(yes, I also see that it says Chinease)
I hear this all the time. I have this conversation on the regular.
Them: “Oh you think Tik Tok is spyware?”
Me: “yes”
Them: “I’ll have you know so is Google, Apple, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Microsoft, and all the big American companies too”
Me: “Yeah, that’s why I don’t use them”
Them: gasp “you’re just paranoid bro are you a drug dealer or something?”
Me: “no, I just like my privacy. You probably wouldn’t like it if some guy was following you keeping tabs about everything you do either.”
Them: “well I’ve got nothing to hide”
Me: “maybe the next person in power might see your current and past beliefs illegal”
Me: “do you close the bathroom door while shitting?”
Them: “yes”
Me: “why? You have nothing to hide”
You lock your doors when wanking?
I always lock my car doors when wanking
Just ask them if they have curtains or blinds on their windows at home. They have nothing to hide, right?
Ask if their house has walls because if it does so should their country.
Them: “my favourite political party will stay in power forever”
The fact that you have nothing to hide doesn’t imply I’ve to open up anything to anyone without my approval.
And that’s the key here, we are not fully aware of the randomized distribution of your own data for profit.
Me: You’ve got nothing to hide? What’s you’re address I need to get a pair of binoculars
That’s why Google Ultron exists m8
Whataboutism
It would be whataboutism if the argument would be one is okay because of the other. It isn’t whataboutism if the argument is that both are unacceptable.
I disagree on the basis that it normalizes TikTok by even comparing it to something far less harmful. They are both bad but one of them is a military op for the world’s largest hostile dictatorship.
Thats like saying drinking cola and unfiltered piss are both bad for you.
To be honest as a European, I wouldn’t say one is worse than the other. I don’t want to have a race out of it, because it can be argued over in a lot of ways. There is no “not as bad” one, both should be reined in.
Actually, I think what whataboutism is about really is arguments like this. Tiktok is not “normal” and will never be “normal”. But comparing Google to Tiktok and saying Tiktok is worse since it is owned by a dictatorship as opposed to a plutocracy, while overlooking that I can quit or never use Tiktok. In fact, I never did, so I’m reasonably sure they don’t have too much data on me. Google on the other hand is very hard to avoid, as though using Google Analytics to collect my data is illegal, Google is doing all the crime it can do to keep pushing it, along with the rest of its data collection methods.
Neither should be ignored because there are “worse” actors. Both should be held accountable for breaking the law, severely. IMO neither of them is.
Thank you. I’m so sick of people equating whataboutism with pointing out hypocrisy. Do they want societal acceptance of hypocrisy? Or do they just like to use the new words they learned, like calling every jerk a narcissist?
Or the argument is to distract or derail the conversation. If it is the conversation going in though…
Anyone who even compares a for profit corportation to the world’s largest hostile militaristic dictatorship is an idiot. Both bad, but on completely different scales.
The things the CCP could do with political blackmail gathered from tiktok would make even Zuck blush.
I bet from reading message history they have tons of SSNs and bank details. Probably even information about our military.
I’m honestly more worried about them knowing details on politicians and their families. The most they can do with some rando’s personal info is send them targeted propaganda. Knowing a handful of republican congressmen has lgbq relatives can be used to make them to shift policies.
At the very least, Google and Facebook have to step back if caught. Meanwhile, Chinese companies often don’t care about EU privacy laws. Still avoid them altogether, any way.
Do they? They’ve been caught BIG TIME, and META stock price is at an ATH!
Living like a street criminal for a decade sure puts international politics in perspective, because you can just see straight through the bullshit. It’s just bigger numbers, but the principles and human behavior stays 100% the same.
As much as China is a festering cancer upon the world, I am willing to bet that for every single trademark horror that is taking place in their society, I could find a match or worse in the USA.
or worse in the USA.
An estimated 30 to 45 million Chinese citizens died during Mao’s “Great Leap Forward.”
My penis is longer than yours.
What are we doing, just stating random facts?
Not so random. Lay off the whataboutism.
What’s relevant about that statement? Or we could talk about the slave trade?
Did you just whatabout my penis?
While they’re at completely different scales, plus will go to much different lengths to abuse what they find out, It comes down to personal peril. I know exactly how Google will use that surveillance data to my detriment and that they’ll openly sell it to more nefarious entities, however I fail to see how the Chinese government would ever have an interest in my data or in selling it.
I don’t use Tik Tok or Huawei, but that’s for other reasons
You fail to see why they would collect the massive amounts of data that they’ve been repeatedly proven to collect? Sounds like willful ignorance, to me.
Not at all. I understand storage and scaling are cheap, so it’s a great strategy to collect every piece of data about every person. Then you use whatever you need, whenever you need to.
For example, it’s expensive to investigate a Congressman’s past to find that picture in drag for blackmail. It’s much cheaper to collect everything you can so once he becomes a Congressman you can simply search for connections and seconds later have that picture off his college buddy’s computer
To be honest I think you can compare them, I feel the word idiot is misplaced here.
Now look you here- one party is a convicted serial rapist, the other party is elitist.
They’re both criminals.
So it doesn’t matter.
Which is why you should vote for convicted serial rapist party.
Nobody likes an elitist.
Thank you, this is my viewpoint exactly. We are exploited by both but one is after money, the other is a threat.
How can China threatens you? If you live outside of China?
Is this… Sarcasm?
That’s like saying that Putin couldn’t hurt anyone outside of Russia yet he’s had multiple people killed in foreign countries.
Most of us are boring. We’re not oligarchs or investigative reporters, nor hold key posts in government or industry, nor are connected to dissenters. It’s not that he couldn’t but it’s almost impossible to see a scenario where either dictator would have an interest in most of us. I neither control anything they want nor block their way to it
How could TikTok helps China threatens America (or the world)?
Usually they can’t, but they can blackmail. Usually only if you’re really really deep in anti Pooh territory though. Pooh is vindictive and thin skinned like our spray tan guy. Spray tan could for example, work with Pooh to surveil and jail dissenters. It’s not that China is a threat to an individual American or other foreigner in a Western country per se, but as long as they could potentially leverage your data against you they do have a little threat. For the record Pooh and spray tan should be sent to an island together to… Oh shit nvm usually rich people and islands aren’t a good thing. 😂
I doythink those are as different as you say. Through the Patriot Act, american corporate spying is US spying.
Okay but one wants to efficiently sell me worthless trash and the other would happily kill me and take my property given an opportunity, so…
The US has actively used that kind of info to extrajudically kill people, we know that for sure. We don’t know if China actually did that (they probably did).
But the one selling you trash is also sharing that data with the ones who would kill you.
That’s fair but I feel like it’s not in Google’s best interests to collect your photos library, clipboard, message history, contacts info, SSN, banking details, etc and then sell all of it to China for cheap. The extent of Data Collection, and the very obvious malicious intent of it, embedded in TikTok sets it worlds apart.
He’s obviously not talking about China here
lol This is simply not true
This post is about China, but why are you talking about the US?
You can’t read let alone understand. Dunno what to explain to you when all you have is accusations of failure when they clearly show your own such.
They’re both spyware.
US looks very militaristic to me. It has a very broken democracy, and a history of supporting/causing brutal dictatorships.
The USA hasn’t taken territory since 1946.
The major reason for the USA being so broken is due to deregulation and corporate greed. Which is a little different in nuance to Authoritarian China.
The US doesn’t try. It just bombs the fuck out of anyone worth exploiting production of anything any private exploitator willing to play “business” there wants.
The ol’ “Bomb it to glass” tactic. A classic tragedy.
Ghastly business, that. Unavoidable, really, and tragic. Anyways, here’s our top stories tonight: the US kills its own population with the most potent designer drugs in history, at a 0% tax revenue! “This is great for the economy”, according to Experts, who warn that the same measures would be “devastating” under Democratic rule.
“Um, technically when we lost all those wars for profit and oil, we didn’t seize any land. So, technically, we are the good guys.”
Compared to the dictatorship who are in the process of seizing land and committing genocides on their (according to them) own peoples, yes the USA are fucking saints. See this is my exact problem, two bad things are not equivalent but so many people fail to grasp that.
The control the Chinese gov has over tiktok is on a different scale compared to Google and the US
Just to play devil’s advocate here, how many military bases has China got in other countries, compared to the US?
How many McDonald’s are there compared to general tso’s chicken?
Both comparisons are irrelevant. It is about how much control and access China/US have over tiktok/Google and the user data and algorithms.
Archy really tried to pull out the Chewbacca Defense.
But what if I have another religion?
Praying to Lauren Faust??
Fausticorn, Bonniecorn and Twilight Sparkle
“But at least is LOCAL spyware 😎”
Which honestly to me seems worse right I mean its potentially going to someone who is much closer to you geographically (not always of course).
Google using your perceived preferences to sell you underwear and yogurt is not worse than being tracked by the world’s largest hostile militaristic dictatorship.
Well say you googled a lot about abortions in a state that will put you in prison for it. Then it becomes a different situation. Or say you grow mushrooms to treat cluster headaches and the DEA now probably knows about it because that buy the data from all of these companies and can see the many searches you made about it the credit card you used to purchase supplies etc. I feel like China will probably just try to steal your crypto or something
Searching for information about abortion isn’t a crime anywhere afaik, at least not an enforceable one. Google and the state governments are separate entities, and to be used in the US Justice System against you they would need to provide the source for their evidence, which would make really bad publicity for Google which does in fact harm their profits. So the State would have to make a pretty damn good offer to accomplish that. Doubly so for wannabe authoritarian admins like DeSantis, since those are exactly the type of people to turn around and try to restrict the company’s rights and freedoms.
Pretty much the same for the Mushrooms, although self-medicating with full dose mushrooms seems a little over the top to begin with, but I can’t blame the victim in a system where opiates are handed out readily by doctors.
Crypto would probably be harder for China to take than bank funds, but if they did steal a bit from hundreds of millions of Americans then the total loss would be catastrophic for many lives. The USA has no way to fight back in that scenario because while China does utilize American tech brands and products, those companies are not a direct arm of the military the same way that TikTok is for China.
Me using an android phone and an iPad.
God when the whole Tiktok thing in Congress was going on nobody wanted to hear that their favorite big tech social media app was already selling information to China; had been caught doing so multiple times; and had never stopped despite promises and threats of prosecution the next time.
WHAT information? What does China gain by learning that Sparky Douchebag watches BBQ and catgirl fapping videos? Are they planning their invasion based on the Heathers Challenge, or simply stealing our makeup tips?
Search the company Tencent.
Then look at how many shares they have on companies around the world.
And then think about it. What power does Google have? What power probably Tencent has.
Look into the research that has proven that the app has backdoors baked in, and combine that with how widespread it is - reaching every level of society; every industry, politician, branch and level of the military. Now remember that research into the Spyware activities of the app.
TikTok is the largest, most successful self-inflicted virus for SigInt ever. [citation needed]
That doesnt answer my question. What information?
Look, it’s not what bs viral video the algorithm is feeding these people. It’s the spyware it’s putting on the phones. It has been proven that the app harvests all the data it can find and phones it home. Backdoor root-level access has also been proven. If you can’t figure out why that would be bad, you probably have problems pouring water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.
Remember, when American corporations harvest your private data, that is a good thing.
When foreign countries, that’s bad.
This post was brought to you by your friendly Google. Where we will your data to any one and every one because we love money.
I use LibreWolf (and don’t use Tik Tok)
That’s America spyware. I have standards. /s
Doing at least n amount of spying each day
It comes from chy-nah
TikTok is Chinese spyware. Chrome is American spyware. Anyone in their right mind should stop using both.
sometimes it’s nice to know that someone’s watching over me tho
Is your king getting watched over the shoulder by a big oily fat guy that sweats and breaths through the mouth? Ah and it tries to convince you the buy useless shit
Sort of… how did you know??
Do you think it’s safe to upvote this?
Your social credit score went into the red as soon as you saw that picture, it doesn’t matter anymore, it’s already too late for you
They’ll be knocking on your door any minute now
That’s my business.
If Mr Pooh was personally overseeing my day to day I’d feel pretty special
and I have no privacy (oh ohoh)
Meanwhile, my employer forces me to use Chrome or Edge. Ugh.
Tell them you can’t as your active X scripts only run under IE6.
If it’s for work I don’t have a problem, it’s the company that’s giving their data to the spyware, just don’t give it too much personal information
My brother in Christ I use Firefox
Remember to use also a privacy respecting search engine like searx or at least duckduckgo
My opinion on TikTok: always put the first cross in the middle
Foreign spyware is stealing jobs from hardworking American spyware.
This should be a campaign line for 2024
