propaganda from its
| inception.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Well then I guess there is nothing left to say, as there
| is absolutely nothing that can be falsified in your
| beliefs, only the single-minded faith in an absolute
| national enemy.
|
| I only wish y'all could hear yourselves when you say
| these things, with even a fraction more rational clarity,
| even an ounce more suspicion of the political narratives
| at work here.
|
| These conversations are deeply troubling to me, makes me
| absolutely ashamed to be a westerner of any sorts. I
| think I will go find greener pastures now, thanks for the
| wake up call, hope you find peace too.
| friedman23 wrote:
| > Well then I guess there is nothing left to say, as
| there is absolutely nothing that can be falsified in your
| beliefs, only the single-minded faith in an absolute
| national enemy.
|
| Got it, so since you couldn't argue against my statements
| with reason you are now attacking my character.
|
| > makes me absolutely ashamed to be a westerner of any
| sorts
|
| Absolutely nobody that is from the west calls themselves
| a westerner whatever the hell that means. Also FYI, there
| is an extreme mistrust and dislike of China from almost
| every country in the so called East. So it isn't a west
| vs east thing.
| hhjinks wrote:
| The conversations would've been held elsewhere. Control
| the biggest platform, people gravitate there, shut down
| the topics you don't like, pay big names to visit the
| Forbidden City.
| acconrad wrote:
| What can be asserted without evidence can also be
| dismissed without evidence:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor
| hhjinks wrote:
| Nothing is being asserted. Statements 1 and 2 are truths,
| and from those two truths, we arrive at an ounce of
| prevention that we'd be wise to heed, whether our
| assumption is correct or not.
| friedman23 wrote:
| Like I said in another comment, I'll allow HN readers to
| use their own judgement.
|
| edit: but you know what. Since you want evidence I'll
| give you some. The entire Alibaba debacle where the CEO
| was forced into hiding because he dared to contradict the
| Chinese political elite is my evidence that the Chinese
| government has implicit control over every business based
| out of China.
| borepop wrote:
| Nothing that Christopher Hitchens ever said struck me as
| remotely insightful. Characterizing one of his reductive
| proclamations as a "razor" does not make it more useful
| or accurate.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| Post Snowden leaks, one could pretty much say the same
| about any American tech giant.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It is a little different with the nsa tapping the
| underwater cable trying to steal info where in China they
| create an internet where they hire millions of people to
| watch every conversation happening in real time.
|
| One couldn't say the same.. at all.
| dumb1224 wrote:
| > watch every conversation happening in real time Eh....
| are you sure? A lot of my childhood friends are now
| working in various ares of what you might consider
| 'authoritative post' or the infamous _You Guan Bu Men _
| but I think it 's still a bit too divorced from reality.
| Censorship and blatant blockage for sure but millions
| spying on billions in real time? I don't think that's how
| they work.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| Yes, if you completely minimize the level of bulk data
| collection the NSA and the US does through its partners,
| it's completely different. You've left out all of the
| prism program, wherein the government had _direct access_
| to telecom and tech company servers.
|
| What China does inside of China doesn't have any bearing
| on the western internet. The topic at hand is the data
| collection that tic tok is engaging in, which already has
| plenty of precedent in the west, unfortunately.
|
| It's completely contrary to the values enshrined in the
| US constitution to make arguments like, "ah well but that
| person/group/country is bad and we aren't" the entire
| political theory our nation is supposed to be built on is
| the notion that people with too much power will do bad
| things.
| chrischen wrote:
| Technically all businesses with a large interest inside X
| jurisdiction will have leverage against it in some way.
| For example Microsoft had to hand over its Windows source
| code to China. By extension of that leverage you can
| assume that jurisdiction has some control over it. In US
| it could be national security letters issued to TikTok.
| In China it could be their equivalent issued to someone
| physically on their soil.
| curiousmindz wrote:
| To be clearer, Microsoft has a program allowing most
| governments to inspect the source code of Windows. This
| is not specific to one country.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > Bytedance has been pretty adamant that TikTok is external
| to China and doesn't share data.
|
| Considering that there are TikTok employees in china - both
| engineers and moderators, there is no chance that china
| doesn't influence TikTok. Even Zoom which is a clearly
| american company that has chinese employees wasn't immune
| to chinese influence.
|
| source: i personally know a tiktok employee in china.
| yorwba wrote:
| Does that TikTok employee you know have access to user
| data?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Does it matter? The presence of an office full of people
| in china means that there is an office full of people
| that can be exploited and controlled by the Chinese
| government.
|
| Also, until recently they employed _moderators_ in china,
| who by definition have access to customer data. So yes,
| the Chinese offices have /had access to customer data.
| electrondood wrote:
| You lost credibility in my eyes with the link to a spammy
| website with DONATE NOW widgets posted everywhere.
| duxup wrote:
| At this point I do my best to avoid exposure to software /
| hardware / services from 'non-free' countries.
|
| It's not easy at all to do, there's a lot of grey area, and
| sometimes I just don't know. But I try.
|
| It's not about the individuals in those countries, I suspect
| just making their way through life they may have the best of
| intentions but still could be forced to participate.
|
| (Having said al that, that google research page seems pretty
| suspect to me.)
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > China is not a good faith operator.
|
| Well, neither is the USA and its NSA and its Five Eyes and all
| these actors who spy on pretty much everything and everyone.
| American companies are either complicit or blissfully ignorant.
| They violate the constitutional rights of their own citizens,
| principles their own country was literally founded upon, so
| there's no telling what they'd do to a foreigner. People are so
| afraid of them when they talk security they just assume you
| won't be taking them on.
| kube-system wrote:
| The difference is that most western countries allow private
| organizations to have a significantly higher degree of
| autonomy from executive action and checks-and-balances to
| back it up.
|
| The process can sometimes result in some of the same things
| happening, but the fact that they are not being done
| unilaterally is a major differentiator in multiple ways.
|
| Your data in the US is _much_ more likely to be abused when
| corporate interests voluntarily want to make money off it,
| than any abuse by executive power.
| llacb47 wrote:
| Without a list of the third-party domains the tiktok app
| contacted, this study is useless and unproven
| TheMightyLlama wrote:
| I think one of the things we don't appreciate (perhaps most of
| the people on HN do) is that many of these platforms are not, as
| billed, social networks. They are, in fact, data collecting
| applications with a user facing, attention acquisition mechanism
| in the form of a fun little app. They are addictive for a reason.
| To get data off you.
| xinniethepooh wrote:
| I occasionally check TikTok to see what it's like. I notice quite
| a bit of very "pro-China" type propaganda; idyllic Chinese
| farmers teaching their kids, muscular Chinese male athletes, etc.
|
| Very much a tool to influence Western users and thought.
| legrande wrote:
| I refuse to download TikTok because I think we've reached peak
| social media and don't need another app that siphons off data and
| turns it into gold ingots. Besides, TikTok videos leak out into
| other platforms and you can tell by the little logo in the video
| that it was ripped from TikTok.
|
| It's just Vine 2.0[1]. Many Vine videos got ripped and re-posted
| to YouTube so we have a small piece of internet culture surviving
| the death of an app and preserved.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_(service)
| josephd79 wrote:
| China has taken over our youth.
| balls187 wrote:
| A buddy of mine lamented something similar recently.
|
| He was talking about the free apps his children use on their
| tablets, and while he likes diversity, was astonished at how
| much of the apps were pushing chinese culture.
|
| Both my boys (neither are ethnic Chinese) speak mandarin. None
| have come home from school espousing any ideals that differ
| from our family values, but it will be interesting to see as
| they grow.
|
| Final off-topic comment, the world of Firefly is one where
| Chinese culture became the dominant culture (though for obvious
| reasons the show is in English)
| coliveira wrote:
| I believe that Facebook and Google collect more of my data than
| any other company in the world. And I know very well that they
| share all that data with US intelligence, because that's what
| they are required to do. That said, I don't see any problem in
| using another countries' app that might be doing the same thing
| that bigger violators like FB and Google are already doing. And,
| notice, I live in the US. For people oversees I can guarantee
| that this sentiment is even more common.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Who they are sharing it with shouldn't even matter. The act of
| covertly collecting it and giving users no real recourse is the
| problem, and what we should regulate. Turn the social networks
| into dumb feeds driven by explicit user choices rather than
| algorithms. Solve that problem, and you solve the TikTok
| problem.
|
| But people don't want to talk about that. They want to ban the
| platforms they perceive as being used to push an opposing
| political agenda while preserving the platforms they themselves
| abuse for the same purpose. It is almost funny seeing people
| who directly benefited from Cambridge Analytica/Facebook turn
| around and complain about TikTok.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| It goes to China.
| Graffur wrote:
| Even if it didn't share data.. it's designed from the beginning
| to be addictive. While other platforms like Facebook and
| Instagram grew into being platforms with aims to be addictive, I
| believe they started in a more neutral place. This type of app
| should be treated like smoking imo.
|
| Queue the "you can find educational material on tiktok!" posts by
| the subset of HN who really love the app and the company.
| asdff wrote:
| It's too jarring to me with the constant playing of the next
| thing. It's just content content content with no free time in
| between for you to be alone with your own thoughts. You could
| spend three hours on the app and have no time for a single
| independent thought of your own at all. At least three hours in
| front of cable TV would mean you'd do some introspection when
| you got up to pee during the commercials.
| Graffur wrote:
| Yeah, and I have done exactly that. I am vocal about not
| liking the app but it can still suck me in. I have spent
| hours lying in bed just scrolling..
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| Just ask yourself: who has what incentives?
|
| A state actor always desires insight into an adversary. The
| survival of nations depends on being able to either cooperate
| with others or subdue those who will not. The result of a state's
| strategy in these arenas is predominantly determined by their
| ability to predict the counterpart's behaviors, both at a citizen
| and leadership level.
|
| Why TikTok is not seen as the ultimate embodiment of these
| incentives and immediately banned from the US is beyond me.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >Just ask yourself: who has what incentives?
|
| The company for more money? Similar to the incentives behind
| Google and Facebook.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| [Edit] For those curious:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqmZsUbYIfA
| dymk wrote:
| What's does that saying even mean?
| AbbeFaria wrote:
| I'm shocked, shocked that TikTok is invasively gathering user
| data.
| oyebenny wrote:
| No shit.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| The conversation here on HN is quite funny. I can imagine the
| same conversation taking place in China: the data on US apps goes
| straight to the US government.
| duxup wrote:
| It's pretty common for everyone to assume such things...
| particularly if you're doing it.
|
| I recall when Trump ran into issues with contacts made with
| some Russian agents he publicly stated that he thought everyone
| else did it (to be specific he meant sending someone to meet
| with agents who said they had information he would want). When
| in fact almost every recent presidential candidate had reported
| attempted contacts by Russian agents (the lone exceptions were
| Trump, and George Bush Sr... but Bush had been head of the CIA
| so it seems likely the Russians might not try).
|
| It seems it makes it easy to imagine these things by default if
| you're up to it.
| gmm1990 wrote:
| Yeah at one point (probably still) didn't all data just go to
| the NSA.
| ashwagary wrote:
| NSA takes pride in knowing what every European leader said
| and did on their personal cellphone this morning.
| duxup wrote:
| >didn't all data just go to the NSA.
|
| "all" is so general that I think it's kinda hard to really
| address that.
| williamscales wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
| duxup wrote:
| I'm aware of that.
|
| This is what I meant by how hard it is to talk about
| 'all'. Someone says all and then someone gives an example
| that's not all and so what are we talking about?
|
| Ultimately I think there are differences between country
| A and country B's methods and etc.
| williamscales wrote:
| Yeah, I mean what is "all"?
|
| In terms of internet traffic, my understanding is that
| the NSA would have access to a significant fraction of
| all of it via this room (and perhaps others). A
| significant enough fraction that there's a high
| likelihood any given internet communication could be
| intercepted. Maybe not every time but enough stuff routes
| through the US that eventually it will be seen.
|
| So to me I've feel comfortable using "all" in a loose
| (empirical) sense. But I see your point that it's not as
| clear.
| [deleted]
| JoeyBananas wrote:
| straight to China
| kornhole wrote:
| Articles such as these frame the debate around comparing
| different corporate and government influenced social media and
| never mention free social media as an alternative.
| https://fediverse.party/
| nicce wrote:
| Very few services are actually totally free or with neutral
| purpose. On larger scale, it is really hard.
| alangibson wrote:
| I'm not a fan of Sinophobia, but the CCP has made it very clear
| that home grown tech companies will be in full cooperation with
| the state.
|
| With that in mind, consider how much user data TikTok has and
| what might be done with it.
| cosarara wrote:
| What kind of data? TikTok knows what content I interact to... on
| tiktok. That's it. Unless they have an android 0-day or
| something. It has no access to my mic, camera, browsing history,
| contacts list, or anything useful. Guess who has access to all
| that, if they want it, though? Google and Facebook (through
| whatsapp). What is the privacy concern here, exactly?
| financetechbro wrote:
| It's a bit ignorant for you think that data is limited to "mic,
| camera, browsing history, contact list" etc. TikTok can harvest
| data on the type of content posted and what users interact
| with. Although it feels harmless, I'm sure there are troves of
| insights to be derived just from that.
| taterbase wrote:
| If you've logged in it can potentially match your login
| information or email address to other activity on the web.
| TikTok's servers could also place you geographically somewhat
| roughly based on ip address.
|
| Outside of that I agree. It's unclear what data TikTok is
| supposedly gathering that other apps aren't already and why
| that's a cause for alarm.
| toqy wrote:
| Phase 1: Collect data about what users like to watch on
| TikTok
|
| Phase 2: ???
|
| Phase 3: The world is now controlled by China and we are
| doing full communism
| bobkazamakis wrote:
| but you don't understand! This is taking away from AMERICAN
| profits from surveillance capitalism! Think of the jobs at
| stake!
| Cd00d wrote:
| You're being downvoted, but got a chuckle out of me.
| altdataseller wrote:
| When you sign up for an account, they also can find the friends
| in your Contact that also have a TikTok account. But you can
| bypass this of course. Other than that, I'm also a bit confused
| as to what data they have access to
| MichaelRazum wrote:
| Just curious. May it be that TikTok pushes more anti US and pro
| Chinese clips? I mean it was just my observation using the app,
| that if I'm getting political clips it is mostly against the west
| and never against china.
| kornhole wrote:
| Why does this and many similar articles frame the debate around
| comparing different corporate and government influenced social
| media platforms without mentioning free community run social
| media as an alternative? https://fediverse.party/
| lancesells wrote:
| > For TikTok, the results were even more mysterious: 13 of the 14
| network contacts on the popular social media app were from third
| parties. The third-party tracking still happened even when users
| didn't opt into allowing tracking in each app's settings,
| according to the study.
|
| It seems like Apple is lacking on tracking enforcement of
| privacy. This mobile marketing company can do this so I'm
| guessing Apple has the resources to do this properly. You could
| even do it for the largest 1000 apps.
| qqtt wrote:
| Beyond removing the unique identifier that allows advertisers
| to track you across applications (IDFA), Apple really hasn't
| done much to enforce tracking via other means. Depending on who
| you talk to, they tacitly endorse any and all non-IDFA tracking
| even when users opt out.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/23/iphone-...
| lucic71 wrote:
| waffleiron wrote:
| OP changed the title, it nowhere says "any other app".
| capableweb wrote:
| Reading the title at cnbc right now says "TikTok shares your
| data more than any other social media app -- and it's unclear
| where it goes, study says" for me. I guess it was edited to get
| shorter and within the 80 character limit that HN has for
| submission titles.
| waffleiron wrote:
| "TikTok shares your data more than any other social media
| app" fits easily in the 80 character limit. No need to change
| "any other social media app" to "any other app" for that
| reason. This feels like it's actively trying to mislead
| people.
| capableweb wrote:
| Unless they wanna keep the "and it's unclear where it goes"
| part of course, which seems like they wanted to. I'm not
| saying you're wrong, just that there can be multiple
| reasons, and it's not that obvious of why.
|
| In any other way, social media applications surely are the
| ones that extract the most data, and TikTok being on top of
| that list makes it to the top of the list of total
| applications too.
| reilly3000 wrote:
| I think there is a case for a mandatory warning label, like on
| the app store and 5 sec interstitial that says:
|
| " Warning: this application sends your behavior to a foreign
| party. It may be stored indefinitely and used for personal
| retribution, social scoring, and manipulation of your political
| views. Proceed with caution".
|
| If that seems extreme, an outright ban of the app is worse. The
| US and others have had a good history of getting results this
| way, but it still respects individual and corporate liberties.
| Thoughts?
| Ekaros wrote:
| I think this should be included if there is non-zero risk that
| any foreign party other than maker of the app can read the
| data. That is if there is theoretical risk of it leaking or the
| encryption being used being broken by any party.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Why should domestic parties get a bye here?
| throwaway874653 wrote:
| Etheryte wrote:
| One thing that I found very interesting when I looked into what
| TikTok does: it's scary good at aggregating data about you. I
| live in a foreign country, my phone's network is behind a VPN to
| a different foreign country and I gave the app no extra
| permissions, yet somehow I still got recommended content from the
| country where I was born. Since it's a small country there's no
| way that's a coincidence. I'm both intrigued and spooked as to
| how they figured that connection out.
| davidjfelix wrote:
| It's pretty easy to derive longitude with some accuracy simply
| from active hours. Combine that with population densities and
| your guesses might get closer, combine that with how long you
| dwell on some videos or what videos you like and you get
| closer. Your Opsec isn't as good as you think, it's just nobody
| has been watching. If you combine statistical guesswork across
| hundreds of vectors its very easy to narrow your target to a
| creepy extent. Eliminating some easy leaks is the first step to
| good opsec but so is reducing your interaction and adding a
| little chaos.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This argument doesn't really hold up to any scrutiny, by the
| longitude and active hours logic, the app should've figured
| out the country that I'm in, not where I was born. This was
| also on first startup, not after extended use.
| gs17 wrote:
| Does your native country use a different language and you have
| something set to it on your phone? I had a Korean friend get
| freaked out by similar, but we figured out that he had
| something fingerprintable set to use Korean even though his
| interface was set to English.
| Etheryte wrote:
| My home country does have its own language, yes, but all of
| my devices (and their virtual keyboards) are in English.
| toqy wrote:
| I'd probably be more worried about a flaw in your own setup vs
| TikTok uniquely being able to circumvent it
| Etheryte wrote:
| I'm all ears if you have any suggestions, so far I haven't
| seen a plausible explanation though.
| GordonS wrote:
| Could be as simple as one time you forgot to use the VPN.
| Etheryte wrote:
| While this would make sense in a different setup, as I
| already elaborated under a different comment, this
| occurred right after I installed the app, not after
| extended use.
| balls187 wrote:
| Are you on iphone or android?
|
| I would guess that your device has been fingerprinted through
| other app usage you have used, and that fingerprint has an
| association with the country of your birth.
|
| It's possible that such a service is provided by a state actor,
| or part of a marketing/advertising service.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I'm on iOS, on Android I wouldn't be surprised by leaking
| data since that's essentially what the whole platform is
| built for.
| balls187 wrote:
| I recall when Apple made device UUID's unique to a specific
| app install, rather than a device.
|
| Entirely speculation on my part--I assumed that someone
| would eventually figure out a way to approximate a uuid at
| the device level, and use that across applications and app
| installs.
| ncpa-cpl wrote:
| I think they use the SIM card country ID and also the ad
| audience categories to suggest content.
|
| For example swapping the SIM card with a fresh installation of
| TikTok shows different "local" videos. Even if the public IP
| address is unchanged like when using WiFi instead of Data.
|
| I've also think they use ad categories to suggest videos. Using
| a fresh TikTok installation and then spending some time
| navigating a subreddit of a topic, would likely show videos of
| that topic the next time you open TikTok.
| sayhar wrote:
| How could they tell you were on that subreddit? Presumably
| you were doing it from a separate browser on the phone -- can
| they really snoop on behavior in completely separate apps?
| taterbase wrote:
| I would guess it zeroed in on common interests. Videos you
| like, comment on, or even just watch for more than one time can
| all give clues into what interests you.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Sorry for not being clear enough, this was straight after I
| installed the app. I didn't search for any content or
| anything, I was simply recommended things that were clearly
| from my home country.
| catawar2 wrote:
| I had the exact opposite experience. I also live in a foreign
| country (The Netherlands) and even after explicitly watching
| content from my native country I still only got videos in Dutch
| (should mention that I don't even speak Dutch).
| Steltek wrote:
| Totally off topic but how are you received being a resident
| in a country and not being able to speak the language? Not
| that I'm looking to emigrate but damn if your country isn't
| appealing to the cargo-bike riding cyclist in me.
| alternatetwo wrote:
| Basically everybody in the big cities there speaks English
| on a high level. Same as Copenhagen, Denmark for example.
| uhtred wrote:
| This is why I only install a few absolutely necessary apps, and
| mostly from fdroid. It makes me anxious to see friends install 3
| different electric scooter apps in the space of 10 minutes just
| to try and unlock a scooter. I doubt those apps ever get removed
| once no longer needed.
| dragonelite wrote:
| Why or you can just accept the fact that your phone is your
| personal bug device your willingly carry around. The only safe
| space is your brain/thoughts and even that space is something
| they want to monitor with computer-brain interfaces.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I don't understand what useful information could be harvested, as
| unlike Google/Facebook there is no massive tracking pixel product
| that follows you across the web. I'm a massive critic of the CCP,
| but I don't see what useful information they would get from this.
|
| I think a bigger "conspiracy theory" I'd buy into would be the
| algrorithm exploiting political extremes and pushing insane
| voices to the top...but every social media/media company does
| that in some way (though not always intentionally.)
| classified wrote:
| Behavioral data. If you know how to analyze it, it will give
| you the ability to predict and manipulate.
| adlorger wrote:
| 1. Having Data 2. Using it to Predict 3. Using it to
| Manipulate
|
| There are major, major leaps from collection to then even
| having effective prediction models. Prediction is hard,
| especially when it comes to longer term behaviors.
|
| Manipulation is extremely hard especially when the content
| space is so crowded.
|
| My fear of TikTok is far more mundane. It just dulls us into
| the most passive form of entertainment the world has ever
| known making us a basically disengaged, lifeless people. Its
| the modal opposite in life to 'touching grass'.
| asdff wrote:
| >My fear of TikTok is far more mundane. It just dulls us
| into the most passive form of entertainment the world has
| ever known making us a basically disengaged, lifeless
| people. Its the modal opposite in life to 'touching grass'.
|
| Nail on the head. When I was first sent a link to a tik tok
| post, it was jarring, because as soon as that video ended
| another random video popped up and started playing full
| volume. It's a constant never ending stream of content. As
| long as you are looking at the app, there is not one moment
| where your attention isn't captured. You have no time for
| independent thoughts. How do you even think in long form
| topics when you interject your attention span with these
| videos constantly?
|
| I think there will be a time when there is a mountain of
| research showing how harmful this 'fast food content' type
| of platform can be for mental health, and we really do
| consider platforms like ticktok or other attention
| demanding patterns like autoplaying instagram stories or a
| constant stream of youtube videos like we consider smoking
| tobacco today. People really need to be meditating and
| thinking freely, but it seems the technologists have
| decided monetizing (or at least convincing investors you
| are monetizing) all available time for independent thought
| is too profitable.
| OLL_IE wrote:
| Just FYI TikTok does also have a tracking pixel, obviously it's
| not as widespread as Google/Facebooks but it's growing in use.
|
| See: https://www.tiktokforbusinesseurope.com/resources/install-
| ti...
| depingus wrote:
| It ridiculous how TikTok keeps getting a pass from practically
| everyone. Are memories so short lived?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725139
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23634138
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23684950
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26477064
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-09 23:01 UTC)