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Since the copy/paste exploit was addressed (in ios) I'm not sure what useful information "chinese spyware" can gather from this app. As long as it's being used

Since the copy/paste exploit was addressed (in ios) I'm not sure what useful information "chinese spyware" can gather from this app. As long as it's being used for goofy dance and lip sync videos, I don't see the harm.

jsterSC 6y ago
I highly recommend anyone that has this initial reaction to what these companies are benefiting from their surveillance models check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capita... Which does an excellent job helping to stimulate thought of just what the power and purpose of these types of apps as well other structures (alphabet) are able to do...
godtoldmetodoit 6y ago
My personal feeling is that Tiktok is better then most other social media for the end users emotional state, at least based on my wife's usage. From a spying perspective, I tend to agree with you as well. That said - China doesn't let FB or Twitter in their country, why the hell should the US let them in ours? To me it is akin to letting them buy the NY Times or CNN. They may be benign now, but if tensions were to continue mounting, they could greatly influence the content a significant portion of people in the US are receiving. I see 0 reason to trust them with that power.
- jfengel 6y ago
  Is there any reason to think that positivity will continue to hold? Or is TikTok just getting its grace period before griefers, trolls, and paranoiacs move in? If the Chinese government is going to aggressively moderate TikTok to keep that out... uh, cool, I guess. I'd be happy to see some popular entertainment that doesn't devolve into a screaming match. But it's a lot of work, and reduces audience (i.e. revenue).
- throw57654 6y ago
  TikTok is also banned in China. Bytedance has an isolated version called Douyin. I believe if FB or Twitter created specific versions that comply with China’s laws, they would be allowed.
cj 6y ago
I see the risk being less about spyware, and more about giving CCP the ability to push its agenda at the flick of an algorithm tweak. A lot of people in comments are talking about how great the feed algorithm is out weeding out teenage dance videos and showing interesting content. You can easily imagine a scenario where CCP tweaks its algorithms to favor content relating to one party or candidate vs. the other. The scary part is that I think it wouldn't be obvious to know whether China is exploiting TikTok's American audience via algorithms driving a certain agenda since it can be done very subtly in non-obvious ways.
- zzzcpan 6y ago
  It's a private company, it's very unlikely for them to outright push government propaganda. They'll probably just censor "political activism" on the platform altogether and someday if government establishes tighter control of the platform they might be forced not to censor some of it, like things that undermine the US government.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    Large "private" companies in China are not private as you would think of them in the West. The Chinese government or the CCP will own outright or through holding companies shares in a company. So even at the most benign the government or CCP will have influence in a company's governance. Executives and upper management will always be outwardly enthusiastic about all Chinese government/CCP talking points and decisions. Due to China's "security" laws security and intelligence agencies have essentially full access to large companies' data. There's no real due process so a "private" company's data is essentially government data. There's also the overt and covert censorship and propaganda imposed by the government. Company executives serve at the pleasure of the government. Anyone not towing the party line or acting with too much independence will get caught up in "anti-corruption" investigations or just be arrested for crimes they may or may not have actually committed. Realistically it's better to just assume a priori that a Chinese social media company is pushing propaganda and building dossiers of users. It's certainly safer to assume that.
    - 6y ago

jsterSC 6y ago

I highly recommend anyone that has this initial reaction to what these companies are benefiting from their surveillance models check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capita... Which does an excellent job helping to stimulate thought of just what the power and purpose of these types of apps as well other structures (alphabet) are able to do...

godtoldmetodoit 6y ago

My personal feeling is that Tiktok is better then most other social media for the end users emotional state, at least based on my wife's usage. From a spying perspective, I tend to agree with you as well. That said - China doesn't let FB or Twitter in their country, why the hell should the US let them in ours? To me it is akin to letting them buy the NY Times or CNN. They may be benign now, but if tensions were to continue mounting, they could greatly influence the content a significant portion of people in the US are receiving. I see 0 reason to trust them with that power.

jfengel 6y ago
Is there any reason to think that positivity will continue to hold? Or is TikTok just getting its grace period before griefers, trolls, and paranoiacs move in? If the Chinese government is going to aggressively moderate TikTok to keep that out... uh, cool, I guess. I'd be happy to see some popular entertainment that doesn't devolve into a screaming match. But it's a lot of work, and reduces audience (i.e. revenue).
throw57654 6y ago
TikTok is also banned in China. Bytedance has an isolated version called Douyin. I believe if FB or Twitter created specific versions that comply with China’s laws, they would be allowed.

cj 6y ago

I see the risk being less about spyware, and more about giving CCP the ability to push its agenda at the flick of an algorithm tweak. A lot of people in comments are talking about how great the feed algorithm is out weeding out teenage dance videos and showing interesting content. You can easily imagine a scenario where CCP tweaks its algorithms to favor content relating to one party or candidate vs. the other. The scary part is that I think it wouldn't be obvious to know whether China is exploiting TikTok's American audience via algorithms driving a certain agenda since it can be done very subtly in non-obvious ways.

zzzcpan 6y ago
It's a private company, it's very unlikely for them to outright push government propaganda. They'll probably just censor "political activism" on the platform altogether and someday if government establishes tighter control of the platform they might be forced not to censor some of it, like things that undermine the US government.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  Large "private" companies in China are not private as you would think of them in the West. The Chinese government or the CCP will own outright or through holding companies shares in a company. So even at the most benign the government or CCP will have influence in a company's governance. Executives and upper management will always be outwardly enthusiastic about all Chinese government/CCP talking points and decisions. Due to China's "security" laws security and intelligence agencies have essentially full access to large companies' data. There's no real due process so a "private" company's data is essentially government data. There's also the overt and covert censorship and propaganda imposed by the government. Company executives serve at the pleasure of the government. Anyone not towing the party line or acting with too much independence will get caught up in "anti-corruption" investigations or just be arrested for crimes they may or may not have actually committed. Realistically it's better to just assume a priori that a Chinese social media company is pushing propaganda and building dossiers of users. It's certainly safer to assume that.
  - 6y ago