• @Netrunner@programming.dev
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    37 months ago

    Has anyone actually looked at their network traffic whilst TikTok is running? I’ve already isolated my partners phone because it’s so bad.

    I am against blocking shit online but since it’s being done against my will at least it’s that shit hole.

    • @OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      I’ve worked in mobile development before. We hide the traffic by batching it, sending it through i.e. Google Play Services (so it looks like Google traffic), or simply sending it all to a relay server so it doesn’t look diverse. In any case, all your apps are doing this, and the ones that want to hide it, can.

      • @LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        07 months ago

        Tik Tok likely isn’t going anywhere, they’ll sell to someone able to keep it up and running. The Tik Tok allowed in China isn’t the same one, so they don’t have to worry about data being pulled from their citizens.

    • @Dupree878@lemmy.world
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      17 months ago

      The biggest problem is them doing illegal shit like scanning all your photos instead of just what you pick

        • @ECB@feddit.org
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          17 months ago

          It’s less about that and more about stopping an extremely powerful attack vector currently active in your own country.

          Literally the biggest reason why the western world is in such a giant political crisis is the weaponization of social media.

          • @Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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            27 months ago

            100%

            Social media 15 years ago: cat pics and friends.

            Social media today: shit you didn’t subscribe to, but shows up anyway to push wedge issues in to things you enjoy.

            • @vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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              17 months ago

              Yeah, kinda miss that era. Luckily Lemmy emulates kinda well, just wish that there were more proper old school forums for nich but large communities like NCD or Rimworld.

            • aquafunkalisticbootywhap
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              17 months ago

              had youtube open in a new private window on a vpn connection the other day after clicking a link to a video about the new raspberry pi compute module

              was scrolling down thru one of the top comment threads and noticed, sandwiched between relevant tech videos on the right? some talking head, designed to enrage (as opposed to inform) fox news video about nothing related.

              I think Im just done with youtube for the forseeable future. if your profit model requires inducing engagement like that, your product isnt good enough to stand on its own, and/or you’re ok with being shitty to make more money. either way, I want nothing to do with you at that point.

  • airportline
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    27 months ago

    This is only great news if you are Mark Zuckerberg and you want a near-monopoly on social media.

    • @maplebar@lemmy.world
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      17 months ago

      TikTok could have sold to an American company (read: a company that we can hold legally accountable for bad things that their product does) and made billions of dollars in the process. They chose not to, for some reason, and thus knowingly opted to face a ban in the United States. Those were the options and they knew it.

      As I understand it American companies doing business in China almost always have to go through a Chinese company in order to operate legally and make products available to the Chinese market. Platforms like Facebook are already banned in China and must be accessed through a VPN because they don’t play ball with the Chinese regime, so why should it not be reciprocal?

      Until TikTok is being managed and operated by a company that can be held legally accountable here in America, they are nothing but a security threat and a backdoor for the Chinese government into every cell phone of every person who is dumb enough to install that shit. Is that what the people want to hear? Probably not, but it’s the truth.

      I wouldn’t install TikTok on my phone any sooner than I’d install RedStarOS on my PC, because the implications of using a proprietary, closed source application with ties to the Chinese regime should be fucking obvious to anyone with bare minimum technical knowledge. Likewise, I wouldn’t blame a Chinese person for being skeptical of Microsoft Windows or X.com for their close relationship with the American government. To think otherwise is just not smart.

  • @Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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    7 months ago

    This week on How to Raise an Entire Generation With an Intimate Knowledge of Counter-Surveillance: Ban Their Favourite Social Media!

    • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      -17 months ago

      This week on the Effectiveness of Foreign Influence Campaigns on Impressionable Youths: Young people refuse to even consider that TikTok might be bad.

      • @trolololol@lemmy.world
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        27 months ago

        Next week on effectiveness of foreign influence campaigns: muricans don’t spy on me. Except when they do it’s for my own good and protection. Except if it’s not for my own good it’s important to sell my data so they keep running. Except when they accept state agents to buy ad in bulk to influence elections

      • @0xD@infosec.pub
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        7 months ago

        That is true for all social media. Everything is being used for disinformation campaigns, that is not why TikTok is being banned.

        • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          27 months ago

          Yeah but the others are US companies. They can be regulated. Which they don’t want and they will at least make an effort to get rid of at least the obvious disinformation.

          With TikTok, there is no middle ground. Can’t keep them in line with the threat of regulation as they’re a foreign company. Operating in the country that has superseded Russia as the biggest source of disinformation. The only leverage they have is the threat to ban it outright.

          Besides, Zuckerberg and Musk live in the US. They don’t want things to get too bad. Though they’re so disconnected from reality they may inadvertently make things bad. But they at least have an incentive to not have the US go to shit.

          With TikTok, US cities could burn to the ground and they’ll still be fine. And we see TikTok making people particularly unhinged already.

    • Deceptichum
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      17 months ago

      They aren’t banning it because China can see what you put on it, they’re banning it because China can control what you see from it.

        • AwesomeLowlander
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          07 months ago

          There’s no evidence that China can control what’s shown on a China-owned app?

          In case you’re still unaware, the China govt is the ultimate authority within China, even in private companies. More so after recent crackdowns on their oligarchs and billionaires. The idea that they have no control over tiktok is plain laughable.

          • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            07 months ago

            TikTok has gone out of their way to show they’ve siloed American operations. There has been no evidence that the Chinese government could or would breach that.

            • AwesomeLowlander
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              17 months ago

              So you’re arguing that TikTok US, despite being fully owned and controlled by China, has full independence and decision making capability? Even regular western companies don’t have that. What the home office says, goes. At most, their American operations are making sure they’re abiding by US law with regards to data and such (and even then I’d highly doubt that, given all the forensic breakdowns about TikTok sending encrypted data to China).

              • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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                07 months ago

                If it sends encrypted data to China it would be the first I’ve heard of it. The worst the news could come up with last time is headcount data. And yes they went on an entire project to silo it. At the end of the day they want the money, and TikTok shop provides it. Other than that they sell the same info Meta does on the open market.

                • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                  17 months ago

                  I really don’t think China is nearly as interested in siphoning data as controlling the algorithm. Getting people to see more pro-Chinese videos, more anti-US videos, and some bias toward candidates they want to see win is completely doable without exfiltrating any data.

                  Basically, all the stuff people are pissed about Musk doing to Twitter (changing algo to push right wing content) are just as feasible for TikTok to do, with the main difference being China is a state actor, whereas Musk is a private billionaire.

                  We should be very worried about any social media app that’s very popular and controlled by an org with political motivations.

                • Flying Squid
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                  07 months ago

                  If it sends encrypted data to China it would be the first I’ve heard of it.

                  No shit. Do you think they would tell everyone? Do you think it would be easy to prove?

    • ElcaineVolta
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      07 months ago

      to suppress video coming from Gaza and Lebanon? just a guess; but I’d imagine that’s at least a part of it.

      • @actually@lemmy.world
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        17 months ago

        That and labor organizing, environmental awareness, and many other things where the absence helps the rich get wealthier .

        It’s also just a blatant theft; there is a lot of money to be made here however it goes down , and that money goes to connected arseholes

        • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          It also broadcasts propaganda disproportionately highly and harmful ideologies as much as that little list of yours.

          On its face the platform itself is neither good nor bad, but the massive theft of identifying information, photos, and personal conversations leading to increasingly common hacking and theft from Chinese sources tips the scales a bit.

    • @rumba@lemmy.zip
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      07 months ago

      Theater.

      Cybersec is hard. There are always more holes. China exports a LOT of stuff with holes. We can do little more than stick our fingers in the dyke. This looks like they’re doing something.

      What they’re not going to expect is how much people hate them for taking their entertainment away.

  • @mlg@lemmy.world
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    17 months ago

    ITT: Braindeads defending government censorship of the internet as if Zuckerberg won’t immediately replace the void with his own platform or by buying out TikTok in a bid.

    Banning one platform would not magically get rid of short attention span and brainrot you fools. Every social media company already copied or utilizes the same techniques as TikTok, which is already a massive platform because they don’t spam ban or regulate content as hard as Facebook and YouTube do.

    It is insulting that a Chinese run social media platform provides more freedom of speech online than its US competitors.

    They’re banning it to remove competition, congress does not care about its effects on privacy or health, otherwise they’d have done something about Faceebook, Insta, Twiiter, and YouTube decades ago. They pulled their usual committee shenanigans to pretend to care by calling in CEOs to testify, and then promptly accepting a shitload of lobbying money.

    • @OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
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      07 months ago

      Agree on this except I have doubts that this statement is true

      It is insulting that a Chinese run social media platform provides more freedom of speech online than its US competitors.

      • @Katana314@lemmy.world
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        -17 months ago

        Isn’t this the one where people started saying “g*y” because there’s only one sexuality and Taiwan doesn’t exist?

    • @Trantarius@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      07 months ago

      Absolutely none of this law was ever about privacy or mental health. No one ever claimed it was. The law is banning tiktok because it is based in China. That is the reason given by the law itself. The possibility that meta or Google or some other American company will buy or replace tiktok and operate the same way is not an unintended outcome. It is literally the whole point of the law to get bytedance to sell tiktok to an American company.

      • JackbyDev
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        17 months ago

        Hence them saying it’s braindead to say otherwise.

        What would be interesting to see is if other countries ban Facebook because it’s a “national security risk” lol.

    • @PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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      -17 months ago

      You think the communist party of China will allow western billionaires to buy one of their asymmetrical psyops weapon systems? Ha!

    • @Cowabunga_It_Is@lemmy.world
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      -17 months ago

      Banning one platform would not magically get rid of short attention span and brainrot you fools.

      Ah yes, the old “Taking this action won’t solve all of the problems therefore we should do nothing” argument.

  • GHiLA
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    7 months ago

    …the same shit is on Facebook.

    The same exact mindless drivel bullshit.

  • @Etterra@lemmy.world
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    07 months ago

    Good riddance, vertical videos are cancer, short form obliterates attention spans, and their algorithm is engineered specifically to addict people, especially kids.

    Now to ban all the rest of them. Let’s start with Facebook. Twitter is already killing itself but could stand to be “helped” off the cliff.

      • @Woht24@lemmy.world
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        07 months ago

        Depends what you use it for.

        I joined Facebook when it first came out, when it was still only for Uni students, used it for many years and stopped probably about 8-10 years ago now. Fuck, how long has it been around for?

        Anyway, I’ve recently rediscovered Facebook as I bought an old muscle car and I’ve been enjoying the groups and marketplace for parts.

        Anyway, just a thought from an old Facebook user.

        • @finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          07 months ago

          Ugh wah wah wah

          The security and privacy of hundreds of millions of people being penetrated to the benefit of a massive hostile dictatorship!

          I’m so angwy! How dare an actual militaristic attack on the USA be allowed?! RRRrrgh!

    • @Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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      07 months ago

      “We got rid of the brain cancer. Here, have leukemia instead”

      The way I see this is that it’s not TikTok that’s the issue. It’s short form videos.

      • Alphane Moon
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        7 months ago

        Short-form vertical video social platforms are here to stay.

        We are not going to turn back the clock. I say this as someone who doesn’t use TikTok.

        The only semi-realistic (and I use this term very casually) option would be some sort of radical, never-seen-before change in our global societal and socioeconomic models. The dynamics of short form video social media will be the least of our concerns in such a scenario.

      • @Korkki@lemmy.world
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        17 months ago

        The real issue is that these companies are purely for profit and couldn’t give a flying fuck about any negative social implications of their product. Every Le bad thing about any service is just down streamed from this reality of society.

  • @SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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    07 months ago

    Short videos are dumb. Are people really that addicted? I have it and go on it sometimes. And by sometimes I mean like 10 minutes per week. The videos are OK at best, but half of them are ads or live weird shit and the search function for relevant topics are trash.

    • @rumba@lemmy.zip
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      17 months ago

      I stay the f away from it. You haven’t spent enough time to properly train it. As you watch, it tracks time spent on each video, interactions, passive and active choices and slowly builds a dossier on you.

      As you keep going, it occasionally throws adjacent stuff in. It starts tossing you stuff that other people with your likes watch. If there is content on there that you’ll appreciate, it will eventually find it. If there is enough, it’ll stream it to you non-stop.

      They’ll find people who share your political alignment and say precisely what you want to hear. If you like brunettes with flowy blouses or redheads who are gym rats, you’ll get them. If you like skeptics or preppers, you’ll get them.

      My wife gets a lot of her news from it, I find probably 1/3 of it to be suspect and 90% of it biased toward what she wants to hear. Nothing there is telling both sides of any story. (to be clear we have the same political/ethical views, but I’m a touch more skeptical about journalism and random influencers, especially popular influencers)

        • @Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          07 months ago

          For my wife, it never occurred to her that she could trust tiktok influencers far less than even corporate journalists. They have to ethical requirements on tiktok, no verified sources or corrections or redactions, or any accountability at all.

          I had to point that out over multiple videos, although to be fair some of the people on there do put up a front like they are legit to trick people into taking them seriously.

          • @sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            07 months ago

            The same nonsense happens on YouTube and Instagram. Just look at the motivations, these “content creators” get paid via ads (so views) and corporate sponsors, so they don’t get rewarded for truth, they get rewarded for saying things their spomsors and viewers like.

            I’m not saying they’re intentionally misleading people, but journalism is hard and clickbait and copycat “journalism” is easy, so they’ll tend to do more of the latter.

            • @Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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              27 months ago

              I think its the mentality in america of, “whatever I need to do to get ‘mine’ is good”.

              Theres a reason people ask “was it worth it” about nearly everything here. I dont know how to convince people theyd be happier if greed didnt drive their values.

    • @DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      Yes with the attention span of a ground squirrel.

      Why do you think they all talk vast with stupid ADHD inducing shit on one side. (Minecraft parkour, GTA V driving or subway surfers)

      Because people will scroll away if you don’t jingle keys in front of them

  • @FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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    07 months ago

    I get it, but also can you imagine a foreign country banning Amazon because “it means the US can see what you’re up to and it gets to choose what deals to push at you” etc?

    I mean… Facebook for god’s sake…

    Being protectionist makes sense sometimes but it screws you over when other countries start banning your apps in favour of home grown alternatives…

    • @TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
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      07 months ago

      The People’s Republic of China has banned Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, etc). Brazil has banned Twitter and the European Union is considering it.

      • @dan@upvote.au
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        17 months ago

        China has banned practically all US social media sites, not just Meta-owned properties. A bunch of other sites are blocked too.

        China generally wants major internet services to have servers in China itself, similar to how the EU wants citizens’ data to remain in the EU. In order to operate servers located in China, you need to get a license from the Chinese government (ICP license). Large sites that don’t do this tend to get banned by the Great Firewall.

        • _cryptagion [he/him]
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          -17 months ago

          Well, TikTok refused to abide by the law saying they had to be sold to a US company, which is why they’re being banned, so it’s technically the same situation, if for different reasons.

          • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            17 months ago

            Not really, Brazil’s demand was to stop spreading seditious material and to engage with their court system.

            The American law is to bar them from the market. Reducing that to “follow the law” is a bit disingenuous.

    • _cryptagion [he/him]
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      -17 months ago

      Uh, there are several countries that ban Amazon. And amusingly, the EU Parliament has also banned their employees from entering the building.

  • @Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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    -17 months ago

    I am rubbing my nipples in anticipation of the FLOOD of pissed off teenagers who don’t know how to human without sharing their dances now.

    …can someone explain the point of overlaying closed captions over the center of the video, but one word at a time fast paced?