8 ms·
Tiktok does the same thing when you get a URL to share a video
by madeofpalk 4y ago
Tiktok does the same thing when you get a URL to share a video
- dawnerd 4y agoIt’s really creepy too if you don’t know the share url can leak your account name (if you were trying to keep that private)
- type0 4y agoIt is but try to explain this to a regular user and they will call you a tinfoil hat nerd
- thih9 4y agoI don’t think this is that big of a problem today, after so many privacy leaks people are a bit more aware, at least in my experience. Also tiktok actually shows a popup that the link contains information about your account.
- jjeaff 4y agoYa, most people get that there is no privacy. Where I think you get more of the "tinfoil hat" accusations is that a lot of people don't care or don't recognize the far reaching implications of lack of privacy.
- grishka 4y agoIn my experience most people do understand the basic structure of a URL even if they don't know the proper names for the parts. It doesn't take being a software developer to empirically figure out which parameters are responsible for tracking and delete them before sharing — especially if you see your own username in one of them.
- saaaaaam 4y agoDo “regular folk” really do this though? It is a serious, non provocative question. I strip all cruft off URLs but consider myself privacy aware and technically adept. I don’t think my non-technical friends have any idea about this.
- madeofpalk 4y agoTake a look at the URL you get when you try and share a tiktok video, and tell me which part to delete to remove the tracking
- ev1 4y agoYou have to visit it yourself to resolve it to a long link, then you'll get a long URL that has /@username-of-uploader/videos/[video id]?[huge amount of tracking variables]. For now, you're ok with dropping everything after the ? after you resolve out the vm.tiktok.com link shortener.
- udp 4y agoNot that it makes it any less shitty but you can disable that behaviour in the settings
- root_axis 4y agoJust to add some clarity, it's not that it "can leak" your account name, it deliberately pops up your account name and profile photo above the video to anyone that clicks the link.
- david_allison 4y agoAs does StackOverflow
- Nextgrid 4y agoYou could argue that SO at least gives you some benefit - there are badges you can earn for popular shared links.
- thih9 4y agoFB also claims their tracking is beneficial, they can show you more relevant ads this way. Perhaps there are benefits to everything; is the cost, i.e. losing privacy, worth it?
- Nextgrid 4y agoTrue but the same can be achieved with just asking the person about their needs/interests or using only public data for ad targeting. Second, this only applies to Facebook users, and yet they also track non-users despite them not even going to be showed any advertising.
- remram 4y agoIt's not encoded though, your user ID is right there and you can strip it out. I agree that it could be clearer like /question/1234?utm_user=5678 instead of /question/1234/5678
- OJFord 4y agoAmazon does similar, along with a generally crap description of the product that isn't necessary, you only need the 'dp...' ID.
- tedmiston 4y agoThe end user viewer can also strip the sharing user ID easily if desired: https://stackoverflow.com/q/10982911/149428 https://stackoverflow.com/q/10982911/149428 → https://stackoverflow.com/q/10982911 https://stackoverflow.com/q/10982911 → https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10982911/creating-temporary-files-in-bash https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10982911/creating-tempor...
- benreesman 4y agoByteDance has done a really good job making me reconsider whether I’d ever work for Big Tech again. I have some serious reservations about social media generally, which is why I left to begin with, but between TikTok and Instagram I know hands down who I trust more.
- azinman2 4y agoWhat’s your exact concern with TikTok?
- dataflow 4y agoNot sure if this is theirs, but [1]: > “Everything is seen in China,” said a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department in a September 2021 meeting. In another September meeting, a director referred to one Beijing-based engineer as a “Master Admin” who “has access to everything.” (While many employees introduced themselves by name and title in the recordings, BuzzFeed News is not naming anyone to protect their privacy.) [1] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
- azinman2 4y agoWhy is this linked to “big tech”? Big tech usually means FAANG which is American when you point out an issue with information going to China.
- dataflow 4y agoSorry I'm not the person who wrote that comment, so I don't know if this is what they were thinking, it was just a guess. It is confusing for me what they meant too.
- sneak 4y agoThis sort of nationalism is not useful; when pattern of life data is used to quietly blackmail or extort you it doesn't really matter whether it's your own or a foreign government doing it.
- tedmiston 4y agoInstagram does the same as well with your user ID as a query param when you share or copy a link.
- dredmorbius 4y agoInstagram === Facebook So not much surprise here.
- madeofpalk 4y agoTracking query string params in urls is nothing new, and its easy to spot. What tiktok (and it looks Facebook is starting to do) is generate you a completely unique URL when sharing a video. Copy a tiktok video URL and you get something like tiktok-dot-com/video/abc456def - that ID at the end is unique to you. There's no tracking params to remove from the video because they encode the video ID and your user ID in the same 'field'
- tedmiston 4y agoWell I didn't say this was "something new". Your comment is somewhat accurate, but not the whole story. A copied Tiktok share URL looks like this: https://www.tiktok.com/t/<unique_id>/?k=1 When pasted into a browser though, it redirects to the normal post URL: https://www.tiktok.com/@<author_username>/video/<video_id>?_t=<tracking_id>&_r=1 From there the tracking ID can be easily removed (by one's self) from the query params. This is in contrast to Facebook's new approach.