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ByteDance planned to use TikTok to surveil specific American citizens
- lizardactivist 4y ago
- etchalon 4y ago… 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."
- ComplexSystems 4y agoGood 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 4y agoI 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 4y agoIn 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?
- im3w1l 4y agoI 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.
- cwkoss 4y ago"free pass"? there are new anti-tiktok articles nearly every week - facebook gets a fraction of the attention.
- selwynii 4y agoWonder what bubble you're in, I've been seeing a Facebook attack article easily 3-4 times a month for the last three years. I want to see Bytedance's CEO in front of Congress. Whereas anti TikTok is a recent (and much needed) development. That app is fast tracking through every single pitfall Facebook hit, starting with making users' attention spans less than five seconds, filtering out content based on beauty, giving schoolchildren tics, and all the trust and safety issues.
- andrewflnr 4y agoThere are some interesting/hilarious media bubbles showing up in the replies to this comment.
- bdhe 4y agoI 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 4y agoI'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?)
- SQueeeeeL 4y agoSir, 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
- bdhe 4y agoNo, 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.
- angio 4y agoThe 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 4y agoWho are these people joyously accepting this? Can you point to articles, forums or anywhere where these people congregate and discuss it?
- fdgsdfogijq 4y ago
- genmud 4y agoMan, glad nobody saw that one coming.
- jimcavel888 4y ago
- deepspace 4y agoTo 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?
- dnissley 4y agoWhat 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 4y agoIt 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 4y agoI 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 4y ago1. 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.
- forgetme2020 4y agoThis article has to be good news for Youtube shorts and whatever Meta is doing in the way of short form videos
- theGnuMe 4y agoInstagram reels are basically commercials for onlyfans.
- mhuffman 4y agoAlso Walmart is starting a content creation platform to compete with these. [0]https://www.walmartcreator.com/splash https://www.walmartcreator.com/splash
- Firmwarrior 4y agoMan oh man I should just wander the country starting half-assed clones of popular apps for clueless non-tech companies. I'll bet the CTO of Wal-Mart's video app division is doing pretty well for himself, a lot better than I am as a FAANG code monkey..
- mhuffman 4y agoNot for nothing, and I don't know if it has changed in the last years, but I remember that Walmart's tech division was packed with brains that could easily rival anything in SV. They were just focused on different things.
- heavyset_go 4y agoIs 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 4y agoIt's on the front page of Forbes right now: https://www.forbes.com 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.
- 1123581321 4y agoShe’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.
- martin1975 4y agoone of the many reasons I've never installed TikTok on my Pixel...and never will.
- dna_polymerase 4y agoI 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?
- hkpack 4y ago> 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.
- friedman23 4y agoThey used to call people that pointed these things out racist.
- kbos87 4y agoScott 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.
- influx 4y agoIf 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 4y agoYou can say precisely the same thing about iCloud and the FBI.
- kbos87 4y agoYou 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 4y agoThey 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.
- vxNsr 4y agoWhat’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.
- luckydata 4y ago
- hdesh 4y agoWould some nation be bold enough to ban TikTok? India did it, but then India is at war with China, quite literally.
- pkaeding 4y agoThe US almost did, in 2020, bit there was a public uproar: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-06/trump-signs-executive-order-to-ban-tiktok https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-08-06/trump-sign...
- deelly 4y agoIn your opinion, should all other nation except USA ban Facebook?
- raydiatian 4y agoSurprise: don’t use TikTok
- sfvegandude 4y agoThis 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
- raydiatian 4y agoWhere should I put the message? My friends and family are smart (excuse me, old) enough not to use TikTok either.
- angryasian 4y agoand thats different from other mobile apps how ?
- satao 4y agoIn 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 4y agoYou're not seriously going to both-sides the CIA and the CCP are you?
- satao 4y agoNo 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.
- maerF0x0 4y agoSomething 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/ https://mercatornet.com/ccp-100th-anniversary-genocide/73145...
- rrwo 4y agoThis 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.
- walrus01 4y agoI 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 https://www.google.com/search?&q=uber+greyball
- leishman 4y agoEven with all that baggage Uber was still 100x more ethical than all the mafia-run taxi cartels they destroyed.
- walrus01 4y agoMy 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 4y agohttps://archive.ph/w4TRO https://archive.ph/w4TRO
- whalesalad 4y agoLOL 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.
- protoc 4y agoUm, don't use it if you care so much?
- max_ 4y agoWhat's this special? Don't other social networks do surveillance on every one?
- jfengel 4y agoWhat 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 4y agoIt 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 4y agoAt 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_ 4y agoI 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 4y agoYou 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.
- Kukumber 4y agoInstagram, 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/facebook-tiktok-targeted-victory/ 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 ;)
- pessimizer 4y agoNearly 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 4y ago[deleted]
- MichaelZuo 4y agoForbes has really gone downhill over the past decade. I think anyone who's been around the block takes their stories with a giant pinch of salt nowadays.
- profstasiak 4y agothis is written by a FB lobbyist. Looks like a hit job by zuckerberg
- noasaservice 4y agoOk.. 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.
- ROTMetro 4y agoIs 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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-spac-agrees-acquire-093000609.html 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? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- ViceCitySage 4y agoI 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 4y ago> Surprised by the amount of people that hate China spying on Americans via TikTok but say nothing about our tech companie .
- nopenopenopeno 4y agoIn the US, we pretend to have a “democracy” when in fact a handful of competing and colluding corporations control everything. Is that any better?
- deznu 4y agoWhy do people from the US always assume others are from the US too.. But yeah, it's way better.
- nopenopenopeno 4y agoHN is US-based. Most people on HN are from the US.
- deznu 4y ago
- angryasian 4y agoJFC 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 4y agoCalling 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 4y agoThey aren't doing anything against the law. The information they collect is what any mobile app can collect.
- walrus01 4y agoOne 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.
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- walrus01 4y agoI 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 4y agoThe 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.
- asdadsdad 4y ago
- russellbeattie 4y agoI 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.
- zefix 4y ago
- togs 4y agoYou have to admit the app is pretty good, though. Sure it's evil. But, like, who cares?
- rvz 4y agoThe Rohingya people said the same thing about Facebook years ago.
- floatinglotus 4y agoWHAT???? “SPECIFIC AMERICANS” It took a while but this will be the end of TT. For anyone who has used TT, you can understand very quickly how this is a military grade weapon.
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- AnnoyedComment 4y ago
- singularity2001 4y agos/planned/uses/
- PointyFluff 4y ago