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TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

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271–280 of 426 posts

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#271

Social media access to user data (whether foreign or domestic) is bad, but it is a distraction from the real evil: behavioral management at scale. When you can target specific demographics and control what they see 8-10 hours of the day, you can change what they think, say, do, and most importantly, how they vote. People are literally being programmed (euphemistically, "conditioned") by the specific triggers and stim…

This is exactly what Russia did in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The Trump campaign gave voter polling data to Konstatin Kilimnik. Russia then proceeded to exploit Facebook to target swing voters, and Trump won because of 80k voters across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the worms put on phones of employees of various tech companies - specifically datacenter employees in various commerical and government agencies - recall the STRAVA scandal which revealed secret military bases... The TikTok angle is like stuxnet for that type of corporate/gov espionage.... Its ludicris how poorly the USG has handled this. But then again, you have so many people in congress with dual citizensh…

If you want dual citizens to be ineligible for congress then just do that, it doesn't have to be a crime...

[flagged]

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#273

Social media access to user data (whether foreign or domestic) is bad, but it is a distraction from the real evil: behavioral management at scale. When you can target specific demographics and control what they see 8-10 hours of the day, you can change what they think, say, do, and most importantly, how they vote. People are literally being programmed (euphemistically, "conditioned") by the specific triggers and stim…

> When you can target specific demographics > control what they see > People are literally being programmed [...] by the specific triggers I hate marketing/PR as much as the next person, but have become part of daily life. How do we get rid of it? Outlaw the practice of trying to influence people by marketing? Edit: Rereading your comment I realize you're talking about something else, but I guess the same applies non…

Not sure you can eliminate it, but you can certainly reduce the impact and scale by fighting anti-competitive behavior . A major reason this sort of mass manipulation is so lucrative and effective is because you only have operate on a couple of platforms to reach a majority of eyeballs.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#274
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't. "Propaganda" is a western word for any argument coming from the eastern enemies of the state, and "Brainwashing" is a western word for being convinced by them. The way we control behavior is by depriving people of unfiltered information, not showing them cat videos and remembering if they liked them.

Not everywhere, which is a good thing. A year ago I saw (and thoroughly enjoyed) an exhibition of 80's arts posters in Spain. What struck me were the description labels, and especially the terminology used. Where the English part described something as "advertising", the Spanish descriptions unashamedly used the word "propaganda". Let's not fool ourselves. The mechanisms of advertising have been lifted, adapted and f…

...the Spanish descriptions unashamedly used the word "propaganda"

That's not what you think. At the time it was common to use that word instead of publicidad to mean advertising. A construction typical from Latin, propaganda just meant it's made to be propagated, similar to addenda, Amanda or Miranda.

Now it's limited to politics in Spanish too. People working with ads didn't like the connotations of the term, understandably :)

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#275
post #8
post #3

I'm starting to become fatigued by all this TikTok news. Either ban the app or don't. Causing anxiety over TikTok without any action is the worst of both worlds.

So rather than exposing the cost/benefits of an app, you just want the government to make a decision about what methods of communication are available to everyone? And instead of making a thorough case why a particular method has to be banned for good reasons tangential to the content, you want them to make that choice and announce it? I think banning very invasive social media until it minimizes tracking is a reason…

Banning TikTok until it minimizes tracking pushes the blame onto TikTok (unfairly IMHO). Apps all have the same Android/iOS permissions to work with, so if there's really a problem, the Govt should consult with OS vendors on tightening controls across the board.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#276
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ultimately you are in control of your eyeballs and your time. Stop watching! There are people making hundreds of thousands of dollars whose sole job is to get you locked into a feedback loop in these apps. We are engineering addiction.

Why would TikTok or FaceBook not engineer addiction? It generates more money for them. If they don't engineer addiction, another company will emerge and engineer addiction. I think this type of problem has to be solved by the government.

Reminds me of the famous saying,

> I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#277
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would TikTok or FaceBook not engineer addiction? It generates more money for them. If they don't engineer addiction, another company will emerge and engineer addiction. I think this type of problem has to be solved by the government.

My point was, my parent was in a sense blaming the victim for not peeling their eyes away from the screen when literally millions of dollars of thought and effort went into making sure that they don't. I agree that in the absence of direct negative consequences it seems unlikely we will see a change in the status quo.

No, to be clear I wasn’t “in a sense” blaming the victim. I’m directly blaming anyone who hates their relationship with TikTok and leaves the app on their phone and continues to watch it.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not Chinese, hi. The US is collecting vastly more data from our social media companies and using it to launch drone strikes that actually kill people. Nobody is outraged by this, it's "normal". Why should I be more outraged at this story?

Nobody is asking you to choose which story to be more outraged about. Just that you really should stick to the topic at hand. Otherwise why not bring up that car accidents are a much bigger problem than social media.

"Condemning the actions of a foreign government" and "condemning similar actions by your own government" seem a little more related and on-topic than "social media and car crashes".

And in my own personal opinion, that's especially true if those questionable actions by your own government overshadow any other similar effort both in scope, size and funding by several orders of magnitude when compared to the rest of the world.

This obsession with shills is unhealthy. I'm glad there's a rule against it.

I'm not Chinese either, and I find it quite sad that you have to state that in here sometimes just to be taken seriously, or else be called a shill.

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US generally imprisons only those people who commit serious crimes. There are likely some biases that result in imperfect application of the law. We’re working on it. China imprisons and enslaves people simply for being members of the “wrong” ethnic group. Please explain how these are even close to the same thing.

China doesn't "enslave" people for being from the wrong ethnic group. These claims are a fiction of Adrian Zenz. The US actually "enslaves" people from the wrong ethnic group at Guantanamo.

How many people are at Guantanamo?

The answer is about 30 people vs. about a million innocent Uyghurs in Chinese internment camps.

All of the things I mention are easily verifiable by credible sources while you are (for some reason) parroting CCP taking points. Hmm…

Re: TikTok Owner Had 'Backdoor' for CCP Access to US Data, Lawsuit Alleges

#280

Social media access to user data (whether foreign or domestic) is bad, but it is a distraction from the real evil: behavioral management at scale. When you can target specific demographics and control what they see 8-10 hours of the day, you can change what they think, say, do, and most importantly, how they vote. People are literally being programmed (euphemistically, "conditioned") by the specific triggers and stim…

This is exactly what Russia did in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The Trump campaign gave voter polling data to Konstatin Kilimnik. Russia then proceeded to exploit Facebook to target swing voters, and Trump won because of 80k voters across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

That is one of thousands of reasons, yes.
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