this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Since this entire thread is full of "hurr durr, I already knew that, nothing to see here" style posts, I'm going to attempt to provide something of fucking substance in this thread so that it doesn't turn into another fucking version of reddit.
TikTok is not like the other social media sites, it is significantly worse. Not just because it's a foreign, hostile government that slurps the data from it, we can ignore all that for now.
No, what's important is that you can go on western socmed sites and criticize whoever you want, but on TikTok, criticism of Xi Jinping, Putin Erdogan, or the Uigher genocide will be censored. TikTok also censors pro-LGBT content, and to a higher degree than what is recommended by the countries this censorship occurs in. [Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/26/tiktoks-local-moderation-guidelines-ban-pro-lgbt-content]
Unlike other services like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, or Instagram, TikTok has been banned by numerous government agencies in many countries of the world, as well as by various Fortune 500 companies such as Wells Fargo. But clearly these companies and government agencies know less than a couple of neckbearded former redditors masquerading as experts on the internet.
Beyond that, the app has been found to: collect biometric data such as face and voiceprints, track IMEIs and MAC address (in violation of Google's policies), a keylogger for any links or apps clicked while using the site [Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-22/tiktok-in-app-browser-can-monitor-keystrokes-researcher-finds/101356198].
Still not important enough news? How about when in 2022, employees at Bytedance used location information to try and track journalists critical of Bytedance/Tiktok and dox their sources. [Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/22/tech/tiktok-bytedance-journalist-data/index.html]
Now let's go back to why it matters that it's a foreign government that has all of this access. We already know what happened during Cambridge Analytica, and how this sort of information was used to manipulate an entire country into voting against their best interests, resulting in the clusterfuck known as Brexit, which is currently costing England 100 billion pounds per year.
Don't be an idiot and don't be a simp, this information should make you outraged, not cynically complacent. There's an old saying from a sorta cheesy movie known as the Devil's Advocate: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled, is convincing the world they didn't exist.
For one final reason why you shouldn't trust TikTok: just look at how China treats our social media, or how they treat TikTok itself, at home, and why it has an entirely different set of guidelines and results for content.
Yes let's not be like reddit:
There is a clear pattern here, and it's one that shows just how little the American population cares about their own country exploiting them. There isn't even clear evidence of exploitation in regards to TikTok. They appear to be engaging in all the same practices as US tech giants. Last I knew, China could just buy your data and use it for their own means. I mean, that's what was happening with the Cambridge Analytica stuff right?
You prevents Cambridge Analytica type events by regulating or abolishing Surveillance Capitalism in the US. Instead the US propaganda network has us talking about ghosts in TikTok's shell.
Okay, but this thread and its related article is about TikTok. Yes, western social media and surveillance is a major problem, but every single time an article critical of TikTok shows up, a million minions appear out of the woodwork to criticize Facebook and Twitter instead.
Here's the thing: those companies have numerous articles about their surveillance practices hitting the news all the time, and yet you don't see an army of people jumping into those threads to say "Well what about TikTok?" That's because this sort of approach does nothing but derail the actual subject and steers it towards something that you feel is more important than the actual topic being discussed.
Firstly, you do not get to dictate how I engage with this thread. Secondly, right wing and neo-liberal progressive government officials spent the better part of two years concern trolling over china and their vaguely evil intentions with TikTok. Something the US tech monopoly has hardly had to deal with, since they have the privilege of operating within the imperial core. The goal with this rehtoric isn't to ensure privacy for the American people, because of it was, we'd hold Silicon Valley to the same standard. Instead It's to stoke fear over the communist "threat" that is finding its way into your phones like a Trojan Horse.
It's spread wild and baseless conspiracies about political censorship, all the while priming the American people to embrace actual censorship through a ban on the distribution of TikTok. Something you might find on the other side if the Great Firewall of China ironically enough.
America's own social media industry has been caught red handed participating in clear and present evil. From developing eating disorders in young girls. To stoking genocide. Something Zuckerberg was interested in policing both sides of. The evidence of their evil is all around us, they do not even attempt to hide it. Yet curiously, when the media makes similar clames about TikTok, the sources are never revealed or published for consumption. I can go read the internal slide decks of Instagrams conclusion on it's ability to induce eating disorders. If the evidence is so damning, why not publish it? And yet with all this, these corporations walk free with a slap on the wrist, if that.
You should ask yourself, why are American pundents, politicians, and their media apparatus so interested in "protecting" citizens from TikTok? What material interests might drive them to ban a platform that is actively being imitated by nearly every major player in the social media space? Could it be that the lobbyists that line their pockets are more interested in ensuring they maintain their dominance? Or could it be they know that they'll be left out of the game they accuse China of playing? [1][2][3 26% removal rate for US]
The real threat is inside your walls, not on the other side of the ocean.