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TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

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Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#241

Post by financetechbro »

cosarara wrote: post #32

What kind of data? TikTok knows what content I interact to... on tiktok. That's it. Unless they have an android 0-day or something. It has no access to my mic, camera, browsing history, contacts list, or anything useful. Guess who has access to all that, if they want it, though? Google and Facebook (through whatsapp). What is the privacy concern here, exactly?

It’s a bit ignorant for you think that data is limited to “mic, camera, browsing history, contact list” etc. TikTok can harvest data on the type of content posted and what users interact with. Although it feels harmless, I’m sure there are troves of insights to be derived just from that.

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#242

Post by chrischen »

beardedetim wrote: post #220
ethbr0 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because the 84-year-old Sen. Hatch (who retired in 2019) asked a dumb question doesn't mean there aren't smart people in government. ( Edit : Although I might have been misreading your ad model sentence as the above) If explainability is a problem (e.g. "We don't know why our algorithm recommends higher-interest rate loan products to African Americans"), then that's a rabbit hole that needs to have funding put t…

> doesn't mean there aren't smart people in government. agreed and I was flippant to make a point. I did not mean to say there aren't smart people in government. But I would venture to say that people who understand ML/AI are _not_ working in the government. Or put more correctly, the _odds_ of a person working in government being up to date on how LSTM works today is such a low number, that I would be fair to say it…

The government can retain its own experts for opinions, just like how in court they can get expert testimony rather than relying on the judge or jury to know and decide all.

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#243

Post by yorwba »

vineyardmike wrote: post #238
bduerst wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the whole, "TikTok spies for China" meme also politically motivated, per the last Republican president? I don't doubt that Bytedance shares Chinese TouTiao user data with the Chinese government, akin to how Apple does it with iCloud, but Bytedance has been pretty adamant that TikTok is external to China and doesn't share data. Even when there was an executive order to ban TikTok for being a national security th…

> Bytedance has been pretty adamant that TikTok is external to China and doesn't share data. Considering that there are TikTok employees in china - both engineers and moderators, there is no chance that china doesn't influence TikTok. Even Zoom which is a clearly american company that has chinese employees wasn't immune to chinese influence. source: i personally know a tiktok employee in china.

Does that TikTok employee you know have access to user data?

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#244

Post by boc »

ok123456 wrote: post #178
cm2012 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TikTok should be banned in the US. China banned all of our homegrown social networks, its pretty standard international precedent to ban theirs, given the security risks.

Snowden exposed the wholesale, unauthorized data collection operation the US NatSec complex was performing and we haven't banned the us government from peering to the internet. Why should we ban people voluntarily using a short video service that shows them things they like and whose business model is virtually identical to every other social media company?

There's a difference between listening and engaging.

The NSA listens.

TikTok listens, engages, and suggests new content and ideas to millions.

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#245

Post by wyre »

echelon wrote: post #192
hillbillydilly wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea these convos really make me think 'all hope is lost' when you get some decent idea fleshed out re: adtech algorithm auditing and your first thought is: yea lets root out anti american sentiment in the algo. facepalm strong fox news vibes around here these days

> lets root out anti american sentiment in the algo. facepalm strong fox news vibes around here these days I said measure . We need to understand if we're being manipulated, and if so, figure out what an appropriate response should be. Maybe it's as simple as releasing a report and letting the media talk about it. Knowing gives us the ability to develop a response. Filter bubbles are relatively new, and it's not yet…

> We need to understand if we're being manipulated

We don’t need to find that out because we are being manipulated. These are algorithms designed to maintain attention and sell ads. It is impossible for that to not be manipulative. The goal shouldn’t be to understand the algorithms, but to stop them from ruining our lives.

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#246

Post by Osmium »

sidlls wrote: post #136
tupac_speedrap wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The users of TikTok are mostly teenagers and young adults, that's why. Nearly everybody in journalism is late 20s or 30+. They just don't get it, though to be fair vine had a similar type of content and that failed.

I'm in my mid-40s: there's nothing deep or mysterious to "get" about TikTok. It's short-form video snips/vignettes, mainly of people showing off for their friends, trying to cash in on short-lived audio trends and meme pipelines, and sometimes both. It reminds me of the kind of bravado/showing off my peers in middle- and high-school did: because that's essentially what it is. Edit for more context: I happen to be dat…

> I'm in my mid-40s: there's nothing deep or mysterious to "get" about TikTok. It's short-form video snips/vignettes, mainly of people showing off for their friends, trying to cash in on short-lived audio trends and meme pipelines, and sometimes both.

What this misses is that TikTok is a radically different experience for different people.

For some people, this description is very accurate. For other people, they would barely recognize TikTok on the basis of this description.

This is what has led to so many mis-representations of TikTok in the media, and the misunderstandings that result from that.

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#247

Post by qqtt »

lancesells wrote: post #153

> For TikTok, the results were even more mysterious: 13 of the 14 network contacts on the popular social media app were from third parties. The third-party tracking still happened even when users didn’t opt into allowing tracking in each app’s settings, according to the study. It seems like Apple is lacking on tracking enforcement of privacy. This mobile marketing company can do this so I'm guessing Apple has the res…

Beyond removing the unique identifier that allows advertisers to track you across applications (IDFA), Apple really hasn't done much to enforce tracking via other means. Depending on who you talk to, they tacitly endorse any and all non-IDFA tracking even when users opt out.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/23/iphone-...

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#248

Post by selfportrait »

robbedpeter wrote: post #161
selfportrait wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t refute anything you say, but linking to a page that features Glenn Beck, Mark Levin and Tucker Carlson doesn’t help your case. Not to mention the clear partisanship and call for donation to the “American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology” - a rabbit hole I’m happy to avoid.

That's an artifact of the politics. If a company had been tilting this in favor of the right, you would find Maddow, Lemon, and other left wing bobbleheads instead of right wing bobbleheads. Don't let guilt by association bias your thinking in this, but give the subject the deliberation it deserves. If you value the integrity of democracy and public discourse, ignore the messengers for whom the optics are politically…

This isn’t guilt by association. That website is purely a grift, starting from its appeal to authority, leading into the Fox News nonsense and pseudoscientific slant, all the way to its Rush Limbaugh, early 2000s aesthetics. It doesn’t take a scientist to know that this isn’t how credible scientists operate, especially with the partisan hackery on display.

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#249

Post by Steltek »

catawar2 wrote: post #117
Etheryte wrote: post #36

One thing that I found very interesting when I looked into what TikTok does: it's scary good at aggregating data about you. I live in a foreign country, my phone's network is behind a VPN to a different foreign country and I gave the app no extra permissions, yet somehow I still got recommended content from the country where I was born. Since it's a small country there's no way that's a coincidence. I'm both intrigue…

I had the exact opposite experience. I also live in a foreign country (The Netherlands) and even after explicitly watching content from my native country I still only got videos in Dutch (should mention that I don't even speak Dutch).

Totally off topic but how are you received being a resident in a country and not being able to speak the language? Not that I'm looking to emigrate but damn if your country isn't appealing to the cargo-bike riding cyclist in me.

Re: TikTok shares your data more than any other app and it’s unclear where it goes

#250

Post by loudthing »

cm2012 wrote: post #24
robbedpeter wrote: post #5

It's not unclear at all. It's Chinese data harvesting software. They'll do token public appeasement to avoid negative pressure, but every feature in the app is designed to collect biometrics and behavioral data. China is not a good faith operator. Given the data needed to influence public opinion and voting, they will engage in manipulation favorable to their interests. That alone is sufficient to run tiktok at a los…

TikTok should be banned in the US. China banned all of our homegrown social networks, its pretty standard international precedent to ban theirs, given the security risks.

I for one am a proponent for free and open internet and net neutrality. Banning any sites/services in the US is a slippery slope. There has to be better ways to deal with these problems.
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