TikTok no worse than Facebook for privacy, says Citizen Lab | Hacker News Reader

TikTok no worse than Facebook for privacy, says Citizen Lab

theregister.com

35 pointsrguiscard9 comments

A while back there was this teardow post on reddit and HN as well, if I remember correctly, where some developer reverse engineered the tiktok app.

Or at least thst is what the post he made wrote it out to be.

I actually took the time to read through that looong post and read through his massive dumps of completely irrelevant logs and code dumps.

Only to find that there was not a single case of the tiktok app using anything but the official OS API on both iOS and Android.

Not a single case. And yet the post generated this common belief that it was straight up malware thst would hijack your device.

They did use the API to the fullest, just as most major social apps do, but there was not a single example of the app going beyond that.

I hate tiktok, and hate how China is violating human rights. But I am not going to indulge myself in lies to further that sort of agenda.

Facebook's privacy standards are not a very high bar.

I suggest glancing at the Citizen Lab report[0], I've read Citizen Lab research before and I generally find it high quality.

I think the takeaway here isn't that TikTok is good for privacy but that it's unlikely to be wielded in a manner similar to malware. Yes, it collects data. No, it isn't going to randomly activate your phone's microphone and spy on personal conversations without your knowledge.

[0] https://citizenlab.ca/2021/03/tiktok-vs-douyin-security-priv...

TikTok could be used as a weapon by China though. When there is a right moment for them, they could start pushing propaganda to start riots and create chaos in the West. They can also manipulate what's get seen to increase the divide in society. They can control what young people can think and if you add democracy to the mix, they can do things like ensuring young people will vote for a political option good for China.

Or they can just consume any other US based media and get whatever the NatSec state thinks is the correct position.

Asking genuinely, why is China constantly targeted on HN? Its not like as if some elite countries based companies respect privacy or don't share data with government's, or its not like those elite countries use that data to target or bomb people. FB and Parler (US based Companies)was one of the root cause of a particular group waging an attack on Capitol. Sure since parler was a small guy, it was booted. But what about FB. FB is already causing major issues on societies around the world, shitting propoganda constantly.

Alternative title: TikTok is as bad as Facebook for privacy.

That's a fine take too. But, the US media has a national bias which portrays TikTok as some elaborate data collection spy network that reports to a smokefilled, windowless command centre with hissing Chinese communist party members keeping notes every time a teenager posts a "put a finger down" video.

Both Facebook and Tiktok do the same (abusive ?) workarounds to whatever limitations are imposed by Google or Apple, but Facebook generally passes without comment in the mainstream media.

Edit: Put a finger down Hackernews Edition. Put a finger down if you get downvoted for simply having a different point of view...

Wow didn't know it was that bad

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