Majority of Americans Say TikTok Is a Threat to U.S. National Security
variety.com
About 59% of Americans say TikTok a threat to the national security of the United States, according to a new survey of U.S. adults.
You are viewing a single comment
About 59% of Americans say TikTok a threat to the national security of the United States, according to a new survey of U.S. adults.
Yeah I mean, I downloaded my reddit data and uh... wow. I was surprised to see how much you could learn about someone when it's all bundled up like that 👀
Which is why I find the whole banning TikTok concept absurd.
It’s picking one easy scapegoat company to rally around, completely ignores the thousands upon thousands of other applications that collect data on us.
It’s not security, it’s security theater. It’s lazy and designed to distract us. It’s to keep us from not asking questions about any company’s practices that might hurt someone politically or financially.
We don’t need to ban TikTok. We need to ban Tik Tok and thousands of others like it. We need to have real conversations and put forth real solutions with regards to privacy, globally. It won’t happen though. Because it’s going to cost somebody money.
I've come to the conclusion that it is algorithms that have become evil. There was a thread where someone was asking for help stoppinh YouTube from radicalizing their mother due to the videos it would suggest to her.
I use stuff like newpipe and freetube to try and get away from these personalized attempts at content, since there is still good content on YouTube. It's just that so many sites try and keep you there as long as possible and then start feeding you content that can warp people. But, algorithms don't understand the impact of it, since it's either a 0 or 1 of user stays or user leaves.
algorithms can't "become evil" any more than your toaster can. It's being directed and programmed by people who know exactly what they're intending to achieve.
It's to say algorithms despite no intent to be evil have led to negative impact due to no care for the context of the recommendation. So someone can go in searching up health information then go down a rabbit hole of being recommended pseudo health advice then flat earth and so on. Not because the algorithm wants to turn people a certain way, but because it's just recommending videos that users that liked similar videos might find of interest. It's just broad categories.
Wasn't implying algorithms are sentient. At least not yet until AI integration happens.
If you can be radicalized by videos from YouTube, it isn't the algorithm, it's you
https://lemmy.world/post/1184403
Yeah that's entirely on her.
World doesn't exist in an individual vacuum. The people negatively influenced by disinformation go onto to take a role in society and interact with others to either negatively or positively affect the people they encounter. Congratulations on your individual resilience, but the world is not a population consisting of only you with you alone determining the impact other people have on the world.
Yeah and, once again, those people are the problem.
Unless you want to ban any food that isn't fruits and vegetables, cars, not sleeping enough, not getting enough exercise etc, at some point you have to accept that people do in fact make their own choices.
I'm not for banning things because some people are idiots.
I feel bad that you've been radicalized into thinking this way.
Im not concerned with your feelings.
It's not just all you or all youtube. Both matter. It's harmfully reductionist to act like it, not both.
Both really don't matter, since adults have a right to chose to consume any content they'd like.
If your grandma finds Q fascinating, that's on your grandma
It's also the fault of those producing Q content.
No it isn't. Every demand will find a seller. That's just how reality works.
The overwhelming majority of "radical" content creators are just riding a grift train.
So you agree, they are also at fault.
It's not a company, it is the CCP. There's is a massive difference, both in terms of what the organizations can access and the warrant requirements at the governmental level. I'm getting really tired of having to explain the difference in privacy rights concerning governments and private institutions. It's just like freedom of speech or religion. It has everything to do with private vs public institutions.
You don't think Meta, Google etc are passing data to the American government?
They will comply with any court order. They won’t hand over unfettered access like TikTok has to in China.
You think the American government is as bad as the CCP in this regard?
Considering the CCP can't arrest Americans but the US government can, it makes no sense to be more afraid of china on a personal level.
And that is exactly what the Ukrainians thought about Russia. These are all actions intended to gain an edge to enable a potential future conflict. They are acting like it. We should too. War in the South China Sea is something everyone should be afraid of.
That would be a very convincing arguement if China bordered the US.
Very American of you. Americans felt the same way about the Japanese until 1941. Then it was about control of the newly important resource of oil.
Lmao no japanese soldier set foot on the continent of north America dude
Not only is that factually false with them invading Alaska, it's like you're saying that you'd be okay with another world war because we would win in the end. I would personally prefer to deter one which this effort is a part of.
I'd be OK with another World War against Russia, sure. They can't even beat Ukraine lol
China will not engage in war with the US because it would obliterate their economy.
People said the same thing about Russia. Politics play a massive part.
I'm not sure I can respect the argument if someone who's play with a world war as long as they can access a single social media site. You obviously are expecting to not be the one fighting it.
Yes, yes I do. Also the CCP can't ruin my life, unlike Uncle Sam. Deciding which one is more evil is irrelevant.
Well, the majority of Americans disagree with you per this article. A world war with China absolutely would ruin a lot of lives. I cannot even comprehend how you could come to the conclusion otherwise.
The majority of americans are fuckin stupid and believe whatever their TV programming tells them to believe.
Who said anything about war?? I'm staying "in this regard", which is about privacy and data being taken and used by a government. Outside of that context yes I think the CCP is absolutely worse than the US in just about every category. There's no question there.
Read the title of this thread again. This thread is about if TikTok is a threat to national security. This thread is about war.
That's not what I was responding to but in any case, no, I don't think tiktok is a threat to national security or going to cause a war. This is FUD.
It's not about the CCP. It's because kids watch TikTok and then don't like conservatives
I am not inherently conservative but I am involved in the defense space and I could not disagree with this take more strongly. It 100% is about the CCP. Don't try to make this a partisan issue. It is not.
It is absolutely a partisan issue because that's why Republicans brought it up in the first place. The CCP gathering metadata on users has no bearing on our ability to beat them at sea, which is the only sphere of influence that matters with Chinese aggression.
Should US military bases ban TikTok? Sure. Should the government block the app on all government phones, also sure. Banning social media wholesale is a disgusting precedent to set, and is fundamentally anti-American.
There is precedent in banning spyware. So, what is your reason for why the current administration wants to ban it? You cannot provide any proof for your claim outside of conjecture. There are no records and it doesn't even make sense in the current political climate.
Unless you can prove TikTok is spyware and not just gathering user data per already accepted guidelines then you have no leg to stand on here.
They have the access to the data on your device and the CCP has been accessing it at scale according to former employees. You are not going to find a government record out of the CCP like you would in the US.
ByteDance has lied on multiple occasions about their security protocols and only fess up when they are caught.
The CCP according to their own bylaws do not see chinese companies as private. It is literally the definition of a fascist government system.
This is not including what the intelligence services know which is undoubtedly more extensive. Something tells me you wouldn't believe them one way or another but they do not come out with things as specific as this without cause and it certainly is not partisan.
Not a problem for me or any other sane person
As for the CCP bylaws, I'm all for the Chinese overthrowing their hell-gov and instituting liberal democracy but until they do, it's a non-factor.
Folks just won't get it until it hurts you and your families. By then it will be too late and they will have already invaded Taiwan. They want to generate video and audio models of you. They want to use those against your family and for propaganda purposes. They want to ensure they know where you are at all times to gain maximum impact when they do. It's not insanity. It's what they are actively trying to do.
Lmao well if they're trying to feed me propaganda they're fucking up because all I'm seeing is standup comedians, thicc goth girls, and Taylor swift clips, along with some of the best old-school-youtube content still on the internet.
Are you even on TikTok?
Edit: also China won't invade Taiwan because the Chinese armed forces are as embarrassing as the Russian armed forces.
I am absolutely not on the platform in any way.
Why would you underestimate them? They are in a similar manufacturing position as the US was before WWII. They have stated when they want to invade in their national security strategy document. They have also said how they want to do it which includes a significant code breaking and informational dominance component. They are doing what they said they would do. They are getting away with everything we allow them to get away with. This is a decision we are making right now. Are we okay with them having complete knowledge of everything that every western citizen does, from location, to social connections, to enough fine tuned data to build exact replicas digitally of their persona. They don't get that with existing western digital media apis.
It's not a distraction. It's a justification. The bill behind it in Congress is so broadly worded that the government can effectively shut down any Internet business with little to no warning.
You keep trying and failing to ban all social media while China continues to gain a foothold under the current unchanged rules. We'll all be doing on the front lines of the next world war but at least in the end you can hold your head up high and say that it was worth it to take a stand.
It's like saying that you shouldn't ban murder because all weapons should be banned. How they use it matters.
In that analogy Facebook has been murdering people for a decade but we refuse to do anything about it.
In that analogy, Facebook is armed but not even brandishing. People aren't doing anything because Facebook isn't waving their weapon around and threatening their families but instead was using their knives to cut up more food to sell you. Sorry, I'll use a more clear analogy next time.
We are talking about the preparation of the battlefield for the next conflict. It is pretty well documented in cyber warfare circles. conflicts are won and lost before they are fought. conflicts are mitigated when the chances of success are lower.
Facebook has been giving data to the CCP for over a decade. If that's the big bad, then that's it. It doesn't matter who owns the company. If you want to talk about battlefield shaping I can speak to that. I was in the military. When comes down to it I don't care how the minefield got breached. It's breached and there's a hole that can be exploited. I don't care if company A did it or company B.
There's giving data through API, and then there's complete access to everything your device sees. It's the difference between taking a trench and allowing your enemy to build a complete logistical hub behind your lines. It's an order of magnitude worse.
Have you looked at the permissions Meta requires to run an app on your phone these days?
There is no difference. They're taking everything.
Meta is not the government. That's the difference.
Neither is TikTok. Both of them are companies giving data to China. Why are you so invested in defending Meta?
I'm not defending Meta. The level of access is an order of magnitude greater for China with TikTok. It's not even comparable.
Aggregated data is always scary.
Aggregated data is the reason for modern living in its entirety so no.
You're literally on a data aggregation site now.
How did you do this? Log in through the website? I will have to do password recovery as I haven't used the web interface in ages.
Would be very curious what that data set looks like.
Yeah, has to be through a web browser. Here's a link: https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request
FWIW, I never got notified that the download was ready, so make sure you check back for reddit mail every few days if you request yours. It took about a month for mine.