• Netrunner@programming.dev
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    2 months ago

    Has anyone actually looked at their network traffic whilst TikTok is running? I’ve already isolated my partners phone because it’s so bad.

    I am against blocking shit online but since it’s being done against my will at least it’s that shit hole.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I’ve worked in mobile development before. We hide the traffic by batching it, sending it through i.e. Google Play Services (so it looks like Google traffic), or simply sending it all to a relay server so it doesn’t look diverse. In any case, all your apps are doing this, and the ones that want to hide it, can.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        Tik Tok likely isn’t going anywhere, they’ll sell to someone able to keep it up and running. The Tik Tok allowed in China isn’t the same one, so they don’t have to worry about data being pulled from their citizens.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            Why do you think that? That’s an aggressive claim. I don’t use it, but thats because it isn’t my idea of fun, obviously many like it. Data collection happens everywhere, are you referring to kids eating tide pods or something?

    • Dupree878@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The biggest problem is them doing illegal shit like scanning all your photos instead of just what you pick

        • ECB@feddit.org
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          2 months ago

          It’s less about that and more about stopping an extremely powerful attack vector currently active in your own country.

          Literally the biggest reason why the western world is in such a giant political crisis is the weaponization of social media.

          • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            100%

            Social media 15 years ago: cat pics and friends.

            Social media today: shit you didn’t subscribe to, but shows up anyway to push wedge issues in to things you enjoy.

            • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              Yeah, kinda miss that era. Luckily Lemmy emulates kinda well, just wish that there were more proper old school forums for nich but large communities like NCD or Rimworld.

            • aquafunkalisticbootywhap@lemmy.sdf.org
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              2 months ago

              had youtube open in a new private window on a vpn connection the other day after clicking a link to a video about the new raspberry pi compute module

              was scrolling down thru one of the top comment threads and noticed, sandwiched between relevant tech videos on the right? some talking head, designed to enrage (as opposed to inform) fox news video about nothing related.

              I think Im just done with youtube for the forseeable future. if your profit model requires inducing engagement like that, your product isnt good enough to stand on its own, and/or you’re ok with being shitty to make more money. either way, I want nothing to do with you at that point.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      2 months ago

      They aren’t banning it because China can see what you put on it, they’re banning it because China can control what you see from it.

        • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          There’s no evidence that China can control what’s shown on a China-owned app?

          In case you’re still unaware, the China govt is the ultimate authority within China, even in private companies. More so after recent crackdowns on their oligarchs and billionaires. The idea that they have no control over tiktok is plain laughable.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            TikTok has gone out of their way to show they’ve siloed American operations. There has been no evidence that the Chinese government could or would breach that.

            • AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              So you’re arguing that TikTok US, despite being fully owned and controlled by China, has full independence and decision making capability? Even regular western companies don’t have that. What the home office says, goes. At most, their American operations are making sure they’re abiding by US law with regards to data and such (and even then I’d highly doubt that, given all the forensic breakdowns about TikTok sending encrypted data to China).

              • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                If it sends encrypted data to China it would be the first I’ve heard of it. The worst the news could come up with last time is headcount data. And yes they went on an entire project to silo it. At the end of the day they want the money, and TikTok shop provides it. Other than that they sell the same info Meta does on the open market.

                • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 months ago

                  I really don’t think China is nearly as interested in siphoning data as controlling the algorithm. Getting people to see more pro-Chinese videos, more anti-US videos, and some bias toward candidates they want to see win is completely doable without exfiltrating any data.

                  Basically, all the stuff people are pissed about Musk doing to Twitter (changing algo to push right wing content) are just as feasible for TikTok to do, with the main difference being China is a state actor, whereas Musk is a private billionaire.

                  We should be very worried about any social media app that’s very popular and controlled by an org with political motivations.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  If it sends encrypted data to China it would be the first I’ve heard of it.

                  No shit. Do you think they would tell everyone? Do you think it would be easy to prove?

        • Moc@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Inversely, they’re banning it because the US cannot control what is posted on it— regardless of whether the central party in China can (they can and they do though so I am not sure why you’re debating it).

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Really? Then you can point to the news article that lays out evidence of that actually happening and not just quoting FUD?

            What the government wants out of this is to make an example. Then whenever they want something from Meta, Google, Apple, X, etc, they’re going to remind them of TikTok while pointing to the third section of the definition for foreign control. The catch all that says the app can be considered foreign if the government claims the owner has been unduly influenced by a foreign entity.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Banning TikTok would actually help the Democrats though, so it will probably be reversed

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            Sure, I’m just saying that Republicans are taking over and they rely on the disinformation machine to have a chance to get elected so banning TikTok goes against their interests.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      Theater.

      Cybersec is hard. There are always more holes. China exports a LOT of stuff with holes. We can do little more than stick our fingers in the dyke. This looks like they’re doing something.

      What they’re not going to expect is how much people hate them for taking their entertainment away.

          • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            What are you suggesting? That Congress didn’t force TikTok to hand over control is US servers years ago? You didn’t see it in the news at the time, or you just don’t believe it?

            Or do you think China has been censoring on behalf of the state dept?

            • rumba@lemmy.zip
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              2 months ago

              I think they still get all the data of what goes off the servers, and I think that the Chinese side of the company still has ultimate control over what gets displayed.

              The servers being in the US means that the Chinese government doesn’t have to have access to the servers but it doesn’t mean that they still don’t have the equivalent situation silently going on.

              • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                I really don’t care if China gets my data. They don’t have any jurisdiction over me. I’m concerned about domestic surveillance.

    • MimicJar@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Because it’s bad if China has the information. It’s fine if “US entity” had the information. The ban is ultimately fake. No one banning the app cares about TikTok, they just hate that China is getting the information they want. What will happen is some US based company, Oracle last time, but someone like that will buy a sufficient enough stake in the company and the ban will not happen. It will be declared “safe” and the data will go to a US controlled entity, but also still secretly to China. (The later will be revealed years later, to the shock of no one.)

      • gcheliotis@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Because when US politicians advocate for a single, global market, and a single, global internet, it is with the understanding that US firms and allied parties will dominate the space anyway. When that is no longer the case they get about as nervous as the Chinese got when they went and built the Great Firewall and made a clone of every popular western platform. Now that US/Western dominance is seriously challenged, we are seeing more and more signs of protectionism.

      • actually@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        That and labor organizing, environmental awareness, and many other things where the absence helps the rich get wealthier .

        It’s also just a blatant theft; there is a lot of money to be made here however it goes down , and that money goes to connected arseholes

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It also broadcasts propaganda disproportionately highly and harmful ideologies as much as that little list of yours.

          On its face the platform itself is neither good nor bad, but the massive theft of identifying information, photos, and personal conversations leading to increasingly common hacking and theft from Chinese sources tips the scales a bit.

  • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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    2 months ago

    This week on How to Raise an Entire Generation With an Intimate Knowledge of Counter-Surveillance: Ban Their Favourite Social Media!

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      This week on the Effectiveness of Foreign Influence Campaigns on Impressionable Youths: Young people refuse to even consider that TikTok might be bad.

      • trolololol@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Next week on effectiveness of foreign influence campaigns: muricans don’t spy on me. Except when they do it’s for my own good and protection. Except if it’s not for my own good it’s important to sell my data so they keep running. Except when they accept state agents to buy ad in bulk to influence elections

      • 0xD@infosec.pub
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        2 months ago

        That is true for all social media. Everything is being used for disinformation campaigns, that is not why TikTok is being banned.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Yeah but the others are US companies. They can be regulated. Which they don’t want and they will at least make an effort to get rid of at least the obvious disinformation.

          With TikTok, there is no middle ground. Can’t keep them in line with the threat of regulation as they’re a foreign company. Operating in the country that has superseded Russia as the biggest source of disinformation. The only leverage they have is the threat to ban it outright.

          Besides, Zuckerberg and Musk live in the US. They don’t want things to get too bad. Though they’re so disconnected from reality they may inadvertently make things bad. But they at least have an incentive to not have the US go to shit.

          With TikTok, US cities could burn to the ground and they’ll still be fine. And we see TikTok making people particularly unhinged already.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    ITT: Braindeads defending government censorship of the internet as if Zuckerberg won’t immediately replace the void with his own platform or by buying out TikTok in a bid.

    Banning one platform would not magically get rid of short attention span and brainrot you fools. Every social media company already copied or utilizes the same techniques as TikTok, which is already a massive platform because they don’t spam ban or regulate content as hard as Facebook and YouTube do.

    It is insulting that a Chinese run social media platform provides more freedom of speech online than its US competitors.

    They’re banning it to remove competition, congress does not care about its effects on privacy or health, otherwise they’d have done something about Faceebook, Insta, Twiiter, and YouTube decades ago. They pulled their usual committee shenanigans to pretend to care by calling in CEOs to testify, and then promptly accepting a shitload of lobbying money.

    • Trantarius@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Absolutely none of this law was ever about privacy or mental health. No one ever claimed it was. The law is banning tiktok because it is based in China. That is the reason given by the law itself. The possibility that meta or Google or some other American company will buy or replace tiktok and operate the same way is not an unintended outcome. It is literally the whole point of the law to get bytedance to sell tiktok to an American company.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        2 months ago

        Hence them saying it’s braindead to say otherwise.

        What would be interesting to see is if other countries ban Facebook because it’s a “national security risk” lol.

        • maplebar@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          From China’s perspective, Facebook probably IS a “national security risk”, which is why it is already banned over there.

          For American to do business and sell products in China, they almost always have to go through a Chinese company. I’m sure that’s part capitalism and part accountability theater, but it’s just a fact. So why is it such an outrage for America to ask TikTok to do the same?

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            Throw in that Tik Tok is banned in China, so it won’t be a national security risk for them to sell it, just profit and then have to invest that money into other forms

          • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            Google is even banned in China. Most Western social media and tech platforms are banned there, and have been for decades.

    • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Agree on this except I have doubts that this statement is true

      It is insulting that a Chinese run social media platform provides more freedom of speech online than its US competitors.