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Can you explain how this is a spy tool and how Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. are not? I haven't really used TikTok. How does it collect data beyond the v

Can you explain how this is a spy tool and how Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. are not? I haven't really used TikTok. How does it collect data beyond the videos I've watched?

user_named 4y ago
They're exactly the same.
AlexandrB 4y ago
It seems to use the same bag of tricks Facebook/LinkedIn/etc. use to track things you do "off-app": tracking code in share widgets, injecting JS into the in-app browser, tracking cookies[1]. If ByteDance ever releases an Onavo style VPN app, people are going to lose their minds. [1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tiktok-data-privacy https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tiktok-data-privacy
pb7 4y ago
One is controlled by an authoritarian government, the others are private (publicly traded) corporations in a democratic country.
- satao 4y ago
  as someone living outside the US I can tell you that to us you're all the same.
  - pb7 4y ago
    That's your personal opinion. You don't speak for the ~7.7B people not in the US.
    - anm89 4y ago
      As is your opinion that it isn't
      - pb7 4y ago
        I didn't claim to speak for billions of people.
        dylan604 4y ago
        "You don't speak for the ~7.7B people not in the US." vs "You don't speak for me" One of those comments is speaking for a lot more people
        djanlermats2020 4y ago
        No it isn't, both are correct statements of fact.
        ryantgtg 4y ago
        Where did you get "you don't speak for me"? It's "I can tell you that to us you're all the same" vs "You don't speak for the ~7.7B people not in the US." One person is trying to speak for 7.7B and the other is advising against that.
        dylan604 4y ago
        >Where did you get "you don't speak for me"? It was an example of how to state unambiguously who was/was not being spoken for to contrast with the other statement. Maybe because I put it in quotes led you to think I was quoting someone, but it looked odd without to me.
        anm89 4y ago
        you are making the same implicit claim and arguing insignificant semantics.
  - cheriot 4y ago
    Ironically, there's laws restricting US Gov access to data in the US, but no such restrictions on hacking foreign networks.
  - exolymph 4y ago
    you're entitled to your opinion, but for those of us living inside the US, they are not at all the same
  - neither_color 4y ago
    When the police start knocking on my door inviting me to have tea because of something I posted on twitter I'll take your comment seriously(https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/translation-spilling-the-tea-about-being-invited-to-tea-and-hearing-the-police-read-aloud-your-tweets/ https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/translation-spilling-t...). Our free speech and privacy protections are not only stronger than China's, they're arguably stronger than Europe's too. There are some trade offs of course since Europe has GDPR and the right to be forgotten. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/technology/germany-internet-speech-arrest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/technology/germany-intern... https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-people-a-day-in-fight-against-web-trolls-b8nkpgp2d https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-peo... The reason China's situation is worse is because Europeans and Americans can and do protest this. It is not normalized and accepted. If you feel that America goes too far in how it exports its perceived brand of authoritarian, you should know that China is just getting started: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/3/report-details-chinas-covert-overseas-police-opera/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/3/report-detai...
- angio 4y ago
  But they took part in illegal surveillance programmes in the past.
  - pb7 4y ago
    >illegal Exactly. What's illegal here is perfectly fine in China. Let's not equate the two. US government may get data from US companies but at least it takes a warrant. Chinese government straight up owns the servers.
    - MaxPock 4y ago
      - pb7 4y ago
        8 years old, referencing the same unlawful behavior mentioned earlier.
    - monocasa 4y ago
      Did anyone have any consequences for the illegal behavior, including perjuring themselves before Congress regarding the matter? Then why would they stop after it was declared illegal?
    - ok123456 4y ago
      Yeah the Church Committee in the 70s really reformed the "intelligence community." They learned their lesson and never violated peoples civil rights ever again. And there's so much oversight now!
    - sumedh 4y ago
      > US government may get data from US companies but at least it takes a warrant. On December 16, 2005, The New York Times reported that the Bush administration had been conducting surveillance against U.S. citizens without specific approval from the FISA court for each case since 2002. In 2011, the Obama administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
walrus01 4y ago
Chinese domestic companies are legally obligated to provide a direct data pipeline from their databases to the Ministry of State Security. It's a real law that exists. Basically imagine what the NSA implemented with the PRISM program revealed by Snowden but formally codified into law and with active participation/engineering efforts required by the corporations.
- afiori 4y ago
  Is it particularly different from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act ?
  - alphabetting 4y ago
    Yes https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
  - walrus01 4y ago
    It's more like being perpetually subject to a National Security Letter (NSL) warrant issued by a US FISA court, a fairly rare occurrence and specifically targeted, but for blanket database replication and as the widespread legal default for every company in China.
  - waffleiron 4y ago
    The main difference is that HN is mainly visited by American users, not affected by CLOUD act.
    - afiori 4y ago
      The CLOUD Act affects all US companies.
- woooooo 4y ago
  For what it's worth, non-american citizens on non-american soil have no legal protection against the same. And big ad monopolies are not in the business of pissing off the security state.

Can you explain how this is a spy tool and how Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. are not? I haven't really used TikTok. How does it collect data beyond the videos I've watched?

user_named 4y ago

They're exactly the same.

AlexandrB 4y ago

It seems to use the same bag of tricks Facebook/LinkedIn/etc. use to track things you do "off-app": tracking code in share widgets, injecting JS into the in-app browser, tracking cookies[1]. If ByteDance ever releases an Onavo style VPN app, people are going to lose their minds. [1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tiktok-data-privacy https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tiktok-data-privacy

pb7 4y ago

One is controlled by an authoritarian government, the others are private (publicly traded) corporations in a democratic country.

satao 4y ago
as someone living outside the US I can tell you that to us you're all the same.
- pb7 4y ago
  That's your personal opinion. You don't speak for the ~7.7B people not in the US.
  - anm89 4y ago
    As is your opinion that it isn't
    - pb7 4y ago
      I didn't claim to speak for billions of people.
      - dylan604 4y ago
        "You don't speak for the ~7.7B people not in the US." vs "You don't speak for me" One of those comments is speaking for a lot more people
        djanlermats2020 4y ago
        No it isn't, both are correct statements of fact.
        ryantgtg 4y ago
        Where did you get "you don't speak for me"? It's "I can tell you that to us you're all the same" vs "You don't speak for the ~7.7B people not in the US." One person is trying to speak for 7.7B and the other is advising against that.
        dylan604 4y ago
        >Where did you get "you don't speak for me"? It was an example of how to state unambiguously who was/was not being spoken for to contrast with the other statement. Maybe because I put it in quotes led you to think I was quoting someone, but it looked odd without to me.
      - anm89 4y ago
        you are making the same implicit claim and arguing insignificant semantics.
- cheriot 4y ago
  Ironically, there's laws restricting US Gov access to data in the US, but no such restrictions on hacking foreign networks.
- exolymph 4y ago
  you're entitled to your opinion, but for those of us living inside the US, they are not at all the same
- neither_color 4y ago
  When the police start knocking on my door inviting me to have tea because of something I posted on twitter I'll take your comment seriously(https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/translation-spilling-the-tea-about-being-invited-to-tea-and-hearing-the-police-read-aloud-your-tweets/ https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/10/translation-spilling-t...). Our free speech and privacy protections are not only stronger than China's, they're arguably stronger than Europe's too. There are some trade offs of course since Europe has GDPR and the right to be forgotten. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/technology/germany-internet-speech-arrest.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/technology/germany-intern... https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-people-a-day-in-fight-against-web-trolls-b8nkpgp2d https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-arresting-nine-peo... The reason China's situation is worse is because Europeans and Americans can and do protest this. It is not normalized and accepted. If you feel that America goes too far in how it exports its perceived brand of authoritarian, you should know that China is just getting started: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/3/report-details-chinas-covert-overseas-police-opera/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/3/report-detai...
angio 4y ago
But they took part in illegal surveillance programmes in the past.
- pb7 4y ago
  >illegal Exactly. What's illegal here is perfectly fine in China. Let's not equate the two. US government may get data from US companies but at least it takes a warrant. Chinese government straight up owns the servers.
  - MaxPock 4y ago
    - pb7 4y ago
      8 years old, referencing the same unlawful behavior mentioned earlier.
  - monocasa 4y ago
    Did anyone have any consequences for the illegal behavior, including perjuring themselves before Congress regarding the matter? Then why would they stop after it was declared illegal?
  - ok123456 4y ago
    Yeah the Church Committee in the 70s really reformed the "intelligence community." They learned their lesson and never violated peoples civil rights ever again. And there's so much oversight now!
  - sumedh 4y ago
    > US government may get data from US companies but at least it takes a warrant. On December 16, 2005, The New York Times reported that the Bush administration had been conducting surveillance against U.S. citizens without specific approval from the FISA court for each case since 2002. In 2011, the Obama administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
MomoXenosaga 4y ago

walrus01 4y ago

Chinese domestic companies are legally obligated to provide a direct data pipeline from their databases to the Ministry of State Security. It's a real law that exists. Basically imagine what the NSA implemented with the PRISM program revealed by Snowden but formally codified into law and with active participation/engineering efforts required by the corporations.

afiori 4y ago
Is it particularly different from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act ?
- alphabetting 4y ago
  Yes https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-tapes-us-user-data-china-bytedance-access https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
- walrus01 4y ago
  It's more like being perpetually subject to a National Security Letter (NSL) warrant issued by a US FISA court, a fairly rare occurrence and specifically targeted, but for blanket database replication and as the widespread legal default for every company in China.
- waffleiron 4y ago
  The main difference is that HN is mainly visited by American users, not affected by CLOUD act.
  - afiori 4y ago
    The CLOUD Act affects all US companies.
woooooo 4y ago
For what it's worth, non-american citizens on non-american soil have no legal protection against the same. And big ad monopolies are not in the business of pissing off the security state.