6 ms·

IMO the data privacy angle is not super important. There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. IMO much more important is that the videos tha

by aftbit 4y ago

IMO the data privacy angle is not super important. There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.

CharlesW 4y ago
> There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP. The way they're so successful at the latter is by being really good at the former. If you've used it, they've (at minimum) built a psychographic profile used for content and ad targeting.
- spiderice 4y ago
  The data is what makes them so good at keeping you on their platform, yes. But that data isn't inherently useful to the CCP. I think what GP is getting at, is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate. 1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat. Edit: Changed "20% of Americans" to "80 million Americans"
  - MiguelX413 4y ago
    This sounds just like online advertising to me.
    - adampk 4y ago
      The changes in algorithms directed by the CCP can be tracked like purchases of online ads through facebook/twitter? What kind of nonsense comparison is this good lord.
      - MiguelX413 4y ago
        My comparison is not at all similar to the way you are describing it. I'm comparing "TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate." to the advertising control and capabilities of FAMANG etc. YouTube ALREADY does on their homepage what TikTok COULD do.
      - cma 4y ago
        I think he means like this: "Facebook says it can sway elections after all—for a price" https://qz.com/922436/facebook-says-it-can-sway-elections-after-all-for-a-price/ https://qz.com/922436/facebook-says-it-can-sway-elections-af...
        MiguelX413 4y ago
        You put it better than I could have, thank you.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > 1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat. Of course, it wouldn't be that dumb and obvious. If they were smart, they'd pick compelling organic content that aligns with their agenda, and amplify that for susceptible audiences (e.g. if they want to hurt Biden, they might take best videos criticizing him for allowing more oil drilling, and then un-organically push that content to users with environmentalist leanings).
    - lamontcg 4y ago
      Okay lets make sure China can't do this through tiktok. Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        > Okay lets make sure China can't do this through tiktok. > Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit. Except that in one case, it's a foreign actor interfering with the domestic political process, and in the other it's a domestic actor arguably exercising their first amendment rights.
        guelo 4y ago
        Rupert Murdoch got around this kind of distinction by getting an American citizenship.
        Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Money isn't speech. International corporations aren't domestic. Corporations aren't people. Boosting propoganda, censoring, and surveilling whilst acting as a utility and forcing people to sign up to participate in society is neither free nor speech. Meta and google don't just abuse americans
        lamontcg 4y ago
        There's no useful distinction there. They are manipulating the population and arguably infringing on rights that all free individuals should have (had the bill of rights not been written before mass media and the internet).
  - godelski 4y ago
    > But that data isn't inherently useful to the CCP. I think what GP is getting at > is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate. How does TikTok determine which political agenda is appropriate? Maybe there is a misconception to this? Foreign adversaries, such as Russia and CCP (or whoever your respective adversary is), are not so much trying to get people to vote/act a specific way as much as they are trying to 1) create chaos and 2) increase distrust in a population's trust in their government (note, this is not US centric). (some propaganda campaigns can be to get specific reactions, but chaos is much easier to create than specific actions) If we look at Russian influence campaigns we actually see that in several cases they organized both a protest to something and a corresponding counter protest. The thing is that if you can create chaos in your adversaries' political environment then they are not effectively able to organize and pursue collective advancements. This is exacerbated by creating distrust in one's leadership. That creates more chaos and again lessens the ability to collectively organize. It is also important to recognize that effective propaganda doesn't create issues out of thin air. Instead you are placing your thumb on the scale. Creating mountains out of mole hills is a long tested and successful form of propaganda. After all, the devil tells half truths. (see misinformation vs disinformation vs malinformation. Propaganda often uses malinformation)
- jasonm23 4y ago
  Ad targeting, oh yes, all those ads that seem relevant to me on TikTok. Sum total, zero.
gfdsgfdsf 4y ago
we should be more concerned about it's mind control aspects
- pokepim 4y ago
  And teleportation capacities, never underestimate teleportation.
  - gfdsgfdsf 4y ago
    the mind control is already there. how many teens were doing the tiktok specific elaborate vacant eyed lipsynced dance routines on social media before tik tok?
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      This is your argument? You could have gone with TikTok Tourette’s and instead you went with dance videos? https://nypost.com/2021/10/20/tiktok-is-giving-teen-girls-tourette-like-tics-doctors-say/ https://nypost.com/2021/10/20/tiktok-is-giving-teen-girls-to...
voxl 4y ago
People like to say this with basically no evidence. It's basically a conspiracy theory at this point. In fact, I've had TikTok videos, in the app itself, claiming the same thing. Man, those CCP folks are just really, really good! They knew I'd be an inherent skeptic! Yes, or perhaps you are just anti-china conspiracy theorist. I'm open to changing my mind on the subject, but I have not seen a single iota of evidence on the matter.
- andreilys 4y ago
  The evidence is in the way the CCP treats private companies (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.), it really doesn't take much logical thinking to realize that at any point the black-box algorithm can change on the whim of a party official.
- gfdsgfdsf 4y ago
  - dang 4y ago
    We've banned this account for posting unsubstantive comments and for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Btw, could you please also stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that as well, and this in the guidelines too. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
wsinks 4y ago
I'm totally with you on this. Who doesn't want to control global influence marketing? Prioritize certain content in certain locations, boost their economies... Obviously, I'm speculating, which doesn't necessarily help anything nor is true, but... my gut is with you.
Lucent 4y ago
I agree that we're focused on the wrong danger. The same way we tried to push the marijuana narrative toward physical harm when the real danger was in co-opting our goal system. I'd go further than you and say it's not even important that it's controlled by the CCP. An unlimited supply of the most interesting 30-second videos in the world is dangerous regardless of who's determining "interesting."
- gremlinsinc 4y ago
  Short-form videos are evil by themselves. As someone with ADHD, if you allow yourself to get sucked in, its hard to move or jump out of it. Hell, watching en enjoyable tv show feels like work, i.e. too long. I've come to appreciate quality over quantity, substance over fleeting enjoyment, and setting limits on how much I spend on yt, etc. It's similar to doom-scrolling reddit after the Ukraine war started, or Covid or George Floyd...2-3 months of my life I literally couldn't put my phone down, not that I could affect or add to the conversation, or change anything. Just FOMO, I guess. This though could lead to less overall production from America as a whole which could in micro-economic ways impact overall gdp, growth, dominance, etc, --and that's not considering what possible "pushes" they could give you to "think" one way or the other, as Americans are so easily manipulated by single sources they 'deem' truthful, but probably really aren't.
MiguelX413 4y ago
YouTube etc. hold the same power.
- josho 4y ago
  The difference is China is used as a bogey man. IMO it's a distraction from what's truly important--that all social media platforms are manipulating us. The part where one has Chinese lineage is irrelevant to the problem.
  - jimkleiber 4y ago
    i don't think it's irrelevant if you are a US citizen and believe that you have some control over governance. If a non-US citizen, I can see why one might not care as much. Or a US citizen who believes that gave no political say. However, for me, I believe I have much more control over US governance decisions than I do over Chinese governance decisions and therefore a little more control over what US companies can do versus Chinese companies.
concinds 4y ago
Absolutely true; but, for example, YouTube search results also employ a variety of finely tuned parameters that uprank or downrank certain videos, with zero transparency or oversight. YouTube Trending and Twitter Trends are heavily editorialized, and nothing shows up before it is manually approved by an employee. You might have even seen Twitter "trends" that, when you click on them, only show you 5 tweets by a single verified Twitter account, and nothing else; no discussion is shown. Twitter Search results (the "Top" tab) show popular tweets mixed in with 60-likes tweets, to prevent you from accurately gauging "the mood" or the predominant opinion. These companies feel perfectly entitled to decide what you'll see. Every social media is founded on an algorithm, and they are all black boxes. TikTok constitutes unique challenges (if they want to dumb people down, they can), but most of the criticism is true of every platform.
WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
Data gathering does have its dangers. But giving a not so friendly power the ability to directly influence your citizens is the real danger. There is no way to minimize that other than to have control over the whole enterprise. Right now the EU is feeling the shock of giving Russia control over its fuel needs. Something that many people thought could happen but at least in that situation Russia does not have the ability to directly influence the EU's citizens. If it could influence minds directly, Russia could be confident that it would win the conflict. Tik Tok is that influencing machine that can be used against the US. We need to do something before it becomes a problem.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  People need power to live through winter / cook. Russia cutting off power can cause death. Cutting off tiktok may push a few emos over the edge but not really comparable.
- MiguelX413 4y ago
  Who should have control?
- thebradbain 4y ago
  Unlike the EU/Russia, though, the US is not geopolitically dependent on China for social media like the former is energy. If the US were embroiled in such a conflict with the China, the US would have no problem a) Forcing the sale of ByteDance to a US company (remember, they almost did this during peacetime anyways, just because) or b) Outright blocking it and ensuring its allies do the same Sure, either option is a Situation, but I would imagine the US threatening to effectively take over or block what is one of China's premiere/world-known tech companies is a large enough negotiating chip that it gives the US leverage, too, and at the same time ensure China does not interfere too much.
yogenpro 4y ago
Not only what videos are shown, but also what videos /topics are suppressed, which is also a useful tool for swaying public opinion as Meta has demonstrated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607698
gopi 4y ago
Exactly, Tiktok can algorithmically identify a few 100k persuadable voters in a few battleground states and feed them the political viewpoint they favor. Thus CCP can influence our elections. Its easy do this in stealth and there is no way to prove from outside that it happened!. We already have laws that restrict majority foreign ownership of traditional media, why cant we extend it to new media?
- MiguelX413 4y ago
  I don't see why domestic private companies holding such a power is any better.
- lapinot 4y ago
  > Thus CCP can influence our elections. Would it make any difference if it was a US owner? The real problem here is more basic: 80B americans have 20% of their free time centrally controlled. This a health and social problem, whoever owns the corp.
  - gopi 4y ago
    Yup, it makes a difference.
godelski 4y ago
> There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. - GPS Location - Wifi connections - Social graphs (phone contacts, as well as inference through locality) - Dynamic Social interests (how long you watch a video, what videos you tend to watch the most, adapts over time) - There's a keylogger in the in-app browser - They are able to influence certain ideas (i.e. propaganda) because they control your feed and can target propaganda and a near personal level This is a lot of important information that has a lot of power. But you come back and say > IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP. So I just want to make sure that we connect the bridge. The privacy angle and propaganda angle are one in the same to the privacy community. It is the information gathered that is used to dictate the dopamine hit/propaganda. We need to be clear about these being being part of the same system or else people mindlessly state "nothing to hide, nothing to fear." Data collection is about influence. After all, what are ads if not attempts to influence you? (ads don't just sell products either. Another common misconception) While there is the concern about invasion of privacy the nuance of the conversation is that the invasion of privacy erodes our free will as it is used to influence us. Obviously there's a complicated part of what is good and bad influence but surely we can agree that influence from a foreign nation that doesn't have our best interest in minds is not a good influence.
- bryceacc 4y ago
  it really is just the foreign aspect of it. the meta apps, google apps, uber, etc all do the exact same things. They just aren't owned by a foreign nation
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    they're also not as inherently addictive. TikTok is the best drug in town, nobody does it better. can't get my fiancée off the damn thing
    - foverzar 4y ago
      Instagram wasn't much different back when it was a new thing. I don't remember Facebooks launch that good, but somehow I have an impression that it was just as addictive, until people got used to it and got bored.
iKlsR 4y ago
I can't tell the last time I sat and watched a movie or a series. You work, go to the gym, hop out of the shower and start scrolling and when you look up, 2 hours have passed. It's insane.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
"IMO much more important is that the videos that are show to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hist are controlled by the CCP." To clarify, is the concern (a) that the videos are chosen by a third party organisation not the user, (b) that the third party in this case is TikTok under pressure from CCP, instead of, say, Google under pressure from US Government, or (c) both. IMO, the so-called user should be in control of choosing videos, not treated like a test subject^1 by third parties, i.e., "tech" companies, trying to profit from data collection and advertising services. Consider that without the data collection, e.g., metadata, the "automatic video selection service" provided by the "tech" company would not work very effectively. It must be targeted. And for that, data collection is essential. IMO, "data privacy", despite the name, is not simply a matter of whether a person desires to have "privacy", it is a matter of whether a person wants to voluntarily give data to a "tech" company at no cost to enable effective targeted manipulation for the benefit of the company's customers, i.e., commercial or political advertisers, and consequently the company. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4woPg0-xyAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4woPg0-xyAA
tmaly 4y ago
Given the sheer scale of the data, I could not see how they could effectively wall off content and data by region and keep it walled off.
voisin 4y ago
> IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP. Better to be controlled by a large corporation that, by explicit design, acts like a psychopath and will direct you to destroy the very fabric of your society if this increases “engagement” more often than not.
madmax108 4y ago
It's good that I don't have a Tiktok account (or an Instagram/FB account) in that case! * proceeds to spend whole day reading HN and doomscrolling Twitter instead * ;-)

by aftbit 4y ago

CharlesW 4y ago

> There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP. The way they're so successful at the latter is by being really good at the former. If you've used it, they've (at minimum) built a psychographic profile used for content and ad targeting.

spiderice 4y ago
The data is what makes them so good at keeping you on their platform, yes. But that data isn't inherently useful to the CCP. I think what GP is getting at, is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate. 1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat. Edit: Changed "20% of Americans" to "80 million Americans"
- MiguelX413 4y ago
  This sounds just like online advertising to me.
  - adampk 4y ago
    The changes in algorithms directed by the CCP can be tracked like purchases of online ads through facebook/twitter? What kind of nonsense comparison is this good lord.
    - MiguelX413 4y ago
      My comparison is not at all similar to the way you are describing it. I'm comparing "TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate." to the advertising control and capabilities of FAMANG etc. YouTube ALREADY does on their homepage what TikTok COULD do.
    - cma 4y ago
      I think he means like this: "Facebook says it can sway elections after all—for a price" https://qz.com/922436/facebook-says-it-can-sway-elections-after-all-for-a-price/ https://qz.com/922436/facebook-says-it-can-sway-elections-af...
      - MiguelX413 4y ago
        You put it better than I could have, thank you.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > 1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat. Of course, it wouldn't be that dumb and obvious. If they were smart, they'd pick compelling organic content that aligns with their agenda, and amplify that for susceptible audiences (e.g. if they want to hurt Biden, they might take best videos criticizing him for allowing more oil drilling, and then un-organically push that content to users with environmentalist leanings).
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    Okay lets make sure China can't do this through tiktok. Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Okay lets make sure China can't do this through tiktok. > Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit. Except that in one case, it's a foreign actor interfering with the domestic political process, and in the other it's a domestic actor arguably exercising their first amendment rights.
      - guelo 4y ago
        Rupert Murdoch got around this kind of distinction by getting an American citizenship.
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Money isn't speech. International corporations aren't domestic. Corporations aren't people. Boosting propoganda, censoring, and surveilling whilst acting as a utility and forcing people to sign up to participate in society is neither free nor speech. Meta and google don't just abuse americans
      - lamontcg 4y ago
        There's no useful distinction there. They are manipulating the population and arguably infringing on rights that all free individuals should have (had the bill of rights not been written before mass media and the internet).
- godelski 4y ago
  > But that data isn't inherently useful to the CCP. I think what GP is getting at > is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate. How does TikTok determine which political agenda is appropriate? Maybe there is a misconception to this? Foreign adversaries, such as Russia and CCP (or whoever your respective adversary is), are not so much trying to get people to vote/act a specific way as much as they are trying to 1) create chaos and 2) increase distrust in a population's trust in their government (note, this is not US centric). (some propaganda campaigns can be to get specific reactions, but chaos is much easier to create than specific actions) If we look at Russian influence campaigns we actually see that in several cases they organized both a protest to something and a corresponding counter protest. The thing is that if you can create chaos in your adversaries' political environment then they are not effectively able to organize and pursue collective advancements. This is exacerbated by creating distrust in one's leadership. That creates more chaos and again lessens the ability to collectively organize. It is also important to recognize that effective propaganda doesn't create issues out of thin air. Instead you are placing your thumb on the scale. Creating mountains out of mole hills is a long tested and successful form of propaganda. After all, the devil tells half truths. (see misinformation vs disinformation vs malinformation. Propaganda often uses malinformation)
jasonm23 4y ago
Ad targeting, oh yes, all those ads that seem relevant to me on TikTok. Sum total, zero.

gfdsgfdsf 4y ago

we should be more concerned about it's mind control aspects

pokepim 4y ago
And teleportation capacities, never underestimate teleportation.
- gfdsgfdsf 4y ago
  the mind control is already there. how many teens were doing the tiktok specific elaborate vacant eyed lipsynced dance routines on social media before tik tok?
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    This is your argument? You could have gone with TikTok Tourette’s and instead you went with dance videos? https://nypost.com/2021/10/20/tiktok-is-giving-teen-girls-tourette-like-tics-doctors-say/ https://nypost.com/2021/10/20/tiktok-is-giving-teen-girls-to...

voxl 4y ago

People like to say this with basically no evidence. It's basically a conspiracy theory at this point. In fact, I've had TikTok videos, in the app itself, claiming the same thing. Man, those CCP folks are just really, really good! They knew I'd be an inherent skeptic! Yes, or perhaps you are just anti-china conspiracy theorist. I'm open to changing my mind on the subject, but I have not seen a single iota of evidence on the matter.

andreilys 4y ago
The evidence is in the way the CCP treats private companies (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.), it really doesn't take much logical thinking to realize that at any point the black-box algorithm can change on the whim of a party official.
gfdsgfdsf 4y ago
- dang 4y ago
  We've banned this account for posting unsubstantive comments and for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Btw, could you please also stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that as well, and this in the guidelines too. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

wsinks 4y ago

I'm totally with you on this. Who doesn't want to control global influence marketing? Prioritize certain content in certain locations, boost their economies... Obviously, I'm speculating, which doesn't necessarily help anything nor is true, but... my gut is with you.

Lucent 4y ago

I agree that we're focused on the wrong danger. The same way we tried to push the marijuana narrative toward physical harm when the real danger was in co-opting our goal system. I'd go further than you and say it's not even important that it's controlled by the CCP. An unlimited supply of the most interesting 30-second videos in the world is dangerous regardless of who's determining "interesting."

gremlinsinc 4y ago
Short-form videos are evil by themselves. As someone with ADHD, if you allow yourself to get sucked in, its hard to move or jump out of it. Hell, watching en enjoyable tv show feels like work, i.e. too long. I've come to appreciate quality over quantity, substance over fleeting enjoyment, and setting limits on how much I spend on yt, etc. It's similar to doom-scrolling reddit after the Ukraine war started, or Covid or George Floyd...2-3 months of my life I literally couldn't put my phone down, not that I could affect or add to the conversation, or change anything. Just FOMO, I guess. This though could lead to less overall production from America as a whole which could in micro-economic ways impact overall gdp, growth, dominance, etc, --and that's not considering what possible "pushes" they could give you to "think" one way or the other, as Americans are so easily manipulated by single sources they 'deem' truthful, but probably really aren't.

MiguelX413 4y ago

YouTube etc. hold the same power.

josho 4y ago
The difference is China is used as a bogey man. IMO it's a distraction from what's truly important--that all social media platforms are manipulating us. The part where one has Chinese lineage is irrelevant to the problem.
- jimkleiber 4y ago
  i don't think it's irrelevant if you are a US citizen and believe that you have some control over governance. If a non-US citizen, I can see why one might not care as much. Or a US citizen who believes that gave no political say. However, for me, I believe I have much more control over US governance decisions than I do over Chinese governance decisions and therefore a little more control over what US companies can do versus Chinese companies.

concinds 4y ago

Absolutely true; but, for example, YouTube search results also employ a variety of finely tuned parameters that uprank or downrank certain videos, with zero transparency or oversight. YouTube Trending and Twitter Trends are heavily editorialized, and nothing shows up before it is manually approved by an employee. You might have even seen Twitter "trends" that, when you click on them, only show you 5 tweets by a single verified Twitter account, and nothing else; no discussion is shown. Twitter Search results (the "Top" tab) show popular tweets mixed in with 60-likes tweets, to prevent you from accurately gauging "the mood" or the predominant opinion. These companies feel perfectly entitled to decide what you'll see. Every social media is founded on an algorithm, and they are all black boxes. TikTok constitutes unique challenges (if they want to dumb people down, they can), but most of the criticism is true of every platform.

WheelsAtLarge 4y ago

Data gathering does have its dangers. But giving a not so friendly power the ability to directly influence your citizens is the real danger. There is no way to minimize that other than to have control over the whole enterprise. Right now the EU is feeling the shock of giving Russia control over its fuel needs. Something that many people thought could happen but at least in that situation Russia does not have the ability to directly influence the EU's citizens. If it could influence minds directly, Russia could be confident that it would win the conflict. Tik Tok is that influencing machine that can be used against the US. We need to do something before it becomes a problem.

ipaddr 4y ago
People need power to live through winter / cook. Russia cutting off power can cause death. Cutting off tiktok may push a few emos over the edge but not really comparable.
MiguelX413 4y ago
Who should have control?
thebradbain 4y ago
Unlike the EU/Russia, though, the US is not geopolitically dependent on China for social media like the former is energy. If the US were embroiled in such a conflict with the China, the US would have no problem a) Forcing the sale of ByteDance to a US company (remember, they almost did this during peacetime anyways, just because) or b) Outright blocking it and ensuring its allies do the same Sure, either option is a Situation, but I would imagine the US threatening to effectively take over or block what is one of China's premiere/world-known tech companies is a large enough negotiating chip that it gives the US leverage, too, and at the same time ensure China does not interfere too much.

yogenpro 4y ago

Not only what videos are shown, but also what videos /topics are suppressed, which is also a useful tool for swaying public opinion as Meta has demonstrated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607698

gopi 4y ago

Exactly, Tiktok can algorithmically identify a few 100k persuadable voters in a few battleground states and feed them the political viewpoint they favor. Thus CCP can influence our elections. Its easy do this in stealth and there is no way to prove from outside that it happened!. We already have laws that restrict majority foreign ownership of traditional media, why cant we extend it to new media?

MiguelX413 4y ago
I don't see why domestic private companies holding such a power is any better.
lapinot 4y ago
> Thus CCP can influence our elections. Would it make any difference if it was a US owner? The real problem here is more basic: 80B americans have 20% of their free time centrally controlled. This a health and social problem, whoever owns the corp.
- gopi 4y ago
  Yup, it makes a difference.

godelski 4y ago

> There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. - GPS Location - Wifi connections - Social graphs (phone contacts, as well as inference through locality) - Dynamic Social interests (how long you watch a video, what videos you tend to watch the most, adapts over time) - There's a keylogger in the in-app browser - They are able to influence certain ideas (i.e. propaganda) because they control your feed and can target propaganda and a near personal level This is a lot of important information that has a lot of power. But you come back and say > IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP. So I just want to make sure that we connect the bridge. The privacy angle and propaganda angle are one in the same to the privacy community. It is the information gathered that is used to dictate the dopamine hit/propaganda. We need to be clear about these being being part of the same system or else people mindlessly state "nothing to hide, nothing to fear." Data collection is about influence. After all, what are ads if not attempts to influence you? (ads don't just sell products either. Another common misconception) While there is the concern about invasion of privacy the nuance of the conversation is that the invasion of privacy erodes our free will as it is used to influence us. Obviously there's a complicated part of what is good and bad influence but surely we can agree that influence from a foreign nation that doesn't have our best interest in minds is not a good influence.

bryceacc 4y ago
it really is just the foreign aspect of it. the meta apps, google apps, uber, etc all do the exact same things. They just aren't owned by a foreign nation
- adamrezich 4y ago
  they're also not as inherently addictive. TikTok is the best drug in town, nobody does it better. can't get my fiancée off the damn thing
  - foverzar 4y ago
    Instagram wasn't much different back when it was a new thing. I don't remember Facebooks launch that good, but somehow I have an impression that it was just as addictive, until people got used to it and got bored.

iKlsR 4y ago

I can't tell the last time I sat and watched a movie or a series. You work, go to the gym, hop out of the shower and start scrolling and when you look up, 2 hours have passed. It's insane.

1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago

"IMO much more important is that the videos that are show to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hist are controlled by the CCP." To clarify, is the concern (a) that the videos are chosen by a third party organisation not the user, (b) that the third party in this case is TikTok under pressure from CCP, instead of, say, Google under pressure from US Government, or (c) both. IMO, the so-called user should be in control of choosing videos, not treated like a test subject^1 by third parties, i.e., "tech" companies, trying to profit from data collection and advertising services. Consider that without the data collection, e.g., metadata, the "automatic video selection service" provided by the "tech" company would not work very effectively. It must be targeted. And for that, data collection is essential. IMO, "data privacy", despite the name, is not simply a matter of whether a person desires to have "privacy", it is a matter of whether a person wants to voluntarily give data to a "tech" company at no cost to enable effective targeted manipulation for the benefit of the company's customers, i.e., commercial or political advertisers, and consequently the company. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4woPg0-xyAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4woPg0-xyAA

tmaly 4y ago

Given the sheer scale of the data, I could not see how they could effectively wall off content and data by region and keep it walled off.

voisin 4y ago

> IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP. Better to be controlled by a large corporation that, by explicit design, acts like a psychopath and will direct you to destroy the very fabric of your society if this increases “engagement” more often than not.

madmax108 4y ago

It's good that I don't have a Tiktok account (or an Instagram/FB account) in that case! * proceeds to spend whole day reading HN and doomscrolling Twitter instead * ;-)