TikTok. Never downloaded it. Never will. Never have seen it. Hope I don't.

Microsoft vs China. Do you actually trust one more than the other with the data?

I get that Trump is mad at TikTok because he thinks they caused such a poor turnout at a rally, but politicians from both sides like to talk smack about it.

But I do hope this is a topic at a Biden v Trump debate, regardless of whether it's been banned or bought by Microsoft (which Trump would claim is a big win. big win. biggest win ever). I just want to hear Biden say TikTok ten times on live TV and pretend to know what it is.

I don't remember MTV collecting my personal information... hmmmm

MS may have bad motives, but they're not as bad as those of an overtly adversarial dictatorship.

Have you seen Jersey Shore? I'm not into TicToc, I have no idea what it is all about. With all the rumours of the Chinese government's use I don't think it is a good idea to use it.

I don't know what MS will do with TikTok.... OS integration ... shudder.

Everyone in the /dev/security community has been SCREAMING about it for YEARS. Don't make it a partisan issue. The same people beating up Hong Kong protesters, run the app. It works pretty simple in China. China will "invest" in any plausible company you want to start, but in return, they own you and can do anything for "national security" reasons. The people who made "the great firewall of china", and over 70% of all world internet attacks, aren't magically forgetting about Tik Tok.

Anyone who complained about having "amazon in your room spying on you" is a massive hypocrite if they're not alarmed by literally sending videos of underage children to the Chinese government.

Tik Tok, AFAICT, is nothing more than a new app version of Vine. Which was US until Twitter bought it just to close it down. PEOPLE are the content. The app is irrelevent.

Because it has been proven that the app is literally stealing any data it can from users, not just videos, but phone locations, contact information, etc.

While Google, Amazon, and Facebook are evil, spying companies; the difference is, they're still beholden to US law. If we make a privacy law, they follow it. They've been subpoena'd numerous times and comply with them. How many EU websites have you been to that had you click "accept" to allowing cookies? Hundreds? It's a silly law, but they follow it.

Because there's clear intent to do direct harm to their customers. They want it to become popular so they can then get information to blackmail people, as well as find information people accidentally leak. Like the child of an NSA employee posting the inside of their house. Or, the app straight up snoops your browsing history.

Aside from security concerns: China literally "boosts" pretty people and hides "ugly and disabled" people from Tik Tok. If anyone has any "ethical" standard that they scream about US corporations, they're hypocrites if they don't scream at Tik Tok. If YouTube was banning "ugly" people to make their service look more attractive, you're damn sure people would protest and try to ban it.

Lastly, Tik Tok is NOT the only corporation that has come under scrutiny. Anyone painting it as "dangerous because they're a competitor to the US" is B.S.ing you. They also targeted Huewai because they were again, literally spying on people with their hardware built for... wait for it... the Chinese government.

The word "No" to the CCP does not exist in the Chinese language unless you want to end up dead.

[edit] Also, India already banned Tik Tok and other Chinese apps for the same reasons. Nobody is saying "omg Indians are racist" or "omg, they're just mad tik tok messed up an Indian rally" or "omg, Indians are just trying to prop up Indian competitors." Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.................... when you can't point to "orange man bad" all a sudden their actions seem reasonable.

@chris - Sounds like the app breaks Google and Apple's ToS. Google and Apple are American. They would do no harm. Why haven't they banned it? Or are you and the Internet the only person who knows about it?

PS: I think the only people (outside TikTok itself) that would hold Trump in contempt if it were banned are the kids who use the app. And they'd blame whoever the administration is because, well, they are kids.

Ultimately the problem is that browsers and phones know a LOT about us, and there is not nearly enough user control over how that data is collected and copied by software. Those with the power to fix it won't: they get very rich monetizing our data. In reality, no device should be handing any data over to any app without asking the user for permission first. And to prevent apps from failing/refusing services to those that refuse to offer data, we need mechanisms built into the software and user interface to feed dummy data instead of outright refusing data. Essentially, generate a completely fake profile and feed that data to apps that ask for it. That's how our hardware and software should work. And that's how it would work if we were in control of it. We need to take back control of it.

Note: governments are hacking all of our devices to steal data. This is not unique to China. My government does it. Your government does it. Russia obviously does it. All developed countries, and even some under-developed countries, are spying on everyone like crazy.

In terms of government's stealing data I don't think that's the major concern here. It is a concern, but the only solution is encrypt everything and change the laws so that we all have the right to NOT reveal keys/passwords to governments. Fat chance of any governments allowing that anytime soon (but kudos to everybody that tries).

Facebook does not obey the law. They take what they want, and take their slap on the wrist when they get caught. They've been blatantly abusing user data since day one. That's how they became so big.

We should not be trusting American corporations or European corporations either. We should not be trusting anyone implicitly with ANY data. It's time we took our data back.

TikTok is more shit than any meme site. I'm not interested. do whatever you want.

Kill each other for TikTok.

[quote]
Kill each other for TikTok.
[/quote]
WWIII

Yay, Derezo is back! You missed all the fun.

I thought so, but there has been very little participation so far. I'm the only one drunk OR stoned on the call, and the most people we've ever had at once is 2.

Agreed and agreed. I think the idea is dead until we get more interest... I figured more people would be interested just for the social aspect, but I guess not.