Before I would get any itch to join the TikTok trend back when it started, I heard that the Chinese Communist Party was collecting some worrying amount of information on their user base, has been suppressing and/or blocking content that raised voice about the uyghur situation and did various nasty things. So I thought I would stay away from that until the situation improves. I have never heard a fraction of information about that happening. Did everyone just suddenly stop caring about how disgustingly TikTok treats privacy and user data (and how they suppress voices they don’t like), or did I just simply miss the bit where they stopped doing all those things?
Because that’s one of the many reasons I haven’t touched it with a stick.
I don’t use TikTok, but a lot of the concern is just overblown China bad stuff (CCP does suck, but that doesn’t mean you have to be reactionary about everything Chinese).
There is no direct evidence that the CCP has some back door to grab user data, or that it’s directing suppression of content. It’s just not a real thing. The fear mongering has been about what the CCP could force ByteDance to do, given their power over Chinese firms. ByteDance itself has been trying to reassure everyone that that wouldn’t happen, including by storing US user data on US servers out of reach of the CCP (theoretically anyway).
You stopped hearing about this because that’s politics, new shinier things popped up to get people angry about. North Dakota or whatever tried banning TikTok and got slapped down on first amendment grounds. Politicians lost interest, and so did the media.
Now that’s not to say TikTok is great about privacy or anything. It’s just that they are the same amount of evil as every other social media company and tech company making money from ads.
It’s literally just racism. People act like other social media platforms aren’t just as bad about privacy because they sell your information instead of giving it directly to the government.
The vast majority of people don’t actually care about any of the issues you raised. They care more about fitting in with their friends and engineered dopamine hits.
Before I would get any itch to join the TikTok trend back when it started, I heard that the Chinese Communist Party was collecting some worrying amount of information on their user base, has been suppressing and/or blocking content that raised voice about the uyghur situation and did various nasty things. So I thought I would stay away from that until the situation improves. I have never heard a fraction of information about that happening. Did everyone just suddenly stop caring about how disgustingly TikTok treats privacy and user data (and how they suppress voices they don’t like), or did I just simply miss the bit where they stopped doing all those things?
Because that’s one of the many reasons I haven’t touched it with a stick.
I don’t use TikTok, but a lot of the concern is just overblown China bad stuff (CCP does suck, but that doesn’t mean you have to be reactionary about everything Chinese).
There is no direct evidence that the CCP has some back door to grab user data, or that it’s directing suppression of content. It’s just not a real thing. The fear mongering has been about what the CCP could force ByteDance to do, given their power over Chinese firms. ByteDance itself has been trying to reassure everyone that that wouldn’t happen, including by storing US user data on US servers out of reach of the CCP (theoretically anyway).
You stopped hearing about this because that’s politics, new shinier things popped up to get people angry about. North Dakota or whatever tried banning TikTok and got slapped down on first amendment grounds. Politicians lost interest, and so did the media.
Now that’s not to say TikTok is great about privacy or anything. It’s just that they are the same amount of evil as every other social media company and tech company making money from ads.
It’s literally just racism. People act like other social media platforms aren’t just as bad about privacy because they sell your information instead of giving it directly to the government.
The vast majority of people don’t actually care about any of the issues you raised. They care more about fitting in with their friends and engineered dopamine hits.