American TikTok user data stored in China, video app admits
American TikTok user data stored in China, video app admits
Revelation comes after intense public scrutiny over national security fears
Chinese company storing user data in China is non-news unless I'm missing something.
I suppose them "previously suggesting it was all on servers within America" and now admitting that that was false begs the question what else have they lied about?
Wasn't the thing about banning TikTok about where they store US user data (and who can access it)?
And afaik EU has similar rule for EU citizens? Someone who actually knows shit, please enlighten me.
The EU does have a law about it in GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations). The US doesn't currently have any laws against it, but the US is going after China specifically.
The US has made executive orders against software on edge routers, but nothing enforceable about end user data. There was an agreement Oracle would host TikTok's American data to appease the US
Man it’s almost like the US needs sweeping data privacy laws with strict and threatening fiscal consequences that scale with a companies gross income for any violations.
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:
- I've looked for the "source" of the leaked guidelines from the Guardian, but I can not find them. They only say that someone from The Guardian has access to these leaks. The rest of the evidence of censorship is anecdotal at best, unless you have a more direct source.
- Data collection is done by all in app browsers from major social media platforms, not just TikTok. Don't believe me? Then let's ask the guy who wrote the report. What's the name of that report again? Oh it's iOS Privacy: Instagram and Facebook can track anything you do on any website in their in-app browser. Why do none of the hundreds of articles mention that? It should be noted that as of this comment you can open any webpage in your native browser in TikTok. Seems strange to only be talking about TikTok in this regard.
- Again, this article is citing something they have "obtained" and yet, won't post for the public to consume. Unless you have the information the cnn is reporting on, we can't know for sure what it even says. We know that the employees in question were fired apparently, and that the IP address used to connect to TikTok was viewed, but no information on the intentions and from what I can tell, nothing was published. Regardless, in a linked article from the CNN article, it's mentioned that: Uber was delivering politicians a different version of their app to avoid regulations.. This information should make you outraged, but it won't because the US media has decided this is not something you should worry about. There were no congressional hearings about this, no outrage, no endless news reports.
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.
Shocking…
Surprise Pikachu
Shocking! A Chinese company lying, cheating and abusing users data. Impossible I say.
Oh wait. It's wholly expected.Glad I never signed up for it
I have, and I’d genuinely be curious to know what data they have of mine and how it threatens national security.
@L4s I thought everyone knew Tiktok was a Chinese data harvesting company
This reminds me of the last week tonight episode with edward snowden.
It was about privacy and the people interviewed didn't care until the question was phrased if it were dickpics the government had access to.
The interview with snowden starts around 14:00
and the fragment about the dickpics around 25:00.
This isn't news, they even talked about this in the Senate hearing and proposed a plan to do it in the US.
I'm shocked, shocked, shocked! I tell you. Ok maybe not that shocked.
What a twist...
Didn't the tiktok CEO say that's not happening in a recent hearing? :Shocked Pikachu:
I think he said that they're working on getting it all transferred to the US by the end of the year.
no way
This is such a fucking stupid statement and I've seen it in every thread discussing this shit.
Just because its obvious doesn't make finding more evidence of it not news. This sort of "well duh" attitude plays right into normalizing the idea that hostile foreign governments are spying on us so effectively that im convinced it was started by 50 cent army posters who convinced regular dipshits that it was some brilliant and hilarious response.
Its not funny. Its not clever. It basically derails any discussion because "so obvious, I already like, knew that." Honestly shut the fuck up if you have nothing to contribute and take your low effort bullshit back to reddit.
No, I get your point. In real life I'm more adamant about advocating our right to privacy when the subject comes up, only, here, we're all techies. But I should be more careful not to gaslight myself into thinking this is normal when it shouldn't be.
Now that I think about it, in the past, I sort of remember getting annoyed at some people who similarly dismissed a privacy concern with 'witty' responses on Twitter. It pained me because, from their profiles, I could clearly see they were slaves to all the big privacy-intruding social networks, and it pained me to see that people truly didn't care in the least about their right to privacy.
Shocking.
I do not get why every government (politicians) cares about where the data is stored. Just because it is stored in their preferred country does not make it less accessible for the company managing the data. They have to understand that computer networks exist and enable access from anywhere.
Let’s see, we have a screen name, and an email or phone number. Then we have all the public videos you post and the public videos you like. None of that is private personal information. The worst I could find is that you can give access to it to search your contacts for more TikTok users. Also, there is a chat feature. Maybe people are using the chat with an expectation that it is secure?
I don’t like China either, but to get anything usable for espionage out of it China would have to set up AI systems that dig through the data looking for specific topics of conversation and then match those conversations to a list of users through the contacts list. I feel like it is a security risk, but far more relevant to Chinese citizens than US citizens, whom China has no control over. China has no reason to care if you talk shit about President Xi. For a Chinese citizen however, that is a different story.
US firms such as Google, Facebook, and Snapchat have far more data about you. They literally know your location at any moment and the contents of your cell phone. They know the contents of your private text messages, private photos, and private videos. Google develops a profile about you that can literally predict where you will be at any time of the day and guess where you work (they also share some of this info with you). All of this data is presumably stored in the USA, the same country that actually has power over you, if you are American. It can also be subpoenaed at any time or the data can be just willingly shared en mass with the 3 letter agencies at any time.
The TikTok boogeyman hides the actual personal data holders you should be concerned about.
Oh no my sensitive data is in a country that has no control over me. Better get that somewhere where it could actually bite me in the ass.
Oof, bad take city