IMO the data privacy angle is not super important. There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
> There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway.
- GPS Location
- Wifi connections
- Social graphs (phone contacts, as well as inference through locality)
- Dynamic Social interests (how long you watch a video, what videos you tend to watch the most, adapts over time)
- There's a keylogger in the in-app browser
- They are able to influence certain ideas (i.e. propaganda) because they control your feed and can target propaganda and a near personal level
This is a lot of important information that has a lot of power. But you come back and say
> IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
So I just want to make sure that we connect the bridge. The privacy angle and propaganda angle are one in the same to the privacy community. It is the information gathered that is used to dictate the dopamine hit/propaganda. We need to be clear about these being being part of the same system or else people mindlessly state "nothing to hide, nothing to fear." Data collection is about influence. After all, what are ads if not attempts to influence you? (ads don't just sell products either. Another common misconception)
While there is the concern about invasion of privacy the nuance of the conversation is that the invasion of privacy erodes our free will as it is used to influence us. Obviously there's a complicated part of what is good and bad influence but surely we can agree that influence from a foreign nation that doesn't have our best interest in minds is not a good influence.
I'm far more worried about Google. Google is practically unavoidable, and has connections to US Intelligence who can actually harm me. I've never used TikTok, and if I had it's not like the CCP can do anything to me anyway so I wouldn't care as much.
> it's not like the CCP can do anything to me anyway so I wouldn't care as much.
Why do you think this is true? Do you not believe that foreign entities attempt to influence adversaries?
To flip your statement on its head, I (as a US/Western citizen) can influence Google, which influences the US/Western world. (I can protest Google, I can elect representatives that will go after them, etc. We've even seen this done) But as an American I cannot influence the CCP which also influences the US/Western world.
(You should also consider that the connections that Google has to US intelligence is not akin to the connections that TikTok has to the CCP. The latter is much more direct)
>Why do you think this is true? Do you not believe that foreign entities attempt to influence adversaries?
Do you honestly think China uses more propaganda on American than the US government does on its own people? Meanwhile, Google literally controls the flow of information, while knowing your location and browser history.
> You should also consider that the connections that Google has to US intelligence is not akin to the connections that TikTok has to the CCP. The latter is much more direct
> Do you honestly think China uses more propaganda on American than the US government does on its own people?
That's not what we're discussing. We're discussing if China uses propaganda on American population. That's it. You don't have to make it a competition. You don't have to move the goal post.
> Meanwhile, Google literally controls the flow of information, while knowing your location and browser history.
I don't think anyone complaining about TikTok's influence also isn't actively complaining about Google's influence. You can check my comment history if you don't believe me. You can even see how much I advocate for tools like Signal. Don't create a false dichotomy.
> Google is influenced by many intelligence agencies from many different countries but mostly the US.
it really is just the foreign aspect of it. the meta apps, google apps, uber, etc all do the exact same things. They just aren't owned by a foreign nation
I think this is rather naive. I agree that the foreign aspect is an important component but let's also recognize that TikTok's success is because they are so successful at this data collection and manipulation. There's two reasons to target TikTok specifically. 1) Foreign influence 2) they are top dog.
Let's also recognize that Uber is not collecting data on what you watch and what social activities you participate in. Google and Meta are much better examples than Uber. But Google and Meta have also not captivated the attention economy of people the same way as TikTok has. You go after the worst offenders and it is clear that TikTok is the worst offender before you include the foreign aspect.
> But Google and Meta have also not captivated the attention economy of people the same way as TikTok has. You go after the worst offenders and it is clear that TikTok is the worst offender before you include the foreign aspect.
How is it "clear"? TikToks functionality in this matter seems to have barely scratched the surface of what Meta, Google and Twitter had been doing for years.
Instagram wasn't much different back when it was a new thing. I don't remember Facebooks launch that good, but somehow I have an impression that it was just as addictive, until people got used to it and got bored.
have you used both? Instagram has improved over the years but TikTok still blows it away. it's an infinite feed of visually attractive bullshit that you can scroll through smooth as butter—the ultimate cyberdrug.
Meta, google, uber, etc should be considered equivalent to hostile foreign powers and there are 194 countries in which they report to foreign intelligence service.
I would be more comfortable with all that collection if it remained in China, a far away government that has much less control over me than my own. However, the data they collect is shared with and used by the same domestic corporations and government agencies.
What a naive thinking. Of course China has control over you through TikTok.
What if they will modify an algorithm to make you vote for right people that they want you to vote? You’d think that they don’t have any control over you when in fact you’ll be used as their useful idiot
I am not a product of any corporate or government controlled social media. However if I had to be one, being influenced by China rather than US corporations seems better. The two US parties have no substantive difference on economic and foreign policy. So I can't see why the CCP would care which one wins which election.
Yeah, better to be influenced by Chineese, then start to belive what you see, then start to think how they want you to think, and then vote for people they want you to vote.
Perfect useful idiot, congratulations.
We are all useful idiots to different extent in this system. I have become less useful and less idiotic as I have grown wiser. I am less worried about Chinese propaganda and manipulation than the domestic sort which is much more powerful and impacting to my life.
> There isn't that much that TikTok can collect from you anyway. IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
The way they're so successful at the latter is by being really good at the former. If you've used it, they've (at minimum) built a psychographic profile used for content and ad targeting.
The data is what makes them so good at keeping you on their platform, yes. But that data isn't inherently useful to the CCP. I think what GP is getting at, is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate.
1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat.
Edit: Changed "20% of Americans" to "80 million Americans"
> 1 week before an American election? 80 million Americans start being bombarded with "Why you should vote how the CCP wants you to vote" videos. That is a national security threat.
Of course, it wouldn't be that dumb and obvious. If they were smart, they'd pick compelling organic content that aligns with their agenda, and amplify that for susceptible audiences (e.g. if they want to hurt Biden, they might take best videos criticizing him for allowing more oil drilling, and then un-organically push that content to users with environmentalist leanings).
> If they were smart, they'd pick compelling organic content that aligns with their agenda, and amplify that for susceptible audiences
You're over thinking it. All you need to do is put your thumb on the scale. Creating chaos/division is far easier and often more effective than directed influence.
Honestly I think that's why propaganda is so effective. People think of it as "Uncle Sam needs you to join the war effort" (which is propaganda) but it is more commonly "all politicians are corrupt". Which may even be true or mostly true. But the effect of such a claim is a distrust in your entire society. That's pretty effective propaganda and gets people to fight instead of working collectively.
Exactly. The way you get people to eventually adopt a whole new paradigm is by nudging them one tiny bit at a time, seek to change like 1% of their world view — whatever the lowest hanging fruit you can find.
Rinse and repeat, slowly as culture changes. Over many years, decades.
One generation later, the then-normalized world view can be diametrically opposed to what it had been for centuries, in many regards, even core aspects.
Such socio-cultural phenomena rarely last beyond 3-ish generations in history, though. More like 25 years. Usually the whole thing collapses under its own contradictions (not without friction, sometimes violent). But beyond a certain time under the spell, and/or if experienced too young, most people don't come back (not fully, not really). To this day you may hear old US politicians still believe old US propaganda (now all but officially acknowledged as such) that they simply can't shake off their world view.
It's one of those things that, when pushed too far for too long, society only moves on once most people who lived under that era have passed away, and new unaffected generations take over.
> Okay lets make sure China can't do this through tiktok.
> Then lets make sure that domestic political groups can't do this through facebook, instagram and reddit.
Except that in one case, it's a foreign actor interfering with the domestic political process, and in the other it's a domestic actor arguably exercising their first amendment rights.
Facebook is foreign to me, and my country has no first amendment, we only allow their constant spying because we are part of the five eyes and it is beneficial for us to let the yanks do whatever the hell they want to us.
Where in the Constitution does it say that the First Amendment only apply to citizens living in the country? It does not. Within the US, China or its representatives have exactly the same First Amendment rights as anyone else.
The First Amendment is broken, unfortunately, and the result is that a fire hose of paid, anonymous lies drowns out hard-won truths.
Don't get me wrong - the Framers were brilliant men, but two hundred years have gone by.
> Where in the Constitution does it say that the First Amendment only apply to citizens living in the country? It does not. Within the US, China or its representatives have exactly the same First Amendment rights as anyone else.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. If it protected foreign subversion as a constitutional right, it would be such a pact, therefore it doesn't.
Boosting propoganda, censoring, and surveilling whilst acting as a utility and forcing people to sign up to participate in society is neither free nor speech.
They are manipulating the population and arguably infringing on rights that all free individuals should have (had the bill of rights not been written before mass media and the internet).
> But that data isn't inherently useful to the CCP. I think what GP is getting at
> is that TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate.
How does TikTok determine which political agenda is appropriate?
Maybe there is a misconception to this? Foreign adversaries, such as Russia and CCP (or whoever your respective adversary is), are not so much trying to get people to vote/act a specific way as much as they are trying to 1) create chaos and 2) increase distrust in a population's trust in their government (note, this is not US centric). (some propaganda campaigns can be to get specific reactions, but chaos is much easier to create than specific actions)
If we look at Russian influence campaigns we actually see that in several cases they organized both a protest to something and a corresponding counter protest. The thing is that if you can create chaos in your adversaries' political environment then they are not effectively able to organize and pursue collective advancements. This is exacerbated by creating distrust in one's leadership. That creates more chaos and again lessens the ability to collectively organize.
It is also important to recognize that effective propaganda doesn't create issues out of thin air. Instead you are placing your thumb on the scale. Creating mountains out of mole hills is a long tested and successful form of propaganda. After all, the devil tells half truths. (see misinformation vs disinformation vs malinformation. Propaganda often uses malinformation)
My comparison is not at all similar to the way you are describing it. I'm comparing "TikTok could easily start showing 80 million Americans whatever political agenda they deem appropriate." to the advertising control and capabilities of FAMANG etc.
YouTube ALREADY does on their homepage what TikTok COULD do.
Not only what videos are shown, but also what videos /topics are suppressed, which is also a useful tool for swaying public opinion as Meta has demonstrated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607698
"IMO much more important is that the videos that are show to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hist are controlled by the CCP."
To clarify, is the concern
(a) that the videos are chosen by a third party organisation not the user,
(b) that the third party in this case is TikTok under pressure from CCP, instead of, say, Google under pressure from US Government, or
(c) both.
IMO, the so-called user should be in control of choosing videos, not treated like a test subject^1 by third parties, i.e., "tech" companies, trying to profit from data collection and advertising services.
Consider that without the data collection, e.g., metadata, the "automatic video selection service" provided by the "tech" company would not work very effectively. It must be targeted. And for that, data collection is essential.
IMO, "data privacy", despite the name, is not simply a matter of whether a person desires to have "privacy", it is a matter of whether a person wants to voluntarily give data to a "tech" company at no cost to enable effective targeted manipulation for the benefit of the company's customers, i.e., commercial or political advertisers, and consequently the company.
I agree that we're focused on the wrong danger. The same way we tried to push the marijuana narrative toward physical harm when the real danger was in co-opting our goal system.
I'd go further than you and say it's not even important that it's controlled by the CCP. An unlimited supply of the most interesting 30-second videos in the world is dangerous regardless of who's determining "interesting."
Short-form videos are evil by themselves. As someone with ADHD, if you allow yourself to get sucked in, its hard to move or jump out of it. Hell, watching en enjoyable tv show feels like work, i.e. too long.
I've come to appreciate quality over quantity, substance over fleeting enjoyment, and setting limits on how much I spend on yt, etc.
It's similar to doom-scrolling reddit after the Ukraine war started, or Covid or George Floyd...2-3 months of my life I literally couldn't put my phone down, not that I could affect or add to the conversation, or change anything. Just FOMO, I guess.
This though could lead to less overall production from America as a whole which could in micro-economic ways impact overall gdp, growth, dominance, etc, --and that's not considering what possible "pushes" they could give you to "think" one way or the other, as Americans are so easily manipulated by single sources they 'deem' truthful, but probably really aren't.
Absolutely true; but, for example, YouTube search results also employ a variety of finely tuned parameters that uprank or downrank certain videos, with zero transparency or oversight. YouTube Trending and Twitter Trends are heavily editorialized, and nothing shows up before it is manually approved by an employee. You might have even seen Twitter "trends" that, when you click on them, only show you 5 tweets by a single verified Twitter account, and nothing else; no discussion is shown. Twitter Search results (the "Top" tab) show popular tweets mixed in with 60-likes tweets, to prevent you from accurately gauging "the mood" or the predominant opinion. These companies feel perfectly entitled to decide what you'll see.
Every social media is founded on an algorithm, and they are all black boxes. TikTok constitutes unique challenges (if they want to dumb people down, they can), but most of the criticism is true of every platform.
I'm totally with you on this. Who doesn't want to control global influence marketing? Prioritize certain content in certain locations, boost their economies...
Obviously, I'm speculating, which doesn't necessarily help anything nor is true, but... my gut is with you.
Data gathering does have its dangers. But giving a not so friendly power the ability to directly influence your citizens is the real danger. There is no way to minimize that other than to have control over the whole enterprise.
Right now the EU is feeling the shock of giving Russia control over its fuel needs. Something that many people thought could happen but at least in that situation Russia does not have the ability to directly influence the EU's citizens. If it could influence minds directly, Russia could be confident that it would win the conflict. Tik Tok is that influencing machine that can be used against the US. We need to do something before it becomes a problem.
Unlike the EU/Russia, though, the US is not geopolitically dependent on China for social media like the former is energy. If the US were embroiled in such a conflict with the China, the US would have no problem
a) Forcing the sale of ByteDance to a US company (remember, they almost did this during peacetime anyways, just because)
or
b) Outright blocking it and ensuring its allies do the same
Sure, either option is a Situation, but I would imagine the US threatening to effectively take over or block what is one of China's premiere/world-known tech companies is a large enough negotiating chip that it gives the US leverage, too, and at the same time ensure China does not interfere too much.
People need power to live through winter / cook. Russia cutting off power can cause death. Cutting off tiktok may push a few emos over the edge but not really comparable.
I can't tell the last time I sat and watched a movie or a series. You work, go to the gym, hop out of the shower and start scrolling and when you look up, 2 hours have passed. It's insane.
The difference is China is used as a bogey man. IMO it's a distraction from what's truly important--that all social media platforms are manipulating us. The part where one has Chinese lineage is irrelevant to the problem.
i don't think it's irrelevant if you are a US citizen and believe that you have some control over governance. If a non-US citizen, I can see why one might not care as much. Or a US citizen who believes that gave no political say.
However, for me, I believe I have much more control over US governance decisions than I do over Chinese governance decisions and therefore a little more control over what US companies can do versus Chinese companies.
> IMO much more important is that the videos that are shown to you while you mindlessly scroll for that next dopamine hit are controlled by the CCP.
Better to be controlled by a large corporation that, by explicit design, acts like a psychopath and will direct you to destroy the very fabric of your society if this increases “engagement” more often than not.
the mind control is already there. how many teens were doing the tiktok specific elaborate vacant eyed lipsynced dance routines on social media before tik tok?
Exactly, Tiktok can algorithmically identify a few 100k persuadable voters in a few battleground states and feed them the political viewpoint they favor. Thus CCP can influence our elections. Its easy do this in stealth and there is no way to prove from outside that it happened!.
We already have laws that restrict majority foreign ownership of traditional media, why cant we extend it to new media?
Would it make any difference if it was a US owner? The real problem here is more basic: 80B americans have 20% of their free time centrally controlled. This a health and social problem, whoever owns the corp.
People like to say this with basically no evidence. It's basically a conspiracy theory at this point. In fact, I've had TikTok videos, in the app itself, claiming the same thing.
Man, those CCP folks are just really, really good! They knew I'd be an inherent skeptic! Yes, or perhaps you are just anti-china conspiracy theorist.
I'm open to changing my mind on the subject, but I have not seen a single iota of evidence on the matter.
The evidence is in the way the CCP treats private companies (Alibaba, Tencent, etc.), it really doesn't take much logical thinking to realize that at any point the black-box algorithm can change on the whim of a party official.
Btw, could you please also stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that as well, and this in the guidelines too.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
