> There’s frequent statements about “massive data collection”. What data? That is a good question. Answer: among other data, the very data of the platform itse

> There’s frequent statements about “massive data collection”. What data? That is a good question. Answer: among other data, the very data of the platform itself. Everything nearly every young person has said in a message on the platform, public or private. Everything they view, and how they view it. Same with interactions. Easily enough to build a complete psychographic profile ("who in this list is most vulnerable to coercion?") and a convincing AI clone if one were so inclined. And that's if the mere content viewed or posted or interacted with, wasn't itself enough for blackmail. Which it often is. It could be something as simple as coercing a summer intern to visit a website on a vulnerable computer, if they want to prevent those DMs to Alice or Bob from being leaked. Oops, now all those trade secrets, aren't. > I don’t understand why so many politicians, including all presidential candidates and a not insignificant number of congressional members use TikTok. Most of them, I assume, aren't reaching out to their mistresses or paramours over tiktok. Location data collected by the app obviously is still an issue there. It's not great to think about, and it's not a justification for actions about which the blackmail revolves, but that's how some intelligence ops have historically happened.