A true patriot supports local spyware!
Please log my IP address. This is a house that loves Managed Democracytm
Please log my IP address.
127.0.0.1Checkmate. We’re watching you.
lol I started DDoSing this losers IP address, good op sec dumba
holdon i have connection issues
laughs in ipv6-only network
Find me now!
Haha you’re wrong! My IP address is actually 192.168.2.1
democracy officers would be proud
Hahahahahah
I guess your world is only black and white ay?
They are being sarcastic.
I don’t discriminate. I say the data protection of all of these services is terrible and you shouldn’t use them.
I think users should embrace data harvesting and passively run chatGPT powered bots to generate more mindless data
Is there some way to trick the chatgpt training bots by intentionally mislabeling data? Like can I upload some
furry pornographytasteful erotica and label it “AP US history assignment - Civil War”?
Yep.
This forced sale of TikTok for national security is a farce because they were already forced to move their service to the US on an American-owned hosting provider, and they have already put people with a history of aligning with “American interests” into executive positions, like CEO Shou Zi Chew and vice president Michael Beckerman. I think the US “intelligence community” already has everything it needs to monitor and control TikTok.
I have a geoIP alias on my firewall and can still see TikTok sending telemetry to a Chinese CDN.
If so, then maybe the US “intelligence community” doesn’t actually see that as a problem, despite the cold war propaganda.
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Anglo in the sense of the Anglosphere, I think: Five Eyes. Five Eyes in basically the inner core of the imperial core.
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It doesn’t matter where the servers are located physically but who can access the data that’s on them
They were physically relocated to the US so that the US can access the data, as people like Edward Snowden and Mark Klein have shown us. I’m sure the US knows precisely what data is and isn’t being sent to China.
23andMe is much, much worse than the others due to the nature of the data it sells.
Also, you don’t actually need to share your own data to be vulnerable. Some stupid relative sharing their genetic information is enough to have some ideas about you. I’m fortunate that it’s hasn’t caught on in my home country.
I feel like caring about heritage in this way is a pretty North-American (or maybe immigrant country in general) thing in the first place
My family won’t like the fact they’re not pure. Best not to kick that hornet’s nest.
How do you mean?
I consider your personal genetic data to be a much more dangerous thing to sell, at least in the long term, compared to browser history.
Even if the corporation that holds onto the genetic data isn’t selling it for profit (which I doubt), they still likely have terrible security on their servers. How many data breaches have there been over the years?
I think it’s arguable. You can control thought with algorithms and feed addictions with browsing history. Both are still dangerous if abused.
Oh right. I forgot what 23&me was
How come every thread I see about this topic, there is nobody who is concerned about letting the federal government dictate which apps you can and cannot use to communicate with other people? This is some 1984 shit.
Because it isn’t new nor special.
Apps are a Service and services have been and are regulated for decades now and the system have been always arbitrary as fuck.
In the case of TikTok, the west, as a military alliance, should be concerned due to the nature of current valid Chinese laws and the implications of it.
And e.g. facebook has proven that they don’t like to stick to rules about how to handle data. In case of TikTok, this could easily have bigger implications for e.g. the American military.
If it’s really about the military as you suggest then the extremely easy solution is to order service members not to use Tik Tok.
Passing a specific law to compell the sale of one specific company is arguably some sort of Bill of Attainder, which I’m sure ByteDance’s lawyers will be argueing as soon as Biden’s pen touches paper.
Well look at that. And no, that isn’t enough from a military perspective. Look at the Russian propaganda war in e.g. Germany, that shit can have a negative effect on the defensive abilities of a nation.
Most of those bans are organizations saying that employees can’t install TikTok on organization issued phones and computers, which is not at all comparable to an overall ban? My work doesn’t allow me to play video games on work computers or drink on work property, but that’s not at all the same as a law banning all video games and alcohol.
Look at the Russian propaganda war in e.g. Germany, that shit can have a negative effect on the defensive abilities of a nation.
Yeah one problem with human and civil rights is that they tend to have negative effects on the defensive abilities of a nation. War would be so much easier if you could just arrest all the peace protestors, or hold suspected enemy agents without trial, or force people to work without pay in defence industries, or force women to give birth to more people so you can conscript more soldiers.
So let’s just do away with free speech and habeus corpus, reinstitute slave labor and force women to pop out lots of kids. Then Germany can defend itself again, just like the last two times.
Aren’t you misunderstanding my point a little bit? My point isn’t that the e.g. us should ban TikTok or that national security is the most important thing ever. My first Point was that there is a national security incentive to ban TikTok in ways that e.g. Facebook doesn’t have, but like you expressed obviously there are other consideration to be made. My first Point was just that TikTok is not like Facebook from an us national security pov. Then you spoke from a ban for service members, to which I simply pointed out that there is one to some degree, especially important as there is a ban on private devices in some environments. Deployment can be reason for the ban. In other words, your suggestion is already in place to some degree. My 2nd point about Russian propaganda is also strictly about the fact that “national security” doesn’t end at the government employee line and suggesting that is ridiculous.
As you might have realized, I haven’t expressed any desire to ban TikTok. That is because I am not in favor of a ban. I am just able to argue a perspective unlike mine own and think it is necessary when people treat Facebook and TikTok the same. Do you think china doesn’t care about where their software is coming from? Do you think no one is avoiding e.g. check point firewall due to e.g. gil shwed and his story with unit 8200?
Well, you can expect China doing the same. This kind of behaviour triggers retalliation.
You might look into the apps they have already banned.
The current situation over in China still allows internet users to easily access services like Facebook or YouTube through VPNs, it was more of a measure of digital protectionism to allow local development of IT companies, online business, etc. If China wants to do similar censorship in response to these measure, they very well could still crack down on VPNs.
They were blocking the bulk of the internet via their great firewall before mobile apps were even a thing
I would say make laws about data collection, usage, etc. instead of banning TikTok.
Heck, fix more important problems like income disparity, hunger, homelessness, healthcare, our wasteful spending, so many things more important and yet we’re wasting time on TikTok.
I don’t think people think this is a good use of time.
Seriously, it’s government overreach and ignoring freedom of speech, etc.
We can agree that there is at least a slight difference in having your own (or a friendly nation’s) Government tracking you, versus allowing a competing nation to have direct access to over half of the adult US population (as per their recent push-notification stunt), as well as a robust collection of their interests and preferences.
There is a reason China has banned most US-based software in the mainland (Meta, Google, etc.); in favour of self-developed alternatives. This is just treatment in kind; it’s not an outright ban, rather a forced sale to prevent more of that user data falling into dubious hands.
I’m not really ok with that type of anti other country behavior in (edit to add the word: almost) any case. Heck, I want cheap Chinese EV options in the US too.
Make government (and other) tracking opt-out-able by law. That is the law we need. Not this bs version.
This current bill literally sounds like it’s written by American companies to squash a foreign competition. You know Facebook, YouTube, etc. are biting at the teeth for more users (and ad revenue) of short form content; especially if TikTok users scattered to other platforms.
Once again: give users the freedom to chose what they want. This is a government overreach.
Yes, there is a difference. Having your own government spy on you is way worse because it has the monopoly on violence over you. No one protects you from that. But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences.
There is a reason for the outrage when PRISM came out of the closet.
But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences.
Oh, like stopping a forogn government from influencing people through a popular app. huh. Good point.
Yes, my point is in this scenario there is a heavy hitter (government) on your site, which makes it a better sutuation than to let your government just prey on you.
Although I would put this under the “try to” category. In my opinion it’s way better to regulate methods rather than names. Then again I would not know how to implement this thought in this scenario.
because it has the monopoly on violence over you
I’ve been hearing this one going for a while, where does it come from? Sounds like a corpofascist slogan.
Probably a bad translation from German. Maybe a better translation would be “force” instead of “violence”. It means only the police is allowed to use force.
Still can’t understand the point of it. Like, is the state ordering that civilians must be defenseless in the face of crime, for example? But yeah in general it just sounds like the usual “I am the Senate” fascist kind of takeover and control of power.
But your government will (try to) protect you from foreign influences That’s what this is, though.
Take a step back and consider for a moment the absolute mayhem TikTok was able to cause through one single push notification to their US user base (>170m, over half the adult population). That is not a power that should be wielded lightly, and definitely not one in the hands of a foreign adversary ready, willing and capable of weaponising it at their whim.
Think of the power that affords them to put their finger on the scale when it comes to the critical upcoming Presidential election, not just directly - but through slight manipulations of the algorithm to engage one political cohort and disenfranchise another.
My point was that there is some institution on your site of that standoff. This will not be the case if you have to fight against your own government. So it’s better to have to fight a foreign government, rather than one’s own.
TikTok is a dangerous influence, yes. I wasn’t trying to argue against that. But then, so are Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter and similar social media. Maybe even all social media.
Other than fighting with shortsighted regulations I don’t know how one would fight such an influence other than widespread education of the people. But that would make them more resilient against any propaganda.
There is a reason China has banned most US-based software in the mainland
I’m not at all saying what the USA is doing is right, but I find it hilarious Beijing is upset about it.
“It’s only OK when we do it!!!”
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TikTok, regardless of the country of origin, is known to be spyware on a much greater level than everything else on this list.
How do you support this assertion beyond just saying “it is known”?
Source: Trust me bro [1]
[1] I don’t like people who look different from me.
Ahhh, typical Hexbear, jumping to the conclusion that I am racist because I said TikTok is bad without any citations. See the other reply in the thread for the citations.
TikTok is not the only company that uses its pixels throughout the internet. The report found Google, Meta and Microsoft, among others, use these trackers.
Your first link has a sentence expressly disproving your own thesis, so in addition to concluding you are a racist, I can also now conclude that you didn’t read your own sources.
Justifying their attacks with claims of superiority, defending the obvious contradictions with equivalence. Classic motte and bailley.
I never said the other companies don’t also track you outside of the app.
TikTok, regardless of the country of origin, is known to be spyware on a much greater level than everything else on this list.
Your citations did not support your claim at all, you’re just openly lying and hoping nobody bothers to check.
I’m not trying to openly lie. If you have any evidence that any of the other platforms are expressly worse than TikTok for privacy, please show me.
Goalpost shifting, your original post said that TikTok is known to be spyware on a much greater level than anything else on this list.
Your statement isn’t true even if you prove that Tiktok is the worst offender on the list. You need to prove that Tiktok is worse to a much higher degree than anything else on that list. Your own source straight out says that at least 3 of the other companies on the list engage in similar practices.
Sure, here are some sources:
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-data-app-report/story?id=97913249
From the very first link:
TikTok is not the only company that uses its pixels throughout the internet. The report found Google, Meta and Microsoft, among others, use these trackers.
Rigorous scholarship there, champ.
Literally none of those sources support your claim that:
TikTok, regardless of the country of origin, is known to be spyware on a much greater level than everything else on this list.
So at this point you’re just knowingly lying and hoping nobody bothers to check your links.
Yeah I remember when TikTok was first getting popular in the States, and some reverse engineer I followed on Twitter posted his findings about it, and it was honestly pretty terrifying. Like unfettered access to your device, regardless of permissions granted, and remote code execution capabilities kind of terrifying. I don’t think Spotify does that lmao
This mean android permissions don’t work and a Google should be hold accountable also
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Nothing beats Instagram, Facebook, Google, Microsoft or Twitter in spyware. Have you heard of the Snowden revelations? These companies provide all their data to US spies.
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“we will harvest your DNA and put a literal implant into your brain”
Spying on user data is a constitutional right of US companies, what are the poor going to live on when they can’t traffic with your data, or when a disgusting red communist company steals their bread? A little more proper patriotism, guys. Bad enough that the EU is cutting the wings of this companies, therefore also don’t use EU apps to make America great again.
Isn’t spotify European?
No, owned by Meta aka Facebook
Well actually IS mostly owned by europe entitities and individual shareholders. Only the founders and some europe capital mamooths had +50% of it
Spottily is a Swedish company
Sweden is not an adversary of the United States.
Is it illegal for Swedish companies to store user data? Is it illegal for them to sell user data? Do they have very strict rules about showing users every time and how data they generate is saved?
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Came here to say this
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Op is just thanking the wrong country.
Just install an alternative app Store like Aurora or install it directly from TikTok sites.
For open source projects, you can also use Obtainium or F-Droid
Oh really? This ban won’t effect people who use (for example) F-Droid to get the app?? That’s great to hear tbh. Hopefully this stupid ass decision will have the effect of turning more people on to FOSS stuff more than it will actually prevent people from using TikTok.
I don’t think they will put it on fdroid, because it has to really be open source to be there, but there’s certainly other app stores which will have it.
How can a ban be enforced? It’s always thru Google app Store or IP, and you can always bypass both.
In Aurora Store there’s TikTok. You can install aurora store here:
In Worst case you can try finding the official tiktok .APK install somewhere
It’s really hard to bypass ip bans. Tik tok in India has been non existent since the ban.
You can use VPN (paid or free) for instance and if the ban is really badly done even by changing the DNS server (which is free) access can be restored.
Nope. You can’t access tiktok through vpn in India. You need a patched/modded app. I live in India and I’ve tried doing that. It’s a non-existent platform here. Bans will affect user engagement.
As a curiosity: how do the system know if you are in India? You said VPN doesn’t work so it’s not thru IP address. What’s it then?
ok, thanks for the info. I don’t know a lot about how this kind of thing works (clearly), I just try to use and support FOSS and “piracy” whenever possible.
Aurora displays currently no app, be it anonymous or with login. Anyone knows why? I need it to reinstall my banking access app, dammit.
Aurora sometimes malfunctions. Try reinstalling it
Thanks, i use APKupdater for now.
Imagine spending the time and effort to make that perfect whatabout meme you spent all day thinking about- only to have people tell you that all of them should be shut down.
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Wtf is Spotify doing?
Gathering and selling your data.
So much data to infer from your music tastes. Listening to music about breakup? You had a breakup yourself. Listening to classical music? You’re a top earner. Listening to Eminem? You like mom’s spaghetti.
I stopped using it as soon as I ordered a takeout of my data and saw they saved my unfinished searches even after I deleted them
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Selling to who?
the service serves ads, anything that will serve ads will also typically create a profile on users preference to then have targetted ads.
Still it’s not American but swedish
What about them ISPs?
A VPN and OpenWrt?
Then the VPN has your data, and also your ISP depending on how secure your setup is
LibreCMC and MullvadVPN?
