So... TikTok

[robkelk]

One chamber in the government of the country that takes pride in free enterprise -- the USA -- has passed a bill forcing somebody in another country to sell a business or stop doing business in the USA.

Yes, there's a law in China saying companies based there have to give data to the government. The only difference between that law and the one in the USA is that the Chinese government doesn't need a warrant.

Oh, look: somebody who used to be in the cabinet is thinking of buying that company. It must be nice to be able to have your political buddies force a competitor to put their business on the market.

Meanwhile, no news as to whether China will force Coca-Cola to sell off its Chinese operations in retaliation.

[classicdrogn]

Hasn't Tiktok been caught multiple times collecting user data they're not supposed to have and sending it back to the Chinese parent company, though? There's a big difference in the information you could get out of Coca-cola even with a warrant, and what can be data-mined from a social media platform using location metadata and speech/facial recognition even from just the publicly available feeds, even if not.

[robkelk]

Hasn't Tiktok been caught multiple times collecting user data they're not supposed to have and sending it back to the Chinese parent company, though? ...

I haven't heard any reports one way or the other about them doing that. I have heard reports about Facebook doing that, though (with the obvious difference that FB's parent company is in the USA, not China).

[hazard]

Given they're both social media companies, I would go with 'if Tiktok hasn't been caught doing that, odds are it is because it is better at hiding it'.

[Aleh]

The problem with this line of reasoning -- although I very much agree that it's a bad look (among other things) -- is that there are legitimate information-gathering and security concerns with TikTok that its connections to the Chinese Communist Party. Worse, TikTok itself demonstrated the problem pretty clearly during the Congressional deliberations on the bill.

Consider:

1) TikTok is infamously intrusive in its attempts to spy on its users (and even its non-users). It's been caught repeatedly accessing data that it shouldn't have access to or that users have denied it based on privacy settings. It's been caught repeatedly violating Google's (markedly anemic) privacy policy to grab things like clipboard contents on Android phones. It's been caught spying specifically on American journalists. Its data collection practices mean that it's been able to track American military deployments. And while yes, American companies have done similar things, not even Meta is as extensive, shameless, or egregious about it.

2) TikTok has been known to manipulate users' feeds both to their detriment and for its own ends. This includes several controversies about shadow-banning information that would be embarrassing to or critical of the Chinese government. The most dramatic recent demonstration of this was, in fact, during the debate on this bill, when representatives' offices were flooded with phone calls from panicked kids and teenagers, at least some of whom literally didn't know what a representative was, who were begging Congress not to take TikTok away from them at TikTok's behest.

3) TikTok is designed explicitly to be as addictive as possible to children and to youths... thereby maximizing their engagement with the platform, as well as the platform's ability to spy on and/or influence them.

4) ByteDance, the company that owns and runs TikTok, is pretty thoroughly beholden to the Chinese government.

So, yes, there's a problem here. Perhaps predictably, our congress-critters looked at this mess and, in the manner of moral panics since time immemorial, decided that the problem was obviously number 4 -- that it was a Chinese company doing all of this and not an American one. And so, rather than passing laws that would offend GFAAM (and the car industry, 'cause *holy shit*) by, say, limiting such data collection and protect Americans' privacy rights.

[Labster]

Hasn't Tiktok been caught multiple times collecting user data they're not supposed to have and sending it back to the Chinese parent company, though? There's a big difference in the information you could get out of Coca-cola even with a warrant, and what can be data-mined from a social media platform using location metadata and speech/facial recognition even from just the publicly available feeds, even if not.

Meanwhile in Canada: Canadian university vending machine error reveals use of facial recognition

I’m kind of shocked at how little spying you all think beverage companies are doing. See also those display panels on cooler doors at Walgreens, tracking you to sell you more beverages.

[classicdrogn]

You still have to walk up to them, though, rather than carrying it around in your pocket or tossing it to Little Johnny so he'll shut up for half an hour to give the Excedrin time to kick in.

[ECSNorway]

It has been alleged by a former employee of ByteDance, Tiktok's parent company, that there is no "the CCP tells us to give them X data and we give it to them" - there is a committee of CCP officials with admin/"god-level" access to their servers who can simply go in and take whatever data they want whenever they want.

It is also public record that the app has been caught grabbing data it should not have access to, including web search strings and clipboard contents.

Frankly I'd never install it, especially since most of the videos on it get echoes to youtube anyway.

[Vulpis]

Hasn't Tiktok been caught multiple times collecting user data they're not supposed to have and sending it back to the Chinese parent company, though? There's a big difference in the information you could get out of Coca-cola even with a warrant, and what can be data-mined from a social media platform using location metadata and speech/facial recognition even from just the publicly available feeds, even if not.

Meanwhile in Canada: Canadian university vending machine error reveals use of facial recognition

I’m kind of shocked at how little spying you all think beverage companies are doing. See also those display panels on cooler doors at Walgreens, tracking you to sell you more beverages.

...As opposed to the drinks vending machines in Japan that are quite up front about using facial recognition to market beverage suggestions to various age and gender catagories?

[Aleh]

Relevant discussion. Not my favorite source, but the interviews illustrate a good bit of the problem. Relevant op-ed here illustrating a good bit more.

[Labster]

Congress gets thousands and thousands of phone calls from constituents who can’t vote, or most likely won’t vote, and decide to ignore them. ByteDance went all in with Ace High, and got creamed for overplaying their hand.

Decoupling is real, folks. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s coming.

[Aleh]

Congress gets thousands and thousands of phone calls from constituents who can’t vote, or most likely won’t vote, and decide to ignore them. ByteDance went all in with Ace High, and got creamed for overplaying their hand.

Decoupling is real, folks. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s coming.

It's a bit more than that. The calls were a concrete demonstration of exactly the danger they were talking about. It was hilariously stupid and tone deaf on ByteDance's part.