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Comment by RestlessMind | Hacker News Reader

> This is the TikTok crap all over again. They want to help national security and user privacy...

Am I the only one who thinks that TikTok was more about geopolitics concerning US/China and much less about user privacy?

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As one youtuber put it, if the CCP wanted to cause chaos in the US, one thing they could do is have an "accidental" data breach and disclosure of every TikTok users private communications. Or like FB use the platform to influence what people see in order to cause unrest. So yes? It's a geopolitical thing and not about user privacy.

Surely the CCP could get better value for $75B rather than burning one of their tech stars to the ground.

A data breach has rarely burned a company to the ground. The other option of using it for direct influence is probably a bigger threat anyway.

> [the CCP could] have an "accidental" data breach and disclosure of every TikTok users private communications. [...] So yes? It's a geopolitical thing and not about user privacy.

That sounds like both.

From an individuals point of view yes. But if the US government cared about our privacy they'd do something about FB, Amazon and Google.

More effectively, they could use tiktok data to blackmail specific people.

If the CCP wanted to cause chaos in the US, they would stop container ships from leaving China bound for North America.

I mean it obviously was, that was kinda my point. If they cared about user privacy they would've passed a user privacy bill instead. I should've phrased it "They pretend to care about national security and user privacy..."

Facebook selling your data to advertisers is annoying. TikTok et al vacuuming up data to be stored by the CCP for things like blackmail[0] is horrifying and basically geopolitical chess moving to give them leverage on things like putting Muslims in detention camps [1]. Treating the two as equivalent is somewhere between intentionally ignorant or acting in bad faith.

[0] - https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-has-a-database-on-americ...

[1] - https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/china-confirms-death-of...

> Facebook selling your data to advertisers is annoying.

Facebook selling your data to advertisers is also horrifying. American "businesses" accept foreign investments and money all the time. Nothing stops those same countries from buying data from Facebook. The only difference between that and TikTok is that money is exchanged. It's just as horrifying.

Unlike the CCP, Facebook isn't literally harvesting organs [2] or implanting intelligence assets [3]. Facebook shouldn't be reckless with user data, but when it's users start getting black bagged and having their vital organs removed, then we can compare the two.

Mind you, all the major foreign companies are already banned in China so they can't possibly be involved.

[2] - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests...

[3] - https://thediplomat.com/2020/09/two-recent-alleged-episodes-...

> Facebook shouldn't be reckless with user data, but when it's users start getting black bagged and having their vital organs removed, then we can compare the two.

TikTok's association with CCP is horrifying, yes.

Facebook's hands aren't clean either.

There’s levels of clean.

No they just interfer with local politics via lobbying, i.e. buying politicians, i.e foreign agents.

Facebook isn't selling your data. They're selling access to you.

That's an arbitrary line to draw, and really misses the forest for the trees.

It makes little difference in the end if it's a corporation blackmailing and ruining a person's life or a government. Facebook can share your data with whoever they want to, so the government can probably get it anyway. We have no idea who Facebook shares data with, who inside Facebook can see it, etc. Every company claims they have great security and follow best practices, until it's found out that they don't, so taking their word for it that your data is safe is naive.

In both cases the end user is powerless unless they stop using the service altogether.

Um, Advertizing is not the same as blackmail. Not even close.

I don't see how those two things are really any different. Would it be okay if the CCP bought Facebook's data and used that to blackmail people? What if Facebook itself decided it wanted to blackmail people, is that any better? What if China just uses that information to sell to advertisers, is it okay then?

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