[HN Gopher] ByteDance planned to use TikTok to surveil specific ...
___________________________________________________________________
ByteDance planned to use TikTok to surveil specific American
citizens
Author : alphabetting
Score : 207 points
Date : 2022-10-20 20:23 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.forbes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com)
| pessimizer wrote:
| Nearly content-free article. The meat seems to be:
|
| > TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said that TikTok collects
| approximate location information based on users' IP addresses to
| "among other things, help show relevant content and ads to users,
| comply with applicable laws, and detect and prevent fraud and
| inauthentic behavior."
|
| > But the material reviewed by Forbes indicates that ByteDance's
| Internal Audit team was planning to use this location information
| to surveil individual American citizens, not to target ads or any
| of these other purposes. Forbes is not disclosing the nature and
| purpose of the planned surveillance referenced in the materials
| in order to protect sources. TikTok and ByteDance did not answer
| questions about whether Internal Audit has specifically targeted
| any members of the U.S. government, activists, public figures or
| journalists.
|
| Right at the beginning. I thought the rest of the article would
| make this interesting, but instead it talked about what Uber did
| and what Facebook did (I assume to fill space), then told a story
| about people feeling suspicious and nothing interesting
| happening.
|
| Forbes is a shitty outlet, like the International Business Times,
| where you float dubious stories, then get an army of bots and
| enraged nationalists to tweet links to them, then the NYT and
| WaPo both write stories _about the Forbes story_ so they don 't
| have to sign any claims it makes, but they can still spread them.
| Then I assume the FBI will open an investigation into the NYT
| story about the tweets about the Forbes story about nothing, and
| somebody on the floor of Congress will demand to know why we're
| treating China with kid gloves when _at this very moment_ the FBI
| is investigating the NYT reporting on the tweets about the Forbes
| story about how TikTok collects location data just like everybody
| else.
|
| This story should be taken as of a similar quality to the rest of
| Forbes' journalism (however little of it there is.)
| [deleted]
| ViceCitySage wrote:
| I suspected this since Day 1 and never downloaded the app. Don't
| have a problem with Chinese people, just the government. China is
| known for its callous authoritarian state that openly express
| their goal of surpassing America. By law, Chinese companies have
| to comply with authoritarian demands from their government (iirc
| there is even a CCP member assigned to each company) and at any
| time can turn into an pseudo arm of the state. On top of that,
| China has had numerous scandals where they send Chinese spies to
| various institutions like universities and companies and steal
| research and trade secrets. I also distanced myself from most
| social media in general as American companies are still horrible
| when it comes to privacy. Surprised by the amount of people that
| hate China spying on Americans via TikTok but say nothing about
| our tech companies. Big Tech hands out our data to our government
| so they can circumvent the fourth amendment as well as other
| nefarious acts.
| tchalla wrote:
| > Surprised by the amount of people that hate China spying on
| Americans via TikTok but say nothing about our tech companie .
| hdesh wrote:
| Would some nation be bold enough to ban TikTok? India did it, but
| then India is at war with China, quite literally.
| pkaeding wrote:
| The US almost did, in 2020, bit there was a public uproar:
| https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-06/trump-sign...
| raydiatian wrote:
| Surprise: don't use TikTok
| sfvegandude wrote:
| This is not good enough. People on this website know not to use
| TikTok. The message should be: tell your friends and family to
| get off TikTok. Tell them the unvarnished truth: it's spyware
| angryasian wrote:
| and thats different from other mobile apps how ?
| raydiatian wrote:
| Where should I put the message? My friends and family are
| smart (excuse me, old) enough not to use TikTok either.
| satao wrote:
| In the last 10 years the US has been really ramping up it's
| propaganda against China, it's amazing to see. Especially since
| when I was growing up the `evil doers` were the Arab people.
|
| Yeah, China spies with TikTok, the US spies with Instagram,
| Facebook email providers, telephone records.
|
| It's all shite.
|
| Don't elect politicians who agree with espionage and then
| complain that other countries are doing the same.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| You're not seriously going to both-sides the CIA and the CCP
| are you?
| satao wrote:
| No I actually think the CCP is a lot less harmful than the
| CIA. So many people died because of American imperialism,
| it's not even funny.
|
| Most countries in the Latin America have seen democratic
| governments being overthrown by coupes backed by the US with
| CIA help. The CCP doesn't do this.
| steve76 wrote:
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Something like 50-65Million have died under the CPP.
|
| Their atrocities continue. And that's only what they allow
| to be seen.
|
| here's the first hit on google so you can get up to speed:
| https://mercatornet.com/ccp-100th-anniversary-
| genocide/73145...
| max_ wrote:
| US is world's biggest terrorist[0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRbnPA3fd5U
| cwkoss wrote:
| An order of magnitude more have died from the each of:
|
| - the downstream effects of dollar hegemony
|
| - US imperialism
| angryasian wrote:
| you're seriously going to ignore what Facebook and Cambridge
| Analytica was able to accomplish within our own borders to
| divide our country. Fox news, etc.. are all propaganda tools.
| [deleted]
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Let's ask the uyghurs, falun gong, or residents of Taiwan or
| Hong Kong who they prefer.
| satao wrote:
| well we could also ask the native americans what they think
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| if they have any sense they'd prefer the US.
|
| Not that they should have to accept the atrocities under US
| expansion, but the fact is it's a conversation, public
| knowledge, and something they can vote on whereas the CCP
| represses information, votes, and resorts to rapes and
| organ[2] harvesting of ethnic groups it doesn't care for.
|
| [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2021/02/03/b
| ehind-...
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong#Persecution
| cwkoss wrote:
| This comment is in very poor taste, please brush up on
| your US history.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Can you help me understand why it's of poor taste? I am
| fully claiming that terrible things happened to the First
| Nations of the Americas... (ie not denying).
| cwkoss wrote:
| Modern native american issues really aren't part of the
| national conversation or public knowledge. Missing and
| murdered indigenous women is an ongoing problem that
| persists today, with little attention. Our country has
| only in the past decade started coming to terms with the
| fact that Columbus was a rapist and a slaver - still has
| the national holiday.
|
| There are many terrible things that our government has
| done to indigenous people in the past that are still
| painful (in addition to the things that are _still
| happening_ ), and it feels in poor taste for someone
| outside their community to say what they should think "if
| they have any sense".
| another_story wrote:
| Almost every comment of yours is "but what about..." while
| completely ignoring and brushing off the issues of the CCP.
| The brutality and deaths involved in the last 70 years of
| their rule. The reeducation camps, the routine murder of
| dissidents, the refusal of foreign aid during famines which
| led to millions of deaths, the continued stripping of
| citizen rights and property, etc...
| satao wrote:
| yes because im tired of the climate of war that the US
| propagate and I hope I can help some americans se the
| hipocrisy in your external policies.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Except China bans Instagram, Facebook, etc providers inside of
| China.
|
| So they ban our social media sites inside of their country, yet
| we don't ban theirs inside of our country. Why do you think
| that is?
| lmm wrote:
| Because they don't support free speech or opposing positions
| and have never pretended to, whereas we believe that truth
| will set you free and sunlight is the best disinfectant?
| dgfitz wrote:
| Facts != propaganda. I'm not even going to bother giving you
| detailed examples. Xi is a bad person and has done a lot of bad
| things over the past decade.
|
| Are you suggesting that it is a wise idea for a country to
| cease espionage? Wouldn't that just severely disadvantage that
| country and only benefit protentional enemy nations? Makes me
| think "Everyone else is cheating on the test and it will be
| graded on a curve, but I refuse to cheat" at which point you
| fail the test. Only the test in this case has an extremely high
| cost if failed.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Do you think facts cannot be used as propaganda...?
| steve76 wrote:
| rrwo wrote:
| This caught my eye:
|
| > In 2017, the New York Times reported that Uber had identified
| various local politicians and regulators and served them a
| separate, misleading version of the Uber app to avoid regulatory
| penalties. At the time, Uber acknowledged that it had run the
| program, called "greyball," but said it was used to deny ride
| requests to "opponents who collude with officials on secret
| 'stings' meant to entrap drivers," among other groups.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| how do they serve a subset of customers a different version,
| unless the app itself is a webview
| AustinDev wrote:
| A/B Testing System or Feature Flags
| walrus01 wrote:
| I read this more as Uber and Kalanick going for "full free
| market capitalism/libertarianism" in the US's economic and
| legal system, move fast/break things etc etc, than any
| nefarious data collection effort.
|
| This says more about Uber's callous disregard for legal
| regulations, labor rights and the hyper-aggressive-venture-
| capitalist-funded environment that it exists in as a
| corporation than anything about data mining.
|
| Basically "f the government, we do as we please" by Uber.
|
| Though obviously the data collection itself is terrible as
| well.
|
| Uber's practices are what happens when you take a bunch of
| young aggressive business school grads who think Ayn Rand is
| the best thing since sliced bread and give them hundreds of
| millions of dollars to hire engineering employees.
|
| More on Ubey and "greyball", which has been extensively covered
| in the US press: https://www.google.com/search?&q=uber+greyball
| leishman wrote:
| Even with all that baggage Uber was still 100x more ethical
| than all the mafia-run taxi cartels they destroyed.
| walrus01 wrote:
| My take-away from that is that obviously localized small to
| medium scale corruption and buddy-buddy networks where
| things are done face to face, verbally, in cash, and
| without any advanced database/record-keeping are obviously
| much harder to discover and disrupt than something that's
| run as a centrally coordinated business effort.
|
| As just about anyone who has done business in an entirely
| cash-based economy where things are done verbally and on
| handshakes with little or no electronic or paper based
| record keeping will know all too well.
| sfvegandude wrote:
| https://archive.ph/w4TRO
| noasaservice wrote:
| Ok.. And?
|
| Facebook does this.
|
| Google does this.
|
| Apple sells hardware to do this to whoever you want.
|
| Amazon is building an Alexa Spy Dystopia.
|
| Uber had/has multiple campaigns to individually track and divert
| regulator types.
|
| Equifax, even after hacks that resulted in nearly every citizen
| exposed, still exists and brags about selling wage data to
| companies.
|
| Our data security, data privacy, and anonymity potential is
| farcical here in the USA. Someone please explain why yet this
| tracking should matter to me... past the "iTs a ChiNesE ComPAnY"
| excuse. Most of my data's out of the wet paper bag.
| whalesalad wrote:
| LOL I thought this was leaked years ago? I'm not sure why anyone
| would be surprised by this. They were getting in trouble back
| when they were musically or w/e it was called.
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| Good thing ByteDance's plans were thwarted! Now we can feel safe
| that such things indeed never happen within large social media
| companies. Oh joy and rapture!
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| I really enjoy the fact that everyone gets very up in arms
| because a foreign nation tries to spy on Americans, but the
| fact that US corporations have to secretly divulge info to the
| govt regularly is joyously accepted. I'm sure the cognitive
| dissonance would be astonishing if most of those people were
| capable of critiquing their own ideology
| throwawayyusa wrote:
| In agreement with you, it's amazing how much we scrutinize
| our very own Mark Zuckerberg for this, while giving TikTok a
| free pass for at least the same level of atrocities (but
| highly likely even worse things). Why?
| cwkoss wrote:
| "free pass"? there are new anti-tiktok articles nearly
| every week - facebook gets a fraction of the attention.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| There are some interesting/hilarious media bubbles showing
| up in the replies to this comment.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I think it's because to it's so obviously a bad idea to
| trust Tiktok that it doesn't make for an interesting
| debate. Whereas without Facebook you can have arguments
| going both ways.
| bdhe wrote:
| I don't think anyone is joyously accepting US corporations
| divulging information to the US govt., so that hyperbole is
| completely unnecessary.
|
| I think there is less cognitive dissonance than you think.
| There is still some belief that the US populace has a hand in
| the US govt's constitution and governance. If they are
| unhappy, changes can be effected.
|
| But in the case of a foreign government, an authoritarian one
| at that, not only are any values and priorities not aligned,
| there is almost no way for US persons to effect any changes
| to the CCCP's constitution and governance.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I'm getting strong overtones of "the world revolves around
| the US". There are lots of non US citizens who are less
| then pleased that the US is surveilling them but they have
| no way to effect changes to the US constitution. (in
| practical terms, does anybody? When was your last amendment
| made?)
| bdhe wrote:
| No, I think the parent's comment was about cognitive
| dissonance amongst US people or media, so the discussion
| is about US attitudes.
|
| I think the EU has taken significant steps such as with
| the GDPR to protect its citizen's rights.
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| Sir, are you somehow implying a global surveillance
| system maintained by the American government is
| undesirable!? Why just because we're endlessly
| gridlocked, constantly at war, and all our political
| elites look like Dracula, we're still a very secure and
| stable nation
| angio wrote:
| The issue with that line of reasoning is that it will
| result in a balkanized internet, accelerating what we're
| already seeing (US companies are under increased scrutiny
| in the EU, if the US bans TikTok I expect the EU to be more
| heavy handed on US companies).
|
| We should expect end-to-end encryption and strong privacy
| from all applications, reducing the attack surface for
| malicious applications like TikTok or Google.
| another_story wrote:
| China has already Balkanized the internet. 1.4 billion
| people are restricted from viewing outside information
| and outside access into China is frequently disrupted or
| just outright blocked. Other countries do the same.
| angio wrote:
| I'm not a big fan of democracies following the path of
| dictatorships.
| another_story wrote:
| Who are these people joyously accepting this? Can you point
| to articles, forums or anywhere where these people congregate
| and discuss it?
| asdadsdad wrote:
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| genmud wrote:
| Man, glad nobody saw that one coming.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I usually don't give much concern to privacy issues - so much of
| my life is online and public (see my username as an example), I'm
| just not worried about it. If someone finds out about my goat
| fetish or side hustle selling illegal kinder toys, so be it.
|
| But TikTok? I removed it after the first security concerns were
| raised years ago and have never even considered reinstalling it.
| It's such a obvious way for the CCP to get their hooks into the
| US population. Even if they don't gaf about you in particular, it
| can be used to monitor those around you, or assist in other
| spying activities like government or corporate espionage by
| giving detailed info on the digital devices around you. The risk
| to me personally is minimal, but I have no desire to help the
| Chinese government steal corporate secrets, locate dissidents or
| monitor Chinese expats living abroad - all things I'm sure are
| being done.
| jimcavel888 wrote:
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Is Forbes a tool for pushing Chinese psy ops? Can we trust
| Chinese owned media to not have nefarious motives? Forbes is
| owned by Hong Kong-based investment group Integrated Whale Media
| Investments and are working on being bought by a Chinese SPAK:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-spac-agrees-acquire...
|
| I'm not saying make snap judgements based on emotion and
| corporate ownership (like say by Chinese firms), I'm just asking
| questions? -\\_(tsu)_/-
| lizardactivist wrote:
| etchalon wrote:
| ... you're describing how journalism you know, works.
|
| "Pentagon Papers? Like the most powerful nation on earth would
| just print all that information out and give it to those
| liberals at the times."
| deepspace wrote:
| To me, it is obvious that TikTok is a tool for all kinds of evil,
| from exfiltrating personal information to surveillance to
| refining models for mass manipulation.
|
| It is the one app that I would never allow near one of my
| devices. Yet, whenever I mention the threat anywhere or to
| anybody, I get "you are too paranoid" or "but Facebook does it
| too". Most of the time I just get ignored / downvoted.
|
| Am I missing something? Does the app really have enough redeeming
| features to warrant the risk of using it?
| walrus01 wrote:
| > I get "you are too paranoid"
|
| I also get "But all the big US tech companies do it too.."
|
| Frankly I would much rather that all my private data/whatever
| go to the hands of the NSA and/or CSE, GCHQ than the Ministry
| of State Security in Beijing.
|
| At least I have a moderate level of confidence in my actual
| free speech rights, civil rights and legal rights in the US and
| Canadian legal systems.
|
| Every domestic Chinese company with "cloud" based whatever is
| legally obligated to set up a database replication export to
| the MSS. With active engineering cooperation to make it work
| correctly.
| sneak wrote:
| NSA can refer it to federal police who can use it for
| parallel construction at home to imprison you if they wish to
| retaliate against you for something they don't like.
|
| CCP can't do that.
|
| Surveillance by police that have jurisdiction over you is
| more dangerous than those who do not.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > Go make some absurd obscene parody or satire of a US
| political figure
|
| > Nothing happens, don't get arrested, don't go to prison.
| (Obviously, you can't do something stupid like 3
| percenters/proud boys and make overt death threats, or
| actively coordinate real world attacks/actions like the
| Jan. 6th attack on the capitol)
|
| > Go criticize Xi Jinping and the CCP and the Chinese
| government in a location where you're subject to domestic
| Chinese law
|
| > Go to prison camp.
| sneak wrote:
| That's not the experience of Roger Ver, who was
| imprisoned in inhumane conditions for speaking negatively
| about BATFE agents at a conference in the US.
|
| Same for Assange.
|
| Retaliation for protected expression happens all the time
| in the USA.
| girvo wrote:
| I mean, the CCP can straight up kidnap me internationally
| if they want to.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-19/china-operations-
| to-f...
| sneak wrote:
| So can the CIA.
| girvo wrote:
| Yes and I'm scared of the CIA too, what's your point?
| Your consistent whataboutisms up and down this thread are
| as hilarious as they are sad.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| It's not whataboutism when the entire thread started with
| a comparison. To discuss it further is just... normal.
| What the hell.
| girvo wrote:
| It's not just here. In every thread on this page that
| commenter is piping up with single sentence
| whataboutisms.
|
| "But the CIA" is not "discuss[ing] it further" either.
| I'd be happy to discuss it properly. But reddit-like
| pithy stuff like this is _not_ that.
|
| Oh and China just assaulted and kidnapped protesters in
| the UK. Like, within the last couple of hours.
| sneak wrote:
| My point is that domestic surveillance poses more of a
| potential threat to you than foreign surveillance.
| girvo wrote:
| That depends on who you are. And if that's your point,
| you should just make that point instead of Reddit-like
| single sentence whataboutisms.
|
| China just assaulted and kidnapped HK protesters in the
| UK.
| vxNsr wrote:
| > _CCP can't do that._
|
| They can they just don't need to. They can just disappear
| you. There's documented evidence of the Chinese gov
| torturing, defiling, political dissidents but you're
| worried about parallel construction from the NSA.
|
| As a reminder, for parallel construction to work you need
| to have actually done something illegal, which the NSA then
| backtracks to build a case against you. For the Chinese gov
| to throw you into an unmarked van and press you into slave
| labor all they need is to tell someone to do it.
|
| These aren't even close to the same.
| sneak wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
| Innocent/dp...
|
| You are incorrect.
| pcwalton wrote:
| Aside from the fact that the accuracy of that book has
| been seriously questioned, your bringing it up doesn't
| refute what you were replying to. You need to have
| committed a crime for parallel construction to apply.
| Yes, there are a lot of laws and a lot of crimes defined
| in the U.S. Code, and people do get ensnared by laws that
| they didn't know existed. But that doesn't change the
| U.S. constitutional guarantee of due process.
| bladegash wrote:
| Why can't they? Sure, they can't just call up the FBI or
| other US law enforcement agencies and refer the matter.
|
| However, they can absolutely use the threat of disclosure
| of sensitive information to blackmail or otherwise coerce
| someone. The threat (real or perceived) many times is worse
| than the reality.
|
| I'd say they each have the capability to cause harm, but
| the incentives/motivations/safeguards that might drive (or
| inhibit) them to do so are drastically different.
| sneak wrote:
| Like the FBI did to Martin Luther King Jr?
|
| This is just as much a problem in the US.
| pcwalton wrote:
| It is not "just as much a problem in the US". China's
| treatment of dissidents is far, far worse than the US's.
| It's not even close. Every reputable political ranking
| organization, from Freedom House to The Economist,
| confirms this.
| sneak wrote:
| I think they both extend up to the maximum of
| torture/murder, so I don't really see how either is
| "worse" or "better".
| bladegash wrote:
| Are you planning to be equivalent in notoriety/influence
| as Martin Luther King Jr? If not, the
| motivation/incentives for domestic law enforcement to
| target you aren't really there. It would be a waste of
| their time and finite resources.
|
| The PRC has a bit different motivations/incentives and
| theirs are not aligned with a perceived U.S. national
| security interest.
|
| Whether you and I agree with the US national security
| apparatus's mission, in my opinion, it is at least more
| oriented towards safeguarding/promoting the US' self-
| interest.
|
| That's not to say I agree with all of its actions, just
| trying to explain what I mean when I say there is
| difference in motivations and incentives.
| satao wrote:
| You do? What about all the countries that have seen military
| rule with help from the US? Do you think they had free
| speech? Civil and legal rights?
|
| It's crazy to see americans so affraid of China when you do
| everything people complain of China doing.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Well this is pretty simple: America doesn't do everything
| that people complain about China doing.
| walrus01 wrote:
| I dunno, man, ask some Uyghurs about how well that's
| working out for them.
|
| I have a thousand times more confidence that I can engage
| in political activity, speech, investigation/journalistic
| related activity or religious activity in my personal and
| professional life, and _not_ go to prison for it, in the US
| /Canadian constitutions and legal systems.
| satao wrote:
| Yeah but for the rest of the world there's a lot of US
| backed military governments who kill and imprison people
| at will.
| vxNsr wrote:
| This is untrue and irrelevant to US citizens not wanting
| China to have access to our data.
|
| If your Cambodian/Colombian/Panamanian sure, do
| everything you can to ensure the US gov doesn't get
| access to your data if you fear we'll help your gov kill
| and imprison you at will, (if that's even really a thing)
| but here in the US, it's not a concern and you're acting
| like it's the same.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Or even Hong Kong.
|
| We had enormous protests in 2020, aside from those who
| actually committed real crimes very few people were
| arrested. Additionally none of them were turned into
| political prisoners who had to do slave labor.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| China might do it to us, which is what we don't like. It's
| much easier to ignore when somebody does the same thing (in
| your name, with your money, even) but to other people
| you'll never meet.
| organsnyder wrote:
| > you do everything people complain of China doing
|
| I will never claim that the United States or its government
| is blameless, but this claim is so over-the-top I don't
| even know where to start.
| walrus01 wrote:
| The 'satao' comment is also literally a talking point
| from RT, Sputnik and the Peoples' Daily: "But what about
| all these countries that have been "helped" by the US..."
| satao wrote:
| what do you mean?
| walrus01 wrote:
| I mean that you just parroted an extremely common talking
| point from Russian and domestic China state owned media
| propaganda.
| satao wrote:
| lizardactivist wrote:
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I am not sure about this.
|
| If the thought of stalking my social graph, whereabouts and
| interests didn't outright creep me out, I would be more
| comfortable with something Chinese than American.
|
| I am not a person of interest to China - even if I do have
| anti-CCP sentiments, I have zero influence on them so it's
| not worth their time nor resources to enact extrajudicial
| punishment on me. Xi doesn't give a shit what some random
| schmuck in a Western country thinks about him. I'd have to be
| very influential for them to give a shit about me, at which
| point I'd have many reasons not to use social media (whether
| American or Chinese) anyway.
|
| I would be more of a person of interest to my local
| government (which - as most Western governments - are a
| puppet to America) because if anything, I have at least
| _some_ influence /leverage on them in the form of voting and
| generally being involved in the local community/industry, and
| they would need much less resources to punish/intimidate me
| if they so desire.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Frankly I would much rather that all my private
| data/whatever go to the hands of the NSA and/or CSE, GCHQ
| than the Ministry of State Security in Beijing.
|
| First, please do not read anything that follows as me
| accepting TikTok in any way, shape, or fashion.
|
| As a non-Chinese citizen, what exactly can the MSS do to you
| with all of that data? I would be much more concerned with
| the gov't that had authority over me having that data. I'm
| guessing a Chinese citizen doesn't care one wit about what
| the NSA/GCHQ/etc knows about them either.
| ethanbond wrote:
| They could identify your Chinese-descent friends who aren't
| fond of The State and then coerce them into silence by
| threatening their family back home.
| yumraj wrote:
| > As a non-Chinese citizen, what exactly can the MSS do to
| you with all of that data?
|
| - Use compromising info about you to provide China IP from
| your employer, and/or betray your country
|
| - Use compromising info about a family member to force you
| to provide China IP from your employer, and/or betray your
| country
|
| - Use compromising info about you to force a family member
| to provide China IP from their employer, and/or betray
| their country
|
| - Use info about you to force your employer to fire you in
| case you have held anti-China views
|
| - Use info about you, if you've held anti-China views, to
| prohibit companies from getting into contract with your
| company
|
| - .... and the list goes on and on.
| angryasian wrote:
| Yeah because the US govt isn't compromised by Russians, and
| politcians on their payroll. Lets just ignore the
| capabilities of Cambridge analytica and how they are able to
| persuade the mass population with psy ops. I feel like I'm in
| crazy world right now
| jonnybgood wrote:
| US provided weapons have been killing a lot of Russians
| lately with bipartisan support. Russia should probably
| raise their salaries.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Probably not. But that _does_ sound a lot like FB and Google.
| But they are wildly popular and provide entertainment so it
| could be everybody is perfectly happy being manipulated. I
| think everybody will move on from tiktok in a few years time
| anyway.
| colpabar wrote:
| It's the latest and greatest in terms of attention
| grabbing/stealing, so people get defensive about it because
| they spend lots of time using it.
|
| I get annoyed with the "but facebook does it too" argument as
| well. I don't really like throwing around the "foreign country
| disinformation campaign" accusations, but whenever tiktok comes
| up on this site it's hard to imagine regular people saying some
| of the things that are said about why it's "no less
| trustworthy" than american social media companies.
|
| Even with this article, people will respond with "well, they
| probably weren't surveilling _me_ because _I_ don 't have
| anything to hide." And then I show them the story about the
| cops that used social media to track a woman who went across
| state lines to get an abortion, and they get really mad.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| >Am I missing something? Does the app really have enough
| redeeming features to warrant the risk of using it?
|
| In my experience (sometimes depending on how it's stated but
| not always) people see these kinds of comments as a commentary
| on _them_ specifically. It often doesn't matter what your
| intention is, they just feel somewhat defensive/challenged,
| like you're accusing them of poor judgement. So they blow the
| comment off or even push back to make themselves feel better
| about their decision.
|
| I understand this comment could be seen as pretentious but I
| sincerely understand why someone would feel defensive. It's
| very easy to see it as commentary on their judgment and values,
| especially in a country like the US that is so focused on being
| individualistic/protecting individual rights. Most people don't
| want to be accused of not caring about their privacy. It makes
| them feel shallow and talked down to, once again, regardless of
| intent.
| dnissley wrote:
| What is the risk? I.e. what bad outcome could happen to me that
| impacts my day to day life? Perhaps a detailed description
| could help people realize what you have in mind
| elmomle wrote:
| It is more a bad large-scale societal outcome that many are
| worried about. It is a massive CCP-linked propaganda organ;
| even if content is generated by users, the way in which it is
| surfaced and promoted is entirely controlled by ByteDance (->
| CCP). Furthermore, all sorts of social engineering, spear
| phishing, and blackmail by a potentially-hostile foreign
| government are made possible.
|
| But if you want something to worry about as an individual,
| consider China's increasing global reach and whether the CCP
| could at any point use their massive reach to systematically
| make life less pleasant for you if you express views contrary
| to the party's.
| toqy wrote:
| I don't personally use TikTok, but I'm not sure that I'd care
| much if they know that I like to watch videos about pottery or
| gaming or whatever. Google / YouTube certainly knows already.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| 1. They collect information on what interests you, makes you
| upset, and engages you on an extremely granular level. Unlike
| YT/Google, they push content to you (which you
| watch/reject)--they can refine a model of your preferences
| and personality quickly.
|
| 2. They push you to engage with that content, leaving
| comments and sending messages.
|
| 3. They have the capability to make you watch content that
| they know you'll like with the express goal of getting you to
| react to it.
|
| 4. TikTok videos are often recorded in personal spaces,
| giving insight into individuals' lives and leaking personal
| information (partners, children, pets, etc.).
|
| 5. The app itself can collect information about you and your
| device, including any information it may have access to you
| through overly-broad permission collection.
| cwkoss wrote:
| 1. Do you use TT? I find the content is very rarely rage-
| driven, whereas somehow that seems to be the primary flavor
| of twitter.
|
| 2+3. Why should I worry that a company is serving me stuff
| I actually like in hopes I'll interact with it? Isn't that
| the social contract of digital advertising, except TT is
| actually delivering value to the consumer?
|
| 4+5. That's just table stakes for the industry.
| nirvgorilla wrote:
| Nope. It blows.
|
| Monitors are horizontal. Televisions are horizontal. People's
| EYES are horizontal. All of those garbage tiktok videos are
| vertical.
|
| No. Under no circumstance - NO.
| par wrote:
| phones are vertical.
| [deleted]
| FredPret wrote:
| Hands hold vertical phones easier
| [deleted]
| 2bitencryption wrote:
| > Monitors are horizontal. Televisions are horizontal.
| People's EYES are horizontal.
|
| smartphones are vertical
| nirvgorilla wrote:
| All of the best movies and television shows you've ever
| seen are horizontal. There will never be a great movie
| released in vertical video. Mark my words. Note the time.
|
| VVS - https://youtu.be/dechvhb0Meo
| cwkoss wrote:
| Don't watch movies on tiktok then, lol
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| TikTok isn't about movies, it's about short videos
| pulling in your attention. They aim for the mobile phone.
|
| Also if a video is showing a single person (standup
| comedy?) vertical can show them closer, as people
| (mostly) are vertical.
|
| But yes, for a full movie, where you have horizontal
| camera movement, a vertical screen gives too little
| orientation for following the movement.
|
| In painting and photography horizontal and vertical
| coexist for millenia. Based on the motive and purpose.
| fragmede wrote:
| So noted, but I suppose you'll define which movies are
| great and which ones don't count? TikTok's popularity
| demonstrates a demand for vertical video, despite how
| much you don't want there to be, simply because that's
| how people are viewing video - on their smartphone. Even
| Netflix is doing vertical video clips for previews. _My_
| prediction is we 'll see a mainstream movies be
| recut/reframed to be vertical on Netflix/other online
| streaming service simply to complete with TikTok's
| content farms.
| cwkoss wrote:
| After using TikTok, twitter feels like using a windows 95
| computer after using modern operating systems. American social
| media feels way too parasocial, untargeted and clunky to me
| now.
|
| Tiktok has better content, the fyp learns what you like and so
| it surprises and delights. I think american social media has
| been overly focused on the top 1% of content producers and
| advertisers, so the consumer experience has languished at their
| expense.
|
| TT is really a consumer-first design, and users get visibility
| even without followers - it actually connects people so it
| feels a lot less like shouting into the void. It's cool to find
| a good post from a stranger that nobody has liked or commented
| on yet - liking that feels impactful to that person. American
| social media pretty much only shows you stuff from who you
| follow or advertisers, so any interaction you have is easy to
| get lost in the noise.
|
| (Also, for whatever reason, I see a lot less angry shouting on
| TT, whereas twitter feels increasingly like the 2 minutes of
| hate from 1984)
|
| The ease of posting leads to the content being much less
| polished: instagram feels like my friends are doing PR to
| convince the people they know that they are
| cool/beautiful/successful sometimes - just feels fake and
| distant to me.
|
| Through TT I've found a bunch of people with the same interests
| and sense of humor as me, and I enjoy getting little glimpses
| into their lives and vice versa.
|
| I think some amount of the 'tiktok is evil' meme is propaganda
| rooted in sinophobia, tech company PR counterprogramming, and
| american quasi-journalist influencers fearing their platforms
| are dissolving. About 2/3 of the criticism I've read seems
| hypocritical (based on industry standards) and alarmist, so it
| makes me more skeptical of the remaining 1/3.
|
| Facebook and google being cozy with the feds that have power
| over me scares me a lot more than the CCP - who can do little
| to impact me directly.
| ev1 wrote:
| > (Also, for whatever reason, I see a lot less angry shouting
| on TT, whereas twitter feels increasingly like the 2 minutes
| of hate from 1984)
|
| There is an oddly specific reason for this: just about
| everything that might be controversial is likely filtered
| away into bubbles.
|
| People will spell gay as gae, use accent marks and spaces,
| all sorts of things because not doing so will kill your
| upload pretty much. Tiktok will remove users from being
| featured if they look abnormal or ugly or low quality, afaik.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Hmm. I could see that being a contributing factor, but I'm
| hesitant to say it's a complete (or even majority)
| explanation of the difference.
|
| Also, not sure how attractiveness correlates to tone.
| lmm wrote:
| Every social network memoryholes certain kinds of
| controversy. TikTok's choices make for a more pleasant user
| experience for many users than Twitter's.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I got a brief suspension on twitter recently for
| 'harassment' for calling a journalist stupid for
| analyzing something in a nonsensical way to defend the
| status quo. Mocking powerful people with bad takes was
| one of the highlights of the platform and they are taking
| that away because they are too afraid of losing the
| bluechecks to another platform (which, to be fair, is
| probably an existential risk for them in their current
| state).
| martinsmit wrote:
| Feature-wise, the experience of using it is very streamlined.
| More importantly, it's where a substantial proportion of youth
| culture is found nowadays, so to keep up with and contribute to
| it is to be on the app.
| stusmall wrote:
| Some people just don't care about this bigger picture. They
| aren't a direct target and they are already apart of so many
| mass analytics models that it just doesn't seem to matter
| anymore. It's a jaded side effect of a sleazy business model
| that's become pretty common.
|
| I won't use it and have no interest in it. It just seems like
| another noisy app filled with misinformation but also poses a
| real risk at a geopolitical scale. But on the other hand, I get
| why people just want to connect with other humans and see a
| skateboarding dog.
| dicomdan wrote:
| You get downvoted by Sino-Russian bots. In real life people
| won't disagree with your point to the same extent as you would
| see online.
| 1337biz wrote:
| The fundamental issue for me is that I never plan to step
| foot on Chinese/Russia soil or get into any relationship with
| their government. That way their spying feels less relevant
| to me than US spying which just could put me for arbitrary
| reasons on a list and most western governments would comply.
| girvo wrote:
| If you are not Chinese, then yeah fair enough.
|
| If you are, the CCP kidnaps them to take them home for
| putting a toe out of line.
|
| And by you and I participating in the CCP's surveillance
| apparatus, we make it easier for them to pounce on those
| who are trying to steer clear of the CCP, sadly, the ones
| who the CCP likes to kidnap and bring home to torture.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Also DJI app that requires GPS lock in and internet connection
| to operate drones owned by hundreds of thousands of US
| citizens. Hell, even something off brand from the back streets
| of Guangdong, something like a Yawei dashcam app wants 1)
| Location access 2) Contacts and 3) Photos app access. So it can
| "geo tag your friends in a car's dashcam stream and bluetooth
| it to your photos library".
|
| The cat is out of the box. It must be resolved through a cat
| exterminator at the highest levels of Gov, forcing Apple and
| Google to delist this stuff.
|
| Even the best and highly educated citizenry is not immune to
| this; let alone the rest of USA and the west. Micro actions
| from individuals wouldn't be sufficient. No harm meant to cats
| or any of our furry friends.
| sneak wrote:
| Anything that needs to scan wifi (such as to talk to a drone)
| shows up as location access, because the list of visible APs
| and their relative signal strengths is the same thing as your
| location.
| creata wrote:
| But Facebook _does_ do it, too, don 't they? Why not stop using
| both?
| throwawayyusa wrote:
| The FTC regulates domestic tech companies' collection and
| usage of location data. I can assure you this is not the case
| for overseas companies.
| mrd3v0 wrote:
| Facebook is more legally scrutinised by almost every concern
| out there. These replies are not reflective of the legal
| policies and measures taken in the west against Facebook.
|
| P.S: I am not saying they are sufficient.
| forgetme2020 wrote:
| This article has to be good news for Youtube shorts and whatever
| Meta is doing in the way of short form videos
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Instagram reels are basically commercials for onlyfans.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Is this an actual Forbes article? I was under the impression that
| articles published under forbes.com/sites/<username> were blog
| posts from unaffiliated people.
| jesterman wrote:
| It's on the front page of Forbes right now:
| https://www.forbes.com I'd take that as an endorsement.
|
| All the other articles I see also have the same
| forbes.com/sites/author/article-specific url structure.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Interesting. That's gotta be a new thing right? I think
| before there was a separation between sites and forbes
| proper. Do they intend to imply they stand behind everything,
| or behind nothing?
| jesterman wrote:
| No it looks like she is on staff, maybe they changed their
| url structure.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| She's on staff. Where it says "Forbes Staff" under her name, a
| contributor would say "Guest Contributor" or "Subscriber" and
| have a disclaimer (i) button.
| kbos87 wrote:
| Scott Galloway's take on this is concise and unfortunately I
| think it's right. In short, TikTok is a powerful tool of
| surveillance and influence in the US, and because you can't
| decouple the motives of TikTok from the motives of the CCP, it
| should be banned full stop.
| vxNsr wrote:
| What's fascinating is that it took this long for this very
| common sense opinion to be shared outside of right-wing circles
| because Trump said it first.
| influx wrote:
| If the CCP wants to play that game, at least demand full access
| to our apps in their country. Otherwise, I don't see why we
| would let them have full access to ours.
| sneak wrote:
| You can say precisely the same thing about iCloud and the FBI.
| kbos87 wrote:
| You aren't wrong, but the two situations aren't equivalent.
| The stakes are high when we are talking about a foreign
| government that isn't shy about its desire to undermine the
| United States and its willingness to use everything at its
| disposal to do so. The FBI, in theory at least, has different
| motivations, is subject to US law, and can be held
| accountable.
| sneak wrote:
| They are not subject to US law or accountability. Apple is
| compelled to turn over user data from iCloud to the USG
| over thirty thousand times per year without a warrant or
| probable cause via FAA702 which allows the federal
| government direct access to Apple (and Google et al)
| servers to download user data.
|
| It hasn't been subject to US law or accountability for a
| long time.
| luckydata wrote:
| angryasian wrote:
| JFC everyone is so worried about China, stop the propaganda and
| division within our own country first. Fox news, InfoWars.. etc,
| its tearing apart our country and has nothing to do with China,
| and everything to do with how our own social media and companies
| use propaganda to destabilize the US.
| gmd63 wrote:
| Calling out blatant disregard for law from a foreign company
| can unite people with clashing views domestically, and isn't
| prohibiting doing what you suggest.
| angryasian wrote:
| They aren't doing anything against the law. The information
| they collect is what any mobile app can collect.
| walrus01 wrote:
| One of the social and education problems is that the vast
| majority of people will click "yes/i agree/I consent/etc"
| on just about any app that does anything they think is fun
| or cool without thinking about the full ramifications.
| walrus01 wrote:
| I would hope that we have the capability to worry about and
| address both of these very important things simultaneously. I
| concur that Fox News, Infowars, Newsmax and similar are a
| threat to democracy and civil society as well.
| angryasian wrote:
| The biggest threat to this country are white nationalists as
| stated by the FBI not tiktok. this is all a side show to say
| look over there -> look at the bad guys.
| walrus01 wrote:
| I have seen that and it is indeed very worrisome. I hope
| that sufficient resources are allocated to domestic
| counterterrorism and domestic counter-intelligence.
|
| People think Al Qaeda, ISIS etc are a huge threat, and yes
| they're very concerning... But you know who's even better
| and motivated at killing Americans? Other Americans.
|
| This has been a known thing since long before Timothy
| McVeigh, a Ryder truck and Oklahoma City in the mid 1990s.
| It has not been adequately addressed in domestic law
| enforcement.
| danenania wrote:
| The tricky thing is that labelling speech/media one disagrees
| with as a threat to democracy is in itself a threat to
| democracy.
|
| While I agree with you about those specific outlets, I also
| have no doubt that any powers introduced to restrict them
| would eventually be turned against the liberal-leaning media
| as well.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| > labelling speech/media one disagrees with as a threat to
| democracy is in itself a threat to democracy
|
| Doesn't mean it's incorrect, though. Doing something is
| tricky, for sure, but doing nothing is fatal.
| danenania wrote:
| There have always been and always will be misinformed and
| poorly educated people who believe all kinds of
| ridiculous things with no factual basis. A healthy
| democracy doesn't deal with these people by declaring
| their opinions illegal.
|
| Once you have the state deciding and enforcing what is
| and isn't true, any hope for a liberal democracy is gone.
| jancsika wrote:
| As the Dining Philosopher's Problem is meant to elucidate,
| it's not possible to do this.
|
| This is after all why programs keep getting higher latency
| even though chips have gotten faster for decades. If we could
| solve more than one problem in a way that's concurrent with
| each of the problems (computing "parallelly"? dunno), we
| wouldn't have this problem.
|
| In conclusion, we must solve a problem that isn't the topic
| of this article before we address the topic of this article.
|
| (Note: I'm hungry, so I won't be able to respond to this
| thread for an indeterminate amount of time...)
|
| Edit: clarification made before I started to deal with my
| hunger problem (obviously)
| protoc wrote:
| Um, don't use it if you care so much?
| max_ wrote:
| What's this special? Don't other social networks do surveillance
| on every one?
| jfengel wrote:
| What kind of data can the app collect?
|
| I don't use TikTok, but it seems to be video entertainment. It
| gets access to your location, and it knows a ton about what
| videos you like, but is that really all that useful? TFA cites
| "phone numbers, birthdays and draft videos" -- the first two are
| hardly secret, and the latter is specifically stuff that you were
| planning to make not-secret.
|
| Sure, it's not great that they're following you, but TikTok is
| hardly alone in that. Your location is also a terrible secret.
|
| I can see objecting to TikTok as a propaganda machine (even if
| the US is hardly in any position to be complaining about others'
| propaganda machines). But I'm unclear on just what kind of
| surveillance they think is going on here, or why the Chinese
| government would find it especially useful.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It also infers social graphs. I'm sure it has the option to
| collect contacts, but even without it, even the links you share
| are unique and embed your profile information (there is no easy
| way to share a _canonical_ link to a video that doesn 't link
| back to your own profile). It also no doubt does a lot of
| tracking based on IP addresses to find out which users are in
| close proximity or even share the same internet connection.
| cwkoss wrote:
| At least the way I use tiktok, it would be terrible at this.
| 90% of my tiktok 'friends' are people I have never met IRL
| nor ever expect to interact with outside of the app. The UX
| encourages you to follow back strangers, so they are
| intentionally poisoning their own data.
| sva_ wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if they use the video data provided
| by their users to build said social graph (face recognition),
| even including people who never used the app and just appear
| somewhere in the background.
| walrus01 wrote:
| You can do a _lot_ with residential IP addresses and home
| wifi /router connections, since very often a typical DHCP
| residential internet customer does not change IPs very much.
| Or at all. DHCP renewal request often comes back for the same
| IP.
|
| Or only changes IPs to another address in a very small /24 to
| /26 sized block that's assigned to a router in one very
| specific geographic area.
|
| Or you have a case like a bunch of customers all behind one
| cgnat exit point to the internet that also does not change in
| geographic scope/scale of how many cgnatted customers are
| behind it. As commonly seen on LTE networks.
|
| Even if _you_ have not granted GPS location permission to an
| app there is a very high likelihood that other people in the
| same small netblock _have_ , which greatly improves a third
| party's correlation of netblock-to-lat/long.
| SrslyJosh wrote:
| > It gets access to your location, and it knows a ton about
| what videos you like, but is that really all that useful?
|
| The app was regularly accessing the iOS clipboard (multiple
| times per minute), at least until iOS started telling users
| every time an app did that.
|
| > But I'm unclear on just what kind of surveillance they think
| is going on here, or why the Chinese government would find it
| especially useful.
|
| It doesn't have to be useful or make sense to be objectionable.
|
| If the government wanted to know what color socks I'm wearing
| and designed a surveillance apparatus to collect that
| information without my consent, I would still object to it when
| I found out, even though that information seems utterly
| useless.
| imron wrote:
| > or why the Chinese government would find it especially
| useful.
|
| Let's say you're an individual that the Chinese government
| doesn't like too much - perhaps you protest too loudly about
| things like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, or Tibet.
|
| Perhaps you're also originally from China but are now a
| naturalized citizen (or perhaps your spouse is).
|
| Perhaps the Chinese would like a word with you and want you to
| come down to the local police station [0] for a friendly chat
| [1]
|
| It sure would be nice for the government to be able to locate
| you easily.
|
| Perhaps though you're aware of the privacy issues with TikTok
| and you avoid it.
|
| Problem solved - except for your kid who has it installed on
| her phone so now they know where you live.
|
| So Just ban your kid from using TikTok - problem solved (hah),
| except they're also monitoring social graphs so now you need to
| make sure none of your kids friends use it either.
|
| It's not difficult to see how such a system could present a
| problem to certain individuals.
|
| For most people this kind of surveillance isn't going to mean
| anything.
|
| But for those certain people of interest it could be a real
| problem.
|
| Maybe you'll never cross the line between random individual vs
| person of interest, but do you know where the line is and how
| it changes and expands as all systems like this do?
|
| inb4 "but US-based social media companies track you like this
| too". Yes they do, and it will become a growing problem
| depending on how much you trust the government of the day.
|
| 0: https://www.newsweek.com/china-overseas-police-service-
| cente...
|
| 1: https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/chinese-diplomat-
| admits-...
| walrus01 wrote:
| > Location
|
| > Location of residence and work, correlating different IP
| addresses such as if your client device often appears from a
| certain 'home' IP address during non work hours, and another
| set of IP addresses during work hours.
|
| > Location of where you go on vacation, and for how long (based
| on entirely new IP address in some other geographical location)
|
| > Facial recognition data, likely good enough over long term
| use with enough angles of your face to develop a high
| confidence model of your uniqueness as a human in the world.
| Getting even better all the time as front-facing cameras on
| phones improve in video quality.
|
| > Facial recognition data of any other persons who appear in
| your videos and where they are in your social graph of
| contacts.
|
| > Object recognition and categorization of what things appear
| in the background of your videos, consumer electronics, art,
| religious symbols, furniture, vehicles, electrical outlet shape
| (can be used to distinguish geographical location).
|
| > Time of day use/usage patterns
|
| > Social graph of who you're friends with, whose other tiktok
| clients login from the same netblocks (likely to be in the same
| residence, etc). Who do you like/follow and who follows you
|
| > Telemetry data from device itself for unique ios or android
| device fingerprinting
|
| > What content you watch that might be even slightly
| politically, economically or religiously related and how that
| content is perceived by Beijing.
|
| > Who and how many and which other people in your social graph
| watch anything political/business/religious related and all the
| other data gathered about them.
|
| > How many and which one of your friends have client devices
| that appear from known VPN exit endpoints or IP addresses that
| look "suspicious" to data sets used in the back end of the
| domestic China great firewall. I'd be shocked if they don't
| collect data when a large % of somebody's friends and social
| media graph are apparent VPN users.
|
| I could go on.
| angryasian wrote:
| nothing any different than any other social media app collect.
| this is all just FUD
| martin1975 wrote:
| one of the many reasons I've never installed TikTok on my
| Pixel...and never will.
| Kukumber wrote:
| Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat etc etc
|
| Social media apps are cancer, i get it, but why this organized
| wish to solely focus on tiktok?
|
| It's super fishy, considering:
|
| "Facebook paid GOP firm to malign TikTok" -
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/faceboo...
|
| And how Google uses their monopoly position to promote Instagram
| over Tiktok
|
| Google search > khaby.lame
|
| And see what pops up first ;)
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| I don't get how these things don't catch more attention outside
| the tech community.
|
| Back in the day Snowden basically gave up his life to expose the
| same horrific crimes against humanity committed by the NSA. Now
| it's the Chinese, an enemy to the U.S. and still no one does
| anything.
|
| Even worse, pop culture glorifies the starlets produced by the
| app. Bottom of the barrel stupid content gets shoved in our kids
| faces and people just ignore all the issues at hand.
|
| Why does nobody care anymore?
| friedman23 wrote:
| They used to call people that pointed these things out racist.
| hkpack wrote:
| > Snowden basically gave up his life to expose the same
| horrific crimes against humanity committed by the NSA
|
| And now hiding in a county doing such crimes, that "horrific
| crimes by the NSA" looks like a child's play in comparison.
|
| Oh the irony.
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