TikTok CEO says it wasn’t ‘spying’ when ByteDance employees surveilled journalists

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u/Artonox Mar 24 '23

there is no point worrying over semantics - real question is what and why were they looking at their data specifically?

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u/tengo_harambe Mar 24 '23

Confidential information was leaked from the company and reported on by Forbes journalists who had Tiktok accounts. Some Tiktok/Bytedance employees in an attempt to track down the leaker looked up the IP addresses of those journalists.

IP addresses map very roughly to a real geographic location. It's not precise or accurate, for example if you lived in a small suburb surrounding a major city, your IP would probably map to the city instead. However, in conducting an investigation this is useful because if all of the journalists were geolocated to a specific area, then the leaker is likely also from that area.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

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u/sargonas Mar 24 '23

I don’t need my elected representative to thoroughly understand everything about everything in the world as well as i do, and also all the things i don’t understand… i just expect them to employ a reliable and robust staff to cover all the bases and prep them for this as needed.

(I mean i have other requirements and expectations too like reliability and empathy to the average Americans life experiences, but that’s outside the scope of this thread)

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u/N-Waverace Mar 24 '23

Wouldn’t it be cool if we had representatives who had even the foggiest concept of how the internet works though?

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u/appsecSme Mar 24 '23

Ron Wyden the senator from Oregon is very savvy on technical topics.

He spoke at Def Con a few years ago, and was great.

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u/Dumcommintz Mar 25 '23

Been watching him for years fight the good fight. Wish we had more Rons in the Senate.

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u/realfinkployd Mar 24 '23

Not gonna lie, that would be pretty cool.

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u/Wayelder Mar 24 '23

It's a series of tubes...

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u/rdicky58 Mar 24 '23

I guarantee you that guy went home to his kids and asked them to explain the “internets” to him; after a series of increasingly frustrating “I don’t get it”s, this was the explanation they settled on that his mind could grasp, and it latched onto that hard enough to bring it to the senate. I know I’ve experienced this with people in my life (except for the senate part 😂)

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u/Pristine-Juice-1677 Mar 24 '23

Nah, I think it’s a whole lot of very tangled strings with soup cans attached at the ends. The data is input at one can, and it propagates down the string to the one at the other end. The problem is, it’s easily intercepted. They just don’t seem to understand. 😕

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u/sargonas Mar 24 '23

Memes aside, MANY of them do, to great detail. I've spoken to several of them personally at great length about highly technological topics. Sadly many more don't however, but their staff does at least which is something.

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u/theonewhoknocksforu Mar 24 '23

My state rep is Eric Swalwel and I understand he has deeply probed both technology and China. Repeatedly.

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u/Basic-Entry6755 Mar 24 '23

The fact that none of them could be bothered to ask an intern for a quick debrief on how this stuff worked shows that they lack the basic preparation skills of a 12 year old putting on a science fair presentation. Honestly most of the stuff I've seen about this tiktok congress thing has been absurdly comical to a degree that makes me question my own sanity; I'm no techno wiz by any means and even I know that this stuff is pretty stupid.

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u/sargonas Mar 24 '23

Oh yeah no, you’re not wrong there about this specific hearing because there were several people on that panel who absolutely boggled the mind about their technological unpreparedness for this conversation. They clearly did not do their basic homework before for stepping into that room and that is embarrassing

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u/Youvebeeneloned Mar 24 '23

See I get that...

But these people dont understand WiFi... a technology thats over 25 years old, and has been ubiquitous with people for probably a good 20 years of that. Worse the way it was being described shows a complete lack of understanding of Networking in general... something thats existed in some form for 50+ years.

Even my kids who are not even teens understand those concepts... HELL my parents in their 70's understand it. That ELECTED FUCKING REPS dont just flat out shows how utterly disconnected from modern life they are.

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u/joeg26reddit Mar 24 '23

The debate about braces acting like a bump stock machine gun has opened my eyes to how many politicians are actually pretty ignorant and will double down and it

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u/deelowe Mar 24 '23

Sometimes the ignorance is fabricated. I believe that's the case with the bumpstock/brace thing. They want to confuse people. Sometimes it misses the mark. Sometimes it works (AR meaning assault rifle and then pretending like assault weapon and assault rifle are the same thing, for example).

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u/taci7c0ff33 Mar 24 '23

Was it just IP address? I doubt it, it’s probably precise geolocation from the device GPS.

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u/LavenderAutist Mar 24 '23

Alright. But what if they combined that data with other data available in their system or third parties?

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u/LiamTheHuman Mar 24 '23

I'm pretty sure an ISP can tell who(which router) was using an IP address at what time so it would provide a lot more accuracy than just the city. It can also be used with other data to figure out who you are.

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u/sigmaluckynine Mar 26 '23

If we're specifically discussing TikTok, this would be impossible. ISPs don't share connection information unless there's a warrant.

About other data, for the journalists, yes, but in a general sense no

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u/No_Recognition735 Mar 24 '23

Sure would've been nice to hear his responses but they kept cutting him off or just not letting him answer.

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u/question_sunshine Mar 25 '23

Is this the first time you've watched the Congressional hearing? That's just how they are.

Note: I'm not saying that's a good thing.

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u/WoolyLawnsChi Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23 •

why does every social media and app on you phone look at your data?

The issue isn't Tik Tok, the issue is the lack of broad data privacy in general

But Congress won't bring that up because FaceBook, Apple, and Google have a much better political team working the politicians on the Hill

EDIT

Dear Redditors,

Please stop being jingoistic assholes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, as part of its warrantless surveillance program as authorized by the Patriot Act. The facility commenced operations in 2003 and its purpose was publicly revealed in 2006.

The room measures about 24 by 48 feet (7.3 by 14.6 m) and contains several racks of equipment, including a Narus STA 6400, a device designed to intercept and analyze Internet communications at very high speeds.[1] It is fed by fiber optic lines from beam splitters installed in fiber optic trunks carrying Internet backbone traffic.[3] In the analysis of J. Scott Marcus, a former CTO for GTE and a former adviser to the Federal Communications Commission, it has access to all Internet traffic that passes through the building, and therefore "the capability to enable surveillance and analysis of internet content on a massive scale, including both overseas and purely domestic traffic."[4]

The existence of the room was revealed by former AT&T technician Mark Klein and was the subject of a 2006 class action lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T.[5] Klein claims he was told that similar black rooms are operated at other facilities around the country.[6]

EDIT 2:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

The ongoing publication of leaked documents has revealed previously unknown details of a global surveillance apparatus run by the United States' NSA[133] in close cooperation with three of its four Five Eyes partners: Australia's ASD,[134] the UK's GCHQ,[135] and Canada's CSEC.[136]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013–present))

Taken together, the revelations have brought to light a global surveillance system that cast off many of its historical restraints after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Secret legal authorities empowered the NSA to sweep in the telephone, Internet and location records of whole populations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies.[1][2][3] The program is also known by the SIGAD US-984XN.[4][5] PRISM collects stored internet communications based on demands made to internet companies such as Google LLC under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms.[6] Among other things, the NSA can use these PRISM requests to target communications that were encrypted when they traveled across the internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier,[7][8] and to get data that is easier to handle.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore

XKeyscore (XKEYSCORE or XKS) is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other intelligence agencies, including the Australian Signals Directorate, Canada's Communications Security Establishment, New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, Japan's Defense Intelligence Headquarters, and Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst.[1]

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u/Moist_When_It_Counts Mar 24 '23

Because that’s the entire purpose of social media and its apps. User experience is just part of the hook.

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u/Dolthra Mar 24 '23

I mean this whole thing is due to lobbying from Meta because Instagram Reels can't compete with TikTok. It's no coincidence that the day after the Biden administration said they were going to force a sale that Facebook announced it was ending revenue sharing from Reels, because suddenly they will have no competition in that area (YouTube Shorts don't seem to be targeting the same demographic, though they're a similar product).

That's why there's no sweeping attempt to address data privacy, because this isn't actually about that- it's simply American companies wanting to eliminate competition.

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u/giboauja Mar 24 '23

To be fair China doesn’t let American apps compete in China. So I can see a company finding (a decent ) excuse to act on their corporations self interest.

It’s an a-moral take and one I don’t necessarily have, but it’s probably where a lot of the political drive is derived from.

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u/233lol Mar 25 '23

MS,Apple?

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u/SwagCleric Mar 24 '23

Exactly, its also about hurting their economy. Not saying that’s right… but they hurt our economy by blocking access to so many US websites and apps.

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u/Victor-81 Mar 24 '23

To be fair, Chinese gov didn’t directly ban the western companies. It required those companies to follow a set of regulations that these companies refuse to do. And most of these regulations are not intend to protect Chinese companies from competition but for other apparent reasons.

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u/hitpopking Mar 24 '23

Not sure why u got downvoted, but I agree. Microsoft is doing business in China, bing search is working in China, but servers and data have to be hosted in China

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u/233lol Mar 25 '23

Tik Tok also in US

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u/hitpopking Mar 25 '23

Yes, TikTok is already doing this, this hearing is never about privacy, it’s about companies like google and meta lobbying to ban TikTok because they are unable to compete with TikTok.

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u/Weary_Signal9447 Mar 24 '23

A few of the following companies are Chinese owned… General Motors, GE Appliances, Smithfield Foods, Legendary Entertainment, Your phone is likely made in China

So they have access to software in vehicles, appliances, phones and yes access to food too, but app is bad, must ban free speech.

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u/phantompower_48v Mar 24 '23

Finally someone who is getting to the core of the issue.

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u/oscar_the_couch Mar 24 '23

The issue isn't Tik Tok

The issue is also very much with TikTok.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

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u/Alberiman Mar 24 '23

Remember when Cambridge Analytica at the behest of Russia used Facebook to not only gather a crap ton of user data from multiple countries but also used that data to put out manipulative ads to manipulate voters and likely was a major cause of the success of Brexit?

But it's okay, Facebook is an American company so it's fine. Privacy and security isn't important, it's that they paid us that's important.

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u/EWJWNNMSG Mar 24 '23

I live in Europe, US and Chinese communication companies are all foreign state controlled surveillance tools to me

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u/assaultboy Mar 24 '23

Imagine hating TikTok for being a surveillance tool but not realizing that applies to every social media platform

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u/SuhDudeGoBlue Mar 24 '23

It’s very different to be surveilled by a foreign state than being surveilled for advertisers. Both need to be checked. One is a much more imminent national security threat and threat to democracy.

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u/SwagCleric Mar 24 '23

Exactly, not to mention tensions are high with China and how many apps and websites do they block from the US. That hurts our economy too, this app should of been banned a long time ago. It’s a state surveillance tool.

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u/giboauja Mar 24 '23

The fact that they might be the worst of them obfuscates the fact that all others are awful too.

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u/assaultboy Mar 24 '23

I don't think TikTok is the worst tbh. Sure it's controlled by a foreign state, but you know what's scarier? The ones pretending to not be feeding the domestic state, where you live and can be targeted

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u/NoCokJstDanglnUretra Mar 24 '23

A foreign hostile nation with incentive to destabilize us is controlling what you watch. That’s the issue.

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u/WoolyLawnsChi Mar 24 '23

hey, if you're pissed about that

well then ... you're gonna "love" this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, as part of its warrantless surveillance program as authorized by the Patriot Act. The facility commenced operations in 2003 and its purpose was publicly revealed in 2006.

The room measures about 24 by 48 feet (7.3 by 14.6 m) and contains several racks of equipment, including a Narus STA 6400, a device designed to intercept and analyze Internet communications at very high speeds.[1] It is fed by fiber optic lines from beam splitters installed in fiber optic trunks carrying Internet backbone traffic.[3] In the analysis of J. Scott Marcus, a former CTO for GTE and a former adviser to the Federal Communications Commission, it has access to all Internet traffic that passes through the building, and therefore "the capability to enable surveillance and analysis of internet content on a massive scale, including both overseas and purely domestic traffic."[4]

The existence of the room was revealed by former AT&T technician Mark Klein and was the subject of a 2006 class action lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T.[5] Klein claims he was told that similar black rooms are operated at other facilities around the country.[6]

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u/G33ONER Mar 24 '23

To manipulate and instill rhetoric

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u/sigmaluckynine Mar 26 '23

This actually made me laugh when they brought this up. What a load of hypocritical b.s.

Instead of thinking hmm...maybe it might be a good idea to invest in education so that the general public would be better educated to weed out propaganda we should put an ineffective ban. Yes, that's a great idea /s

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u/WoolyLawnsChi Mar 24 '23

Just like Google, MSFT, Apple, Facebook, etc. do

Tik Tok isn't the problem

the lack of broad privacy protections is the problem

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u/ShaunDark Mar 24 '23

Not even the lack thereof. The EU has a pretty solid data protection law, but it's hardly enforced, so obviously no one gives a crap.

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u/sigmaluckynine Mar 26 '23

You'd be surprised. I do a lot of business with Europeans and GDPR is no joke - they will specifically ask for a data addendum document which we have to change how we handle data for our European customers to be compliant with GDPR.

They will specifically make sure during the due diligence that we're GDPR compliant.

It's not enforced per se, but it's a bigger force than you think

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u/Kibitzer975 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

Yeah no problem letting technofascists design a media selection algorithm

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u/trevize1138 Mar 24 '23

But enough about Zuck and Musk...

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u/NoCokJstDanglnUretra Mar 24 '23

A hostile technofascist nation. They are not friendly to the US or the “west”.

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u/NanerSeven Mar 24 '23

I agree, all these pro-Tiktok arguments are hilarious. They might as well say "Wait, so China can't have military bases in America? Doesn't that seem a little hypocritical, given that the US has military bases in America?"

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u/Pristine-Juice-1677 Mar 24 '23

That would be a good point, but the game that’s being played isn’t nation-state v nation-state; it’s get the dummies to thin the herd. I know where a lot of the CCP people are. They mostly just go to work as far as I can tell. When they’re not looking through all of the local communications. I’ve seen some American intel people doing their thing too. It’s almost like they’re playing a game but with a lot of adrenaline pumping. And blood. Lots of that too. Fuck.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23 edited 4d ago

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u/small_toe Mar 24 '23

You've been drinking too much kool aid buddy. Meta actively, knowledgeably and negligently recommends conspiracy theory shit to crackpots and has been called out for it before.

www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna3581?espv=1

The only reason TikTok was brought before Congress is because all of the most outspoken Senators don't have stocks in it, and aren't actively lobbied by ByteDance. (Spoiler alert, all of them have tens of thousands in stocks in various competing social media companies)

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u/wwcfm Mar 25 '23

Zuckerburg testified in front of congress for 2 days just 2 years ago. Do just a little bit of research before you post.

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u/jesusgrandpa Mar 24 '23

I can’t believe he’s using biometric data to scan our pupils into the algorithm.

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u/tinyfred Mar 25 '23

All while TikTok connects to the home wifi! gasps in 83 year old congressman

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u/Inous Mar 24 '23

Lol this is so meta

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u/yooper1019 Mar 24 '23

Did Mark Zuckerberg write this?

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u/Drinks_by_Wild Mar 25 '23

He’s spending tons of cash astroturfing and lobbying to sway public opinion

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u/sigmaluckynine Mar 26 '23

Maybe he shouldn't have wasted so much time and money trying to create a fake reality that no one cared about

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u/letdogsvote Mar 24 '23

We weren't "spying," we were just secretly monitoring and collecting information.

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u/Luci_Noir Mar 24 '23

Doing their CCP appointed jobs. It’s not spying if you aren’t hiding it.

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u/Globalist_Nationlist Mar 24 '23

Otherwise known as the modern tech industry!

:(

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u/FluxedEdge Mar 24 '23

He wasn't wrong when he said they don't do anything outside of industry practice.

TikTok just happens to be big enough it's taken seriously, but the real problem is every other app in existence that may also be doing this (or rather is doing this).

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u/lilliiililililil Mar 24 '23

tiktok just happens to be chinese enough that it’s taken seriously.

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u/Dolthra Mar 24 '23

TikTok just happens to successfully compete with American companies enough that it's taken seriously.

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u/Genethebunnyqueen Mar 28 '23

Just like Zuckerberg

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u/realfinkployd Mar 24 '23

Spying is such an ugly word. I prefer espionage

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u/slabby Mar 25 '23

This thread:

1: "We shouldn't ban TikTok because we don't ban Facebook and Google and so on."

2: "Okay, let's ban all of those, then."

1: "...wait, no"

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u/LeeroyTC Mar 24 '23

No one with truly sensitive data on their device that a foreign government would care about should be using TikTok.

I don't, so I use it freely, but no journalist, politician, researcher, or senior executive should have it on the device they use for work.

Even if the TikTok CEO is telling the truth here, ByteDance is legally compelled to comply with orders from the Chinese government. And the Chinese government owns a "golden share" of ByteDance that gives the government overriding control of ByteDance and TikTok if need be in terms of strategy and corporate governance.

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u/8349932 Mar 24 '23

I'd rather not let China have that much data on stupid Americans to help them target areas to swing elections the same way Facebook and Co did

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u/Bradfromihob Mar 25 '23

The data that tiktok is providing is overlapping data they are already buying in mass. The big issue is what you said, and that’s them influencing what we see/don’t see. Take the data mining out of it (cause literally everything mines your data) and it’s still a bad thing.

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u/circumtopia Mar 25 '23

Except tiktok already moved new US data to American servers hosted and controlled by Oracle. They also proposed letting Oracle monitor in/out, inspect all their code, allow the US government to inspect all their code, have any IT roles at this new US data security department be filled only by American citizens and vetted by the US government. Bet you didn't know that did you?

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u/WilliamLeeFightingIB Mar 24 '23

The TikTok CEO said the same thing, that he thinks work phones shouldn't have any social media apps on them, not just TikTok. This is pretty based imo, why would you install social media on your work phones anyway

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u/SomethingMatter Mar 24 '23

How many people have different work and home mobile phones?

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u/techypunk Mar 25 '23

3/5 board members for ByteDance are American....

https://www.bytedance.com/en/

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u/barterclub Mar 24 '23

Correct.

Read the Bill and everyone’s tune will change.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-strongly-opposes-house-bill-that-would-ban-tiktok-and-threaten-first-amendment-rights

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23697971-843d73b1823ea0d4122b4365262410d6restrict-act-final-text

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u/CheeksMix Mar 24 '23

I think there’s a weird confusion with how China will be using the information vs how a normal advertising company is going to be using the data.

I don’t think China is only interested in political gain, I would bet they’re equally interested in things like population within an area or other strategic information that you can gather from corroborating more freely available other data sets with what they are gathering through tiktok.

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u/workthrow3 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

As the Tiktok CEO says repeatedly, work phones should not have any social media apps on them

edit: y'all downvoting me for reporting on what was said in the hearing?

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u/my_stats_are_wrong Mar 24 '23

Whoa whoa whoa, common sense? How does this make China look bad though?

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u/workthrow3 Mar 24 '23

Lmao dude i'm literally getting downvoted for not only just repeating something from the hearing, but also repeating something that is totally reasonable and everyone SHOULD agree with, especially if they claim to care so much about data privacy as they spew here.

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u/Jardien Mar 25 '23

okay, okay, but can you say China bad?

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u/kinglittlenc Mar 24 '23

No one cared about Facebook collecting data until it influenced an election. I'd rather not give a foreign power that much data and influence on millions of Americans.

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u/TheZoltan Mar 24 '23

I would have more sympathy for this take if serious action had been taken against Facebook and Twitter for foreign interference in US (and other democratic elections). Like what meaningful punishments have been inflicted on them and what steps are in place to stop Russia/China or anyone else buying data from those companies and pushing propaganda through them?

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u/dmun Mar 24 '23

I'd rather not give a foreign power that much data and influence on millions of Americans.

They'll still have what they can buy.

You know, like the Russians do.

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u/Weary_Signal9447 Mar 24 '23

This isn’t about tiktok. I wish some people would read the bill they introducing with tiktok as an excuse. The internet as we know it will soon be over.

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u/theblindkitten Mar 26 '23

It is also possible that people around you can leak data about you, through their video backgrounds, content, wifi network… etc

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u/sup_ty Mar 24 '23

No one with a quarter brain cell should be using software that a foreign government makes statements on. The only thing you should trust is that the Chinese(any) government looks out for itself, and itself is an authoritarian regime.

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u/PolyDudeNYC Mar 24 '23

If China can ban Google, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and more in China I think it’s totally reasonable to ban TikTok.

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u/rejemy1017 Mar 25 '23

Or we could implement privacy regulations that apply to all websites so that no one is spying on us. I don't like the idea of Xi having my data, but I also don't like the idea of Zuckerberg or Bezos having it either.

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u/PolyDudeNYC Mar 25 '23 •

It’s not the spying I’m as afraid about it’s the ability For China to influence and manipulate the population that I’m more worried about. Basically China doing what Elon has done to twitter to promote his own tweets.

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u/SFLADC2 Mar 25 '23

How many times does this need to be explained for people to get it.

Facebook taking your data to sell you stupid shit does not equal china taking your data to hunt dissidents and to spy on foreign assets.

In the US the FBI needs a warrant to get Facebook data. In China the government owns the data to begin with because they own TikTok and this can track anything they want whenever they want.

There is no whataboutism comparison here. The situations are completely different. I'm all for regulating data brokers, but that is a completely different policy area than this issue of national security.

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u/Gavindy_ Mar 24 '23

According to the Chinese foreign ministry we’re xenophobic lol

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u/MrStayPuftSeesYou Mar 24 '23

Words are just words.

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u/CranberryGandalf Mar 24 '23

Lying works out great long term. I’m sure our geopolitical leaders will come out on top. /s

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u/Matasa89 Mar 24 '23

Well they hurt out feelings first, so it’s time for some punitive measures?

What, turnabout isn’t fair play anymore?

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

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u/Texaslonghorns12345 Mar 24 '23

It’s not banned. They have their own domestic version called Douyin (for us outside of China) but in China it’s referred to as tiktok.

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u/AcridAcedia Mar 24 '23

Ah yes. Gotta be more like the CCP. That's what America was missing.

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u/blastradii Mar 24 '23

Yep. While we’re at it we should start banning books and certain contents in books. Oh wait…..

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u/Torifyme12 Mar 24 '23

No but if you're going to ask a market to open up to you entirely and not reciprocate don't be surprised if people decide to restrict you.

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u/Matasa89 Mar 24 '23

“You should be noble, turn the other cheek, take the high road… and let us keep punching you.”

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u/rasvial Mar 24 '23

That's not true.. were not banning TikTok because it provides people access to unmoderated political content. We're not banning TikTok because it prevents people from seeing what's happening around their country in realtime without govt censorship..

We're not alike at all

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

Bro… they’re literally trying to ban it because they can’t moderate the content

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u/a_rainbow_serpent Mar 24 '23

Republican Party brainstorming session be like.. “So, could we harvest organs from BLM protesters? China does it…”

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u/bigkoi Mar 24 '23

China banned those companies because they couldn't hack into them.

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u/circumtopia Mar 25 '23 edited Mar 26 '23

Tiktok has had to allow Oracle, a US company, to inspect and approve its code and the US government too. They also moved US data to US servers monitored by Oracle. They also agreed to have the US government vet and set requirements for tiktok staff to work with the US it roles. Google project Texas. If you really want to go with this double standards route you'd agree with China accessing Google's source code and controlling Google that way? No I'm sure you'd be the first person crying about how authoritarian it is.

And if we're on that line since Huawei phones were banned in the US, China should've banned Apple and cut off a major revenue stream for them.

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u/iamwhoiwasnow Mar 24 '23

If they ban tik tok they need to ban Facebook and Reddit. Stand for what you're saying or stop saying shit that only favors you

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u/EggPerfect7361 Mar 25 '23

Reddit's good portion itself owned by Chinese company right? Tik tok is mostly entertainment but Facebook and Twitter is whole different category. Fake news alone can make changes around the world. Should be only platform that is banned.

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u/mailslot Mar 24 '23

Yeah. US companies totally don’t have to skirt around our own secret National Security Letter laws. Our government doesn’t spy.

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u/PolyDudeNYC Mar 24 '23

Or maybe we all spy which is all the more reason for China to ban US apps and the US to ban Chinese apps.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

[deleted]

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u/kikng Mar 24 '23

No, America should block foreign spy tools being freely installable by the unknowing/uncaring public. There are lots of platforms that allow free speech, ticktock is not the only platform out there.

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u/SwagCleric Mar 24 '23

Finally someone that gets it.

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u/rwmbv Mar 24 '23

"Mr Chew, my kids are stupid. How can I blame TikTok? Say yes."

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u/phiz36 Mar 24 '23

I still don’t understand why it’s only TikTok getting heat for something ALL social media companies do.

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u/SadMaverick Mar 25 '23

Because it is used by a foreign government. Nobody is saying others are good.

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u/StealyEyedSecMan Mar 24 '23

Every major provider is doing this. Every platform company is doing this. The governments are grabbing all the public data possible and adding to to their own... why all the pearl clutching with TikTok? Just the China angle seems very weak, what's the bigger reason?

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u/yesiknowimsexy Mar 24 '23

It’s because China can freely take. If they want our data, then they need to buy it like everyone else ofc

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

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u/MarzMan Mar 25 '23

Google and facebook paying off Reps to get rid of the biggest most popular platform for us users. Still should be banned.

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u/marketrent Mar 24 '23

Excerpt from the linked content:^1,2

Citing reporting from Forbes, later confirmed by the company itself, Florida Rep. Neal Dunn asked Chew if TikTok parent company ByteDance has spied on American citizens.

Chew responded “I don’t think that spying is the right way to describe it.”

In December, TikTok admitted that ByteDance employees used the app to track the location of journalists reporting critically on the company through their IP addresses.

Four ByteDance employees, both U.S. and China-based, were fired for accessing the data in an apparent effort to identify sources leaking internal company information to reporters.

¹ Taylor Hatmaker for TechCrunch/Apollo Global Management, 23 Mar. 2023, https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/23/tiktok-ceo-says-it-wasnt-spying-when-bytedance-employees-surveilled-journalists/

² TikTok parent ByteDance planned to use TikTok to monitor the physical location of specific American citizens, 20 Oct. 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2022/10/20/tiktok-bytedance-surveillance-american-user-data/

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

As a devil's advocate, many large corporations have internal investigation teams that are responsible for looking into leaks. It's an insider threat. It doesn't really matter if they are leaking information to journalists or IP to competitors.

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u/grigsbie Mar 24 '23

Facebook knows where, how, when and with what toilet paper you wipe your ass with. They know if you wad the paper or if you fold it and they know where your most likely going to dump at any given time.

META has so many billions of data points on every American citizen that they’ve been accused of recording your conversations because their algorithm is just that good at predicting your every move.

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u/jeremiah1142 Mar 24 '23

And China banned Facebook, soooo……

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u/Boggie135 Mar 24 '23

Would China be able to ask for and receive all the data Facebook collects?

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u/grigsbie Mar 24 '23

Facebook is banned in China.

There is nothing stopping Facebook from selling all of our data to the highest bidder.

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u/Boggie135 Mar 24 '23

Is there something stopping TikTok from providing data to the CCP if they asked?

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u/circumtopia Mar 25 '23 edited Mar 25 '23

Yes. Tiktok moved US data to US based Oracle cloud servers recently. Oracle monitors input and output. It's not even tiktok servers like the ones they were using in virginia and Singapore because the US said that isn't good enough. Any tiktok staff working with them have to be American and vetted by the US government. The US government was offered the code to inspect along with Oracle, which has already started. Also a third party audit team and any code changes have to be approved by Oracle. They literally addressed all the national security risks and I'd bet 99% of the redditors making this point about the CCP controlling tiktok don't realize this, and it was even in the recent hearing. Ask yourself why.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

Wow, sounds like China should ban Facebook then.

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u/anObeseGeek Mar 24 '23

Nobody in the West called for Facebook be banned after the Cambridge Analytica incident or Amazon be censured on how they treated employees, but by all means all things Chinese (or any non-American friendly states) are bad and must be banned. That's how it looks to me as a foreigner

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u/vi3tmix Mar 25 '23

And to this day I realize people still don’t understand the Cambridge analytica incident

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u/PieceStatus9648 Mar 24 '23

Westerner here, ban Facebook too!

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u/SaintNimrod Mar 24 '23

Yup, if Tik Tok is to be banned so should Facebook, Instagram etc.

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u/Bankzzz Mar 24 '23

But then how would the US government continue to spy on their own citizens?

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u/anObeseGeek Mar 25 '23

Work with Pornhub

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u/Dull-Contact120 Mar 24 '23

Should just be like, we’re just doing the industry norm, like google, Apple, meta … might as well drag everyone down because it’s true.

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u/Turd_Ferguson_87 Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23 •

People on Reddit struggle focusing on the issues. Multiple things can be true: Tik Tok is a net negative to US society, a net positive for China and we are in a Cold War with China; our Senators are inept especially when it comes to tech; US tech companies should be forced to adhere to stricter user privacy laws. The latter points being true does not mean we should not act on the first point, and ban Tik Tok.

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u/Hiddencamper Mar 24 '23

But what if I like Tik Tok?

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u/mjayph Mar 25 '23

Saying TikTok is a net negative is your opinion based on what? Hearsay? Anyone that actually uses the app only has positive things to say about it.

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u/Turd_Ferguson_87 Mar 25 '23

It’s a very entertaining app, I’ve gotten enjoyment out of it too. But the power of social media in a powerful state controlled hands goes beyond that.

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u/engagementisdumb Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

charlie_brown_football.gif

This is the most gullible world view ever. They will ban TikTok and ignore everything else and manage expectations through PR because it's not in the interest of their lobbyists.

The reality is that people and especially governments can't "do two things at once" when the incentives don't align.

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u/Turd_Ferguson_87 Mar 24 '23

thor_is_it_though.gif

Not sure how it’s being gullible but OK. The discourse on this is constantly the same thing of “Banning Tik Tok is pointless because reasons”, when the reasons have little to do with or is a distraction from the reason Tik Tok should be banned. Inept politicians in the pocket of big tech sucks we all know that, but is that a reason not to ban Tik Tok, knowing what we know about it? Can’t we fix this one problem and then turn our attention to the next?

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u/dmun Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 25 '23

Can’t we fix this one problem and then turn our attention to the next?

The truth of the matter is, we won't-- because of how this problem is framed and launched.

Who directly benefits from banning just tiktok? Meta, who has never been floated as a company to ban but is a company that a) has allowed foreign manipulation of their users and users in many countries around the world b) sells data and behaviorial information as their major source of revenue c) allows government agencies to use their data to prosecute users..

While we're worrying about what the Chinese might do, this is what meta does.

Who has the highest lobbying budget of social media companyes? Meta.

Who hired Targeted Victory, a Republican marketing outfit, to turn public opinion against tiktok to their benefit?

Ban tiktok tomorrow and Meta will still be there-- that's why this is so bipartisan, they've got more politicians on the payroll and "China."

There is no "turn our attention to the next"--- and some of us see enough of how this played out now, and in the past, to know how disengenous it is to pretend it won't repeat.

Where tiktok fucked up was not slapping a US flag on a Texan (lol) data center and kick their lobbying arm up a few tens of millions of notches.

edit:

Jesus Christ I didn't even know Meta is guilty of giving Data to China already!:

It appears from these documents that Facebook has known, since at least September 2018, that hundreds of thousands of developers in countries Facebook characterized as 'high-risk,' including the People’s Republic of China (PRC), had access to significant amounts of sensitive user data," Democrat Mark Warner and Republican Marco Rubio wrote in the letter, which was released in a statement by their offices.

BAN SOCIAL MEDIA. DATA BILL OF RIGHTS NOW.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

Nothing to see here or at Google or Facebook.

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u/Berova Mar 24 '23

If it wasn't 'spying' what was it? Stalking?

TikTok is also waging a parallel public relations campaign, recruiting influencers, courting journalists and spreading its message through its own app in the run up to Thursday’s hearing.

This so-called PR campaign has some similarities to FTX's campaign to gain influence albeit at a much smaller scale than FTX's. For those unfamiliar, FTX "sponsored" celebrities, politicians, sports teams, stadiums to gain acceptance, influence, and name recognition.

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u/LastNightsHangover Mar 24 '23

You have it backwards if you think FTX was the bigger scale ... how do you think TT started. They spent their way into your phone.

This influencer playbook isn't new anyway - its what advertising has done for decades

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u/Chinese_Spyware Mar 24 '23

Seriously, trust him.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

If you really watch the hearings you’ll realize the TikTok hearings are a complete joke. Zuckerburg and Facebook steal and collect dats just as much as if not more than TikTok. The congress members also have no idea how technology works lol.

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u/Trout_Shark Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

The fact that TikTok can't really be held accountable for any data misuse is pretty bad in it's own right. The ban should happen quick or this could get real messy. I expect it will get nasty as this is billions of dollars we're talking about plus a lot of angry TikTok users.

What I don't understand is why were politicians asking such stupid questions of the CEO? Any good security expert would have torn that guy apart with a detailed map of what the app actually does on a network or device.

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u/jesusgrandpa Mar 24 '23

The only political thing I pay attention to are congressional hearings for big tech. They’re hilarious

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u/Lumn8tion Mar 24 '23

Agreed. We do have experts here in the US don’t we? At minimum, they could hand these pols some legit questions. Waste of time.

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u/circumtopia Mar 25 '23

They moved US data to US servers run and monitored by Oracle. Any tiktok staff working with Oracle will have to be American and vetted by the US government. How is data misuse still going to be a concern when they already addressed it?

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u/atwegotsidetrekked Mar 24 '23

Yes, this is concerning. But compared to what Facebook has done, it’s small.

The only thing I got from the committee is that our elected representatives are absolute idiots about the technology we all use.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

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u/workthrow3 Mar 24 '23

How is it untouchable? They're literally in the process of banning it in the US, that is literally the opposite of being untouchable. And as someone else said, if Tiktok wants to operate in the US they have to comply with US laws. But there are no data privacy laws in the US because the US does not care about data privacy, because that would keep companies like Meta from selling data to anyone they want to. Which makes them money. And makes these congress people money, too, since many of them were found to have stock in Meta. And its quite apparent that Meta paid off congress to ban Tiktok because they so desperately want Instagram Reels to be the new Tiktok.

If the US government actually cared about data protection, they would make data protection laws that apply to all social media platforms.

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u/cookingboy Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

TikTok is virtually untouchable because it is a Chinese entity.

That’s not true, if they want to operate in the U.S they have to comply to U.S laws.

But there are no US laws for user data privacy (which is by design), so we literally made up a new law saying we can ban an app simply for being from a country we don’t like.

At the end of the day the government needs to show evidence for their claims if it’s challenged in court, but so far everything is hypothetical and they’ve not shown any smoking gun publicly. That’s why yesterday’s hearing was all political theater performance with zero real substance. They have no concrete evidence they can show to justify their Red Scare 2.0.

We should all know by now, “National Security” and “Think of the children!!!” are the catch all excuses politicians use when they had no real argument for something, and yesterday’s hearing was filled with nothing but those for a good reason.

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u/atwegotsidetrekked Mar 24 '23

The USA can get information on any USA data. It’s not a Chinese company it’s a Singapore company (something I didn’t know until the committee)

And how is that fine for Facebook helping in the overthrow of the United States on January 6th going?

subpoenas, such as those covered under 18 U.S.C. §2709(c) (enacted as part of the USA Patriot Act), provide criminal penalties for disclosing the existence of the subpoena to any third party, including the service provider's users

national security letter (NSL) is an administrative subpoena issued by the United States government to gather information for national security purposes. NSLs do not require prior approval from a judge.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

This ^{^{^{^}}}

A lot of people don’t take this into account. Multinational corporations are practically impervious compared to corporations headquartered in America. The hammer will come down on META at some point, I assure you.

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u/WoolyLawnsChi Mar 24 '23

LOL ... for what and by whom?

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u/QuesoChef Mar 24 '23

It seems like Meta has been doing a slow sink for awhile.

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u/TheHamitron Mar 24 '23

The amount of sinophobia on reddit is astounding.

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u/ElysiumSprouts Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

It's like that balloon! It wasn't "spying" it was just surveillance! I wonder if we're seeing a culture clash thing where Chinese are so used to being surveilled that they see it as a separate issue to spying...

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

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u/pandymun Mar 24 '23

SURVEILLED ?

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u/evorna Mar 24 '23

Special observation operation

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u/DosACeroEnthusiast Mar 24 '23

There were a few representatives that brought up needing data privacy laws. Also I could faintly hear in the distance printers shooting out letters from Americas tech giants suggesting how it would best be implemented and how a couple million dollars in their campaign could really help reelection.

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u/GhostDieM Mar 25 '23

Special observation operation?

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u/donomi Mar 25 '23

Does he understand the definition of surveiled?

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u/LlamaTheMike Mar 25 '23

Delete Facebook and instagram

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u/whimsicallywistful Mar 25 '23

Actual footage of the hearing

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u/sumo_snake Mar 25 '23

It was not spying, they were just Peking.

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u/aronkra Mar 24 '23

Astroturf here is unreal. No one cares about Chinese people having your data, if they did they’d ban Facebook from selling it to foreign data brokers.

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u/Hecedu Mar 24 '23

Either astroturf or sinophobia tbh

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u/jesusgrandpa Mar 24 '23

I don’t see why this is downvoted

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u/aronkra Mar 24 '23

bc reddit hivemind

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u/metricshadow12 Mar 24 '23

Reddit is actually disappointing me today smh it’s as bad as Facebook comments in this thread

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u/livingfortheliquid Mar 24 '23

There's many people who are only getting their Tictok hearing news from Tictok.

If that's not a sign, I don't know what is.

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u/firewall245 Mar 24 '23

Most of that news of tiktok is literally just clips of the hearing that shows how dumb our congress is

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u/my_stats_are_wrong Mar 24 '23

You're right, we should get all of our news curated through outlets crafted by media moguls that magically make billions of dollars for holding sway over our population.

Now I get how our representatives get elected as the US slips out of first place in every category.

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u/No_Recognition735 Mar 24 '23

I watched it live on TikTok, is that misinformation?

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u/Wombatwoozoid Mar 24 '23

I didn’t "steal" the car, I just "borrowed" it with no intention of returning.

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u/Chris_M_23 Mar 24 '23

It’s like when Russia said “it’s not war, it’s a special military operation”

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u/oxilite Mar 24 '23

According to the article, the people who pulled that information were fired right? If that's not Bye Dance rejecting that behavior in the strongest terms, what else would be needed?

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u/Lorddon1234 Mar 25 '23

Whole hearing was a farce. The Tik Tok CEO had zero time to speak and the whole process insults kangaroos in a kangaroo court

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u/Boggie135 Mar 24 '23

Many people on this thread say other social media apps also collect data but forget that American social media apps are banned in China

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TikTok CEO says it wasn’t ‘spying’ when ByteDance employees surveilled journalists Business