this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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It is not the chinese government you should be worried about, my friend.
Blah, blah, I hear the same tired argument over and over again about how Google, Facebook, Amazon are just as bad as China. But, it's just not true.
These large corps are definitely something we should paying attention to and they get away with far too much. They should be broken up just like Ma Bell. But, they are still subject to the same data restrictions that the US and the EU have put into law.
TikTok, on the other hand, is owned by a Chinese company, and by extension, the Chinese government. Any data it collects goes straight to the Chinese government. ByteDance, of course, denies this, but the US military, CIA, and other government entities know better, as they have specifically banned the platform for any of their personnel. The data tracking permissions you have to allow on phones is far higher than any other social media platform. It's a more aggressive data collection platform.
TikTok serves a wildly different set of media to the non-Chinese public. It wants to dumb down the non-Chinese population by serving addictive short-form content that hones in on their interests, in a more extreme fashion than any other social media platform, and gets them into a constant loop of video watching for hours and hours.
TikTok really doesn’t perform that much more data collection on their apps than Google does, if at all more. Sure, data going into the Chinese government might be a bit more concerning, but I’d say most if your argument is dangerously close to Chinese fear-mongering.
The CIA has banned that stuff because their employees are high value targets for chinese intelligence agencies.
You don't have any data collection restrictions in the US (thanks to the patrion act).
Law enforcement has coplete access to the ring doorbell cameras. Google and Facebook have repeatedly worked together with the CIA and FBI. It has been established that the US elections have been tampered with via targeted advertising in combination with misinformation. As a regular US citizen, you are simply not a target for China. The US government however has repeatedly proven that it spies on foreign and their own citieens.
And all that "dumbing down" conspiracy theory: It is far more likely that a profit driven corporation simply optimizes for maximum engagement for ad revenue.
But when I google tacos I get ads of tacos and that's just as bad as the Chinese government choosing the content I get to see on the internet
Yeah. The chinese government clearly wants you to see as many ads for some shitty car or makeup or whatnot. That's definetly the CCP and not some Ad company who pays ByteDance.
It abso-fucking-lutely is.
The chinese government neither wants to sell you shit, nor will harrass you with their cops (unless you live in China).
That's incredibly naive.
It's not more naive than trusting the US government. That one has a more direct control and interest in implementing a surveillance police-state.
Yes, it absolutely is, because the US government does not require companies by law to hand over any and all information they collect to them.
Forgot about the NSA leaks already? They don't ask for the data.
The NSA collects all kinds of information. That is an absolute pittance compared to the amount of data collected when it is required by law...
Like this is not that complicated.
ByteDance is still incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Not the PRC.
Edit: You still haven't explained why the PRG has more of an incentive to spy on you personally than the NS government does.
Of course: China spies on the US. But as long as you're not carrying government secrets, you're a way more interesting target for the people in charge of the cops.
Google Amazon and Facebook have repeatedly worked with law enforcement in the past. You can still believe that the chinese goverment is sooo much worse than the US, but don't call other people naive if you do.