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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

About 59% of Americans say TikTok a threat to the national security of the United States, according to a new survey of U.S. adults.

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[-] irkli@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

Facebook's egregious behavior (Cambridge analytica) and their most extreme of all data collection makes TikTok look look like nothing.

TikTok has been investigated 20 times the rest and little bad behavior was found -- assuming you accept what's done today as acceptable, which I don't.

People hate TikTok because of trumped up stories in the media.

Notice that NOT ONE SPECIFIC ACCUSATION has been lodged against the company.

Now I sound like I'm defending them. Just the opposite -- condemning the bullshit and racist stories.

Downvote me all you want, but I dare you to find one thing that TikTok does that's as bad as American companies. And post it here.

[-] pythonoob@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago

I mean that's all fair but the title says that it's a matter of national security because it's a Chinese owned company. Facebook is absolutely aggregious and could possibly also be considered a matter a national security (probably should be imo), but because it's an American company it's not immediately seen as a threat.

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[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Facebook has been actually selling data to the Chinese government for a decade. Congress just keeps politely asking them to stop. But nobody wants to report on that.

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[-] Fedizen@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Yes but so are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

[-] Hyggyldy@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not here to defend tiktok but I really don't care what the average person thinks is a national security threat.

[-] QubaXR@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Majority of Americans don't understand national security, cyber security, or privacy.

TikTok is a threat to my productivity if anything. That app will ruin me if I download it again.

I absolutely refuse to use TikTok but let's be honest here in that our own politicians and the decisions that they make that are anti-working class and anti-poor are more of a national security threat than TikTok.

[-] NightOwl@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

Not to mention the data mining being done is an issue with Google and Meta too. And this isn't to excuse tiktok. It's to say that Google and Meta have to start being put in check too, since it's all getting so out of hand that isn't no longer just concerns of specific nations. It's an international concern that we are all in together regardless of where we are from and what international or domestic company we are dealing with.

You can't even pay for YouTube premium to stop treating you like the product for example, since your viewing and browsing habits will be data mined anyways. The phrase if you don't pay you are the product has ceased to be relevant. We are the product no matter how much we pay and no true opt out. Even just the contact lists people keep and use with messenger apps are uploaded exposing our personal numbers and names to services of companies we don't even use.

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[-] Rasta_Imposta@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

For once a majority agree and are correct.

So are the rest of the "social media" companies too though.

[-] Espresso@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Kinda proud I've never installed/used Tiktok ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

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[-] BallsInTheShredder@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Threat to national security? Who could know besides the higher ups.

Threat to society? Again I don't know but god, most of TikTok is extremely cringe and has people wasting so, so much of their time either viewing stupid videos or filming them.

Idk, I just think turning society into a popularity contest/mediocre talent show is.. weird. Collectively, how many billions of hours have been wasted by people staging, viewing and filming simplistic dances due to apps like this?

When we could be doing.. anything of significance.

Sure, there's some informational stuff on there no need to remind me but let's be honest how much of it is basically "Look what I can do!"

[-] kobra@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah I mean, I downloaded my reddit data and uh... wow. I was surprised to see how much you could learn about someone when it's all bundled up like that 👀

[-] muddybulldog@mylemmy.win 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Which is why I find the whole banning TikTok concept absurd.

It’s picking one easy scapegoat company to rally around, completely ignores the thousands upon thousands of other applications that collect data on us.

It’s not security, it’s security theater. It’s lazy and designed to distract us. It’s to keep us from not asking questions about any company’s practices that might hurt someone politically or financially.

We don’t need to ban TikTok. We need to ban Tik Tok and thousands of others like it. We need to have real conversations and put forth real solutions with regards to privacy, globally. It won’t happen though. Because it’s going to cost somebody money.

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[-] fouloleron@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Eighty one percent of Americans think God will save them, so why would you care about any of their other opinions?

[-] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I think 81% agree to say they aren't non believers because many don't want the questions of saying they might be an atheist/agnostic. ~30k different Christian sects in the U.S. and none of them can tell me why they are in their own group, so if you just say oh yeah I believe everyone shuts up. Being raised a catholic, I like to remind my mother that all 30k of them are anti catholic and they believe catholics are going to hell. They don't know what for, but they damn sure know they aren't catholic.

In truth I think ~30% of Americans are religious. The rest just keep covering for themselves. If we really wanted the truth we could instate taxes like they have in some EU countries. Pay an extra 5% taxes to your church. *poof, 50% gone in a year and claiming they paid it, while the others wondering why they didn't think to check a mon religious box.

[-] RIPandTERROR@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

I live in a location where a Christian belief system is straight up expected at a near Texas level. It is to my absolute glee to answer people that I am unwilling to pray over your computer (💯 happened) as it is against my religion.

Have people ask what church I go to roughly biweekly.

Main reason I have satanic temple cards to distribute when asked.

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[-] noah@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

So people are complaining if the CCP censors western social media like Facebook etc. but then discuss to censor chinese social media. Isn't there freedom of speech in America? I mean nobody is forced to use TikTok.

[-] zaph@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

This is why I can't wrap my head around any of the tiktok hate. I don't trust tiktok with my data so guess what? I don't use it. I don't see how my coworker using it is going to be the downfall of America. We've already banned it from government networks, that's plenty.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

And to be honest there shouldn't be any social media on government networks. Unless it's "Civil Service R US" or something run by the government. But yeah no reason to have social media on 99% of official devices. (The 1% are the PR people putting stuff out and IT can wall them off)

[-] SgtAStrawberry@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

If someone else wants to censor America social media it is extremely wrong, bad and against freedom of speech.

If America wants to censor someone else's social media it is the correct and good thing to do, because it protects people.

Had tiktok been American it would have been wrong to try to censor it, but no it is not so then it is good to censor it.

[-] Gingerlegs@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don’t even have it and I clicked a link my friend sent and my vpn blocked 6 trackers. Can’t imagine what the app has access to

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[-] seacocker@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I'm going to guess a large percentage cannot fully explain why the think that.

[-] Llamajockey@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Well it has access to the wifi soooooo

[-] Naia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

This is only because of republican propaganda, which they only did because young people did political coordination on ticktok.

[-] Toribor@corndog.uk 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think there are both real and performative concerns being raised about Tik Tok as a platform.

Ideally the federal government shouldn't be deciding this sort of thing on a per-case basis at all. Pass actual data privacy legislation and force data collection to be transparent and potentially housed in US datacenters that are subject to US regulation. Then if Tik Tok can prove it's behaving responsibly it can continue to compete on an even playing field with other platforms.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Oh the actual bill behind banning TikTok is a comprehensive platform. It's complete with super broad language that effectively gives the government the power to shut down any Internet business with little to no warning.

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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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