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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

#301

Post by eimrine »

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-…

Actually half of Russian internets went south. Do you, Ukrainian, want to google something on your mother language? Use Tor or wait tens of years while Ukrainian-speaking folks use to speak enough for you to be able to google anything on cyrillic languages. Seems like you, English speaker, do not help your not-English speaking nation a lot.

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

#302

Post by hayst4ck »

lmm wrote: post #297
hayst4ck wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I, we're nobodies with no power. We share a country with people who do have power. The power they exercise impacts our lives. Those people have weaknesses. Those weaknesses can be exploited. If you ran an intelligence service, you might want to identify targets, prioritize targets, and potentially create a graph of social connections. Tiktok provides picture data (geolocation, timestamps, hashes, potentially…

> You perceive the government to be a bigger threat because of how you imagine you might exercise power, maybe you want to unionize, maybe you worry about police abuse, maybe you worry someone might take your guns, maybe you hate taxes. That misses the bigger picture... out of the following people, would you prefer them to be "compromised" by the CIA or by China? Soldier, Politician, Judge, CEO, Engineer, nuclear sci…

I say this in good faith: I don't understand what you are trying to express.

Can you give concrete examples of who the CIA would want to jail or not? Why do CIA employees lose when regular Joes gain and regular Joes gain when CIA employees lose?

Who decides who should or shouldn't be sent weapons. How informed do you think you are compared to the people who make the orders to route money or send weapons?

I am not a CIA lover by an means. At best the CIA supports countries like Ukraine and Taiwan. At worst CIA plays "realpolitik" and puts American interests, particularly those of Americas upper class/aristocrats, first.

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

#303

Post by MisterMower »

Bud wrote: post #56
partiallypro wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually liked the Trump method, which was to force them to sell the US arm to a US company and sever it from the Chinese. I don't know why that never came to fruition; it looked like it was nearly a done deal (Microsoft was the leading bidder.) Making a competitor from scratch would just open up the userbase to another state actor, though it could give a window for a Vine return.

Except that this story reveals the obvious reason this wouldn't work. How do you reliably keep that US "arm" from being co-opted? How do you make sure that the software isn't phoning home to China regardless of what the US arm does? Oracle and Walmart reportedly at that time brokered a deal to run the US arm of TikTok. Do you trust them? Walmart certainly isn't politically neutral, by any stretch. Meanwhile, Larry El…

> Oracle and Walmart reportedly at that time brokered a deal to run the US arm of TikTok. Do you trust them?

Well, I trust them more than I trust China. I guess we should have done nothing instead?

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

#304

Post by lmm »

bioemerl wrote: post #138
8note wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should do the one because it covers both cases. A TikTok that doesn't have the ability to do bad things isn't an issue. Focusing on TikTok pretends that it's the only hostile actor with a large platform in that needs to be handled asap You can handle Facebook and TikTok at the same time by putting in strong privacy regulations, along with all the other similar hostile actors

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…

> 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 communication between the two systems?

> The state they operate in is going to make whistle blowing very difficult, not ever allow proper auditing into the state apparatus which ultimately controls the company.

You can have auditing and whistleblowing on the US entity (and include a promise of asylum in the whistleblowing protection), and big fines if they ever send data offshore.

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

#305

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

chitowneats wrote: post #298
bitwize wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am afraid of China. China has developed missiles that can evade our ability to detect them until it's too late. Meanwhile our military is busy with initiatives like... declaring "Sir" and "Ma'am" as gendered language that should be eliminated. The fact that American boys are increasingly preferring video games to sports should also worry you. There is a shortage of fit young American men for special-ops programs li…

> The fact that American boys are increasingly preferring video games to sports should also worry you. You should not worry about the fighting ability of the average Chinese man vs the average American man. U.S. has the most violence-ready population of young men on Earth, and it's not close. Maybe Latin America or parts of Africa and the Middle East beat us in terms of willingness to commit violence, but we have muc…

>U.S. has the most violence-ready population of young men on Earth, and it's not close

Can confirm. I have seen South Park.

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

#306

Post by autoexec »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #276
nier wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was surprising to me seeing the news with Ukrainian soldiers using TikTok out in the field.

It's value as a morale/propaganda tool might out weigh the security concerns

What does tiktok offer in that respect that youtube or just about any other social media platform supporting video couldn't also provide?

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

#307

Post by monocasa »

autoexec wrote: post #306
jbigelow76 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's value as a morale/propaganda tool might out weigh the security concerns

What does tiktok offer in that respect that youtube or just about any other social media platform supporting video couldn't also provide?

It's something that GenZ actually uses that is run by a friendly state.

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

#308

Post by autoexec »

posguy wrote: post #246
nanidin wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I certainly feel ostracized for not having a Facebook account. Chambers of Commerce, Community Groups, and it feels like most queer people expect you to be on Facebook, and if you aren't your on the outside. Its very similar to not being a blue bubble in some regards, but Facebook has a much broader scope than just being a messenger platform. Excited for the EU to fix the closed messenger issue, then I can have 3rd p…

I'm very much okay with being ostracized by people who don't care enough about me to stay in touch outside of social media. I actually prefer to be ostracized by anyone who'd judge me for bubble color.

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

#309

Post by philwelch »

monocasa wrote: post #307
autoexec wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does tiktok offer in that respect that youtube or just about any other social media platform supporting video couldn't also provide?

It's something that GenZ actually uses that is run by a friendly state.

China is a “friendly state”?

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

#310

Post by precommunicator »

eimrine wrote: post #301
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-…

Actually half of Russian internets went south. Do you, Ukrainian, want to google something on your mother language? Use Tor or wait tens of years while Ukrainian-speaking folks use to speak enough for you to be able to google anything on cyrillic languages. Seems like you, English speaker, do not help your not-English speaking nation a lot.

TBH, that applies to anyone. In any field, especially technology, googling in English gives you much better results than in native language. (except country-specific knowledge).
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