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ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

forbes.com

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Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#231

Post by canadaduane »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #229
vanadium1st wrote: post #184

I was really pro open internet. I remember the old internet and feel nostalgia about it that probably won't ever completely fade. I am Ukrainian, and when some years ago my government banned the most popular social network at our country - Russian-made VK, I felt strange about it. I kind of understood some of the security concerns, but didn't feel like they were enough to turn off my open internet fantasies and free-…

> I still have no strength to quit it by myself. This sounds like addiction? Just delete the app from your phone and move on? You'd be surprised by perfectly fine life goes on without Twitter / Facebook / TikTok / Instagram.

"addiction" and "just ___" are kind of mutually opposing forces. It can be difficult to understand addiction from the outside, as the solution seems obvious, but the internal world is not straight forward to navigate.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#232

Post by Schroedingersat »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #229
vanadium1st wrote: post #184

I was really pro open internet. I remember the old internet and feel nostalgia about it that probably won't ever completely fade. I am Ukrainian, and when some years ago my government banned the most popular social network at our country - Russian-made VK, I felt strange about it. I kind of understood some of the security concerns, but didn't feel like they were enough to turn off my open internet fantasies and free-…

> I still have no strength to quit it by myself. This sounds like addiction? Just delete the app from your phone and move on? You'd be surprised by perfectly fine life goes on without Twitter / Facebook / TikTok / Instagram.

This is massively underselling the difficulty.

If you delete your facebook and twitter accounts you lose access to the only customer support channel in many places. If you delete faceboom you lose access to local second hand markets, you lose access to information about community events, you cannot participate in group chats, you get harangued at every social event if you try to share another contact channel.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#233

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #232
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still have no strength to quit it by myself. This sounds like addiction? Just delete the app from your phone and move on? You'd be surprised by perfectly fine life goes on without Twitter / Facebook / TikTok / Instagram.

This is massively underselling the difficulty. If you delete your facebook and twitter accounts you lose access to the only customer support channel in many places. If you delete faceboom you lose access to local second hand markets, you lose access to information about community events, you cannot participate in group chats, you get harangued at every social event if you try to share another contact channel.

I agree. How does that apply to TikTok though?

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#234

Post by bioemerl »

jychang wrote: post #216
bioemerl wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends hugely on who you are and what happens with the politics. CIA and FBI are very big threats to you, which is why you vote regularly to ensure that your rights are represented and those agencies aren't able to abuse their power. China is a much more distant and abstract, but much more serious threat. If the FBI or CIA fucks up, they will put let's say 10% of people in prison for opposition to the state. If Chin…

> They are very different threats, and should be treated very differently. The FBI and CIA are immune system type systems, where China is a guy with a knife. This analogy is great, because it's a better analogy than you think. Immune issues kill a LOT more people than knife attacks in the USA every year. In general, external enemies are less dangerous than internal enemies. It's easy to rally people against an extern…

> Immune issues kill a LOT more people than knife attacks in the USA every year

When there are 100 million Americas with 100 million CIAs and all governments are ruled under a common government that makes all knife stabbings and war illegal, that maybe something that is the truth in geopolitics as well.

Until then, this isn't an analogy that works very well.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#235

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c »

canadaduane wrote: post #231
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still have no strength to quit it by myself. This sounds like addiction? Just delete the app from your phone and move on? You'd be surprised by perfectly fine life goes on without Twitter / Facebook / TikTok / Instagram.

"addiction" and "just ___" are kind of mutually opposing forces. It can be difficult to understand addiction from the outside, as the solution seems obvious, but the internal world is not straight forward to navigate.

If the only way the poster is going to cure their social media addiction is through government intervention, I would suggest finding alternative means of addressing the issue.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#236

Post by bioemerl »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #212
bioemerl wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very skeptical that there is such a thing as a regulation which can keep a state actor with zero transparency like TikTok in check. Even if you move all of their code and mandate that they have a shell company in the United States, and you mandate that none of American data ever goes to China, they can ignore you. You validate that every request only stays in the United States? How do you validate that there's no…

TikTok isn't a state actor. Contrary to the current American discourse, not everyone in China is a government bot.

All companies in China are under the control of their state. TikTok is a state actor.

No, not everyone in China is a state bot. However, every company has to keep at least a few party members on their board and obey state controls constantly.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#237

Post by [deleted] »

nonethewiser wrote: post #160
bioemerl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should do both. This is detracting from the fact that we have an actively hostile actor with a huge platform here in our country, and that needs to be handled as soon as possible. I totally support broad regulation of privacy law. TikTok is a much deeper concern. I don't like seeing a good cause used to distract from another good cause.

> This is detracting from the fact that we have an actively hostile actor with a huge platform here in our country, and that needs to be handled as soon as possible. Can you clarify what you mean here? I realize people are unhappy with how Elon has run Twitter but who do you expect to do what?

[deleted]

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#238

Post by nanidin »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #232
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still have no strength to quit it by myself. This sounds like addiction? Just delete the app from your phone and move on? You'd be surprised by perfectly fine life goes on without Twitter / Facebook / TikTok / Instagram.

This is massively underselling the difficulty. If you delete your facebook and twitter accounts you lose access to the only customer support channel in many places. If you delete faceboom you lose access to local second hand markets, you lose access to information about community events, you cannot participate in group chats, you get harangued at every social event if you try to share another contact channel.

I haven’t found ostracism for using channels outside of Facebook. I have plenty of friends and acquaintances that I keep in touch with via Snapchat, email, and text.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#239

Post by NERD_ALERT »

bioemerl wrote: post #145
phpisthebest wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>which is why you vote regularly to ensure that your rights are represented and those agencies aren't able to abuse their power That never works out in practice as the administrative state (which includes the FBI and CIA) are soo far removed from representative government they are basically unaccountable at this point, that is with out even getting into the idea that 1 vote in a nation of 350 million plus holds no r…

> "Democracy" is more or less an delusion those in power perpetuate to ensure the cattle think they have a choice I had a much larger post, but I'm going to only respond to this one now, because it sums up basically off the disagreements and no further discussion is going to resolve anything. I don't agree with this sort of cynicism at all, and I very much do believe that while it is very flawed, democracy ultimately…

Ask the citizens of Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Bolivia etc. about how wonderful the CIA is at spreading democracy.

Re: ByteDance confirmed it used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location

#240

Post by pertymcpert »

jahewson wrote: post #201
danrocks wrote: post #173

I often wonder what high-level American executives that work at these Chinese companies feel like, specially when news like this comes to life. Do they feel like they're just doing their job? Are they afraid of getting arrested? Do they think that the massive comp packages they get is worth the risk? Lots of cognitive dissonance going on, I would bet.

[flagged]

Chinese Americans are also Americans.
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