What exactly about the tiktok app makes it Chinese spyware? Has it been proven it can do something?
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Just read the EULA. That should be enough to scare anyone. By agreeing, you give access to everything on your phone. It was funny watching Joe Rogan read it on his one podcast.
By accepting the terms and conditions, you are accepting that it can access all the files in your phone, including texts, contacts, photos etc
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As someone with a security background this app has LOTS of red flags.
* Code that nobody can look at to see what it does.
* requiring way to many permissions.
* Asking for way too much personal information
* keystroke capturing
* Own by the Chinese government – they are FAMOUS for stealing information.
Think about it like this: If a person has it on their phone, and uses it to log things like passwords to things that are important – then that gives the app a way to tell the Chinese government HOW to get into things. In a cyber war – you just gave them the keys to the front gate thus your fucked.
As a security minded person, I’ve never used it nor would I ever use it. It is WAY to dangerous.
Aggressive data collection of information thst is your private business not theirs
If you were walking into a supermarket to buy a DVD to watch and the checkout lady said
“hey can I have permission to follow you about and listen to you indefinitely and use any of thst information for my own purposes, and those of people who pay for it , or agencies who demand it in my home country “
You would probably tell then to fuck off
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I’m a bit baffled by people wondering if an app designed to collect a lot of your personal information, including videos of where you live, eat, and work, is spying on the people who use it.
Social media apps are spyware. By definition. Their whole product is them getting information from you.
So the whole TikTok thing feels like “Look! There’s a crime being committed over there by TikTok! Discuss it on US based social media apps, and don’t think too hard how US social media apps are doing the same thing!!!”
Misdirection towards spyware so that companies making identical spyware don’t get called out as makers of spyware.
EDIT: I love how the biggest complaint to what I wrote was a distinction I didn’t make or provide any reason to bring it up. It’s all spyware. The information is stolen and coerced from people. **Perpetrators of information theft don’t have to be governments to make the act of information theft wrong.** Especially since anyone can buy the information stolen by the private corporation, *including the US government.*
I’m a former government contractor.
All apps can do things without your knowledge. Some of these things include figuring out your exact location, including which room in a home you are in. Discovering who is next to you in that room. Track where you are going or coming from.
Apps can turn on your microphone and listen to what is being said. They can turn on your camera and see what you’re wearing (or not) and see who is near you. They can capture information about other apps you’re using, too. Including who you know and what kinds of things you’ve sent.
In america, companies can gather all of this information and more. HOWEVER, they are subject to the US court system and, depending on a ruling, can be forced to stop. In China, there is absolutely no recourse. Tiktok allows China to place millions of surveillance devices in America, managed by millions of unwitting users. Even if you have the most secure phone on earth, a phone that’s in the same room as yours can detect you, turn on its mic and camera, and surveil you, without your knowing it. And you can’t do anything about it. You can’t go to the police. You can’t complain to government. You can’t take anyone to court.
It makes sense to remove that threat, even if there is no evidence it’s being used maliciously. Just like I can put a video camera in your bathroom, and there is no evidence it’s being used maliciously, you can just eyeball it and say, “yeah, this should probably go.”
American tech companies set the status quo of excessive data collection. Facebook app was caught viewing user camera without notification or consent. Collection as much info about contacts and device as techically possible has been standard practice for these apps for a decade.
Now the China has built a social media platform that is in nearly every regard superior to American competition, journalists and researchers in American tech’s sphere of influence are criticizing Tiktok for practices which are standard in every other social media app.
The primary reason people are discussing Tiktok’s privacy issues is because it threatens American dominance of social media industry. The specific proven claims against Tiktok are typical of other industry players. If you want to be private you shouldn’t install ANY social media apps on your phone: they are all ‘malware’ to some extent.
Anyone remember the free app that was in fashion 2 or 3 years ago which would ‘age’ a selfie to show how the 25 year old subject would look at 65 for example?
Then we learnt it was the CPC’s way to harvest enough data to fine tune facial recognition security systems.
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