(yes, I also see that it says Chinease)

  • Krafty Kactus@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1955·
    11 months ago

    TikTok is Chinese spyware. Chrome is American spyware. Anyone in their right mind should stop using both.

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
    1346·
    11 months ago

    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”

    • BobGnarley@lemm.ee
      63·
      11 months ago

      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).

        • BobGnarley@lemm.ee
          3·
          11 months ago

          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

    • squash_squash@lemmy.world
      256·
      11 months ago

      US looks very militaristic to me. It has a very broken democracy, and a history of supporting/causing brutal dictatorships.

      • seejur@lemmy.worldEnglish
        152·
        11 months ago

        The control the Chinese gov has over tiktok is on a different scale compared to Google and the US

        • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
          710·
          11 months ago

          Just to play devil’s advocate here, how many military bases has China got in other countries, compared to the US?

          • wieson@feddit.de
            2·
            11 months ago

            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.

        • Chakravanti@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          155·
          11 months ago

          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.

            • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
              15·
              11 months ago

              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.

        • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
          55·
          11 months ago

          “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.”

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
      131·
      11 months ago

      The things the CCP could do with political blackmail gathered from tiktok would make even Zuck blush.

      • xx3rawr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        12·
        11 months ago

        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.

        • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
          24·
          11 months ago

          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.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
          2·
          11 months ago

          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.

      • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
        37·
        11 months ago

        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.

    • PurplebeanZ@lemmy.world
      164·
      11 months ago

      Thank you, this is my viewpoint exactly. We are exploited by both but one is after money, the other is a threat.

        • VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world
          9·
          11 months ago

          That’s like saying that Putin couldn’t hurt anyone outside of Russia yet he’s had multiple people killed in foreign countries.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
            34·
            11 months ago

            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

        • markon@lemmy.world
          5·
          11 months ago

          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. 😂

          • andy_wijaya_med@lemmy.world
            1·
            11 months ago

            If you’re someone influential enough to be blackmailed by the Chinese government and you’re using TikTok… You’re really stupid… but average TikTok user, really has nothing to be afraid of China, I think. TikTok is also after money, as far as I know (ads). They are a company. Like Huawei, they might have a close relationship with the Chinese government, similar with Google with the US government.

          • andy_wijaya_med@lemmy.world
            1·
            11 months ago

            Nope. But how can an average TikTok user in USA be threatened by China? Concretely/ literally?

            I honestly think that Trump is a much greater threat to average American than using TikTok.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
      82·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • pbbp [tous, any]@jlai.lu
      72·
      11 months ago

      I doythink those are as different as you say. Through the Patriot Act, american corporate spying is US spying.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
      33·
      11 months ago

      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

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
          11·
          11 months ago

          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

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
    50·
    11 months ago

    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.

    • TengoDosVacas@lemmy.world
      117·
      11 months ago

      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?

      • Johanno@feddit.de
        141·
        11 months ago

        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.

      • Railing5132@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        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]

          • Railing5132@lemmy.world
            1·
            11 months ago

            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.

        • TengoDosVacas@lemmy.world
          1·
          11 months ago

          I havent seen anything on it that’s any different from Alex Jones’ christofascist tantrums, Kanye’s Hitler rants, or Tomi Lauren trying to pretend she’s a patriot blowup doll

      • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
        181·
        11 months ago

        You cannot put custom firmware. If spyware is hidden in drivers, bootloader or even firmware of the modem there is nothing we can do about it. Custom ROMs are just replacing things above the kernel and below apps.

        Still of course things average non CIA person should not worry about. Google apps with high privileges are removed with custom ROMs.

          • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
            5·
            11 months ago

            Might as well. I will never be satisfied with custom ROMs. I need straight up linux on my phone and none of that android crap.

        • Ziglin@lemmy.world
          2·
          11 months ago

          I thought android had its own bootloader and I assume drivers (At least Linux has its own drivers). To my understanding if android phones have a bios that’s the only thing that could be compromised but it should just provide the interrupts right? Now that I think about it if Google put a huge bios in there it might be able to access and share things it’s not supposed to. (But I feel like people would have noticed.)

      • not_that_guy05@lemmy.world
        8·
        11 months ago

        As a person that has been rooting his phone since 2011/12, I wanna go back to those years. Graphene and lineage have not satisfied my itch and having to keep magisking every few weeks sucks. I miss my galaxy, nexus rooting days.

  • gencha@lemm.ee
    381·
    11 months ago

    Media platforms are beyond spying. You have nothing to offer.

    It’s all about controlling information and feeding you what you need to see.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
      5·
      11 months ago

      I can’t ever go back after moving to Vivaldi, even though it’s chromium. It’s the tiniest of reasons too, like full screen behavior, the gargantuan UI elements, the continuous removal of customization options…

      I can set Vivaldi to:

      F1 = show/hide info bar
      F2 = show/hide address bar
      F3 = show/hide tab bar
      F4 = instant fullscreen
      F5 = sidebar that’s actually useful

      The bookmark and history tabs are actually usable, the Quick Command popup bar functions like Vimium, and there’s more customization options than you can shake a stick at.

      I say this as a Firefox user who has not changed browsers since it was literally called “Mozilla” and competed with “Mosaic” and “Netscape Navigator” for top position as THE web browser to surf Internet portals.

      I love FF to pieces, but it’s simply not usable to me under the current management.

      • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
        1·
        11 months ago

        I just tried out Floorp which is basically Firefox with some Vivaldi features. I was like oh okay I get the appeal now. I have to take Vivaldi for a test drive.

  • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
    10·
    11 months ago

    You’re not getting it. TikTok is crude, targeting anything that comes in its way, like a shotgun.

    Google is like a sniper rifle, that is also a shotgun.

    Now, which would you prefer, the shotgun, or the sniper rifle that is also a shotgun.