What data does the CCP have? The people I follow? The kind of videos I like to watch. My favorites? Videos I "liked"? How exactly is this a national security threat?
I'm all for pushing back against the CCP but it's not clear what "data" they have
In this scenario, it would be a lot easier to setup a honeypot thanks to all this additional information. In some cases, even blackmail you if you have a private TikTok account that's been linked back to your real identity.
I wouldn't be surprised if the CCP keeps a dossier on high profile figures in various countries as part of their influence operations.
What's the difference between TikTok and any other site in its ability to associate IPs with your posts? How exactly would TikTok take advantage of your video viewing or posting data to set up a "honeypot" or do blackmail? Any plausible example would be fine.
They're upset about China having this data, but don't want to admit that they have it themselves. This is why all the public discourse on this topic is so utterly incoherent.
Now imagine a machine learning model doing this instead of humans, it could infer so much more information about how you think and how your brain works based off of that data and do even more harm. Ever thought about buying something and an ad for that casually pops up in your feed? It is going to be similar to that, but instead of ads for a product it could be some misinformation that could cause paranoia (just an example).
If this is so easy, how can we tolerate Youtube, Facebook or Google, especially with their connections to government?
viewing this as a National Security issue has some truth to it, but how on earth do you sell that to the public without decapitating yourself? “oh, it’s dangerous when centralized players hold influence over the masses, of which i am a part? so we’re going to ban everyone engaged in wielding this type of influence over me, right? oh, we’re not? we’re only banning the foreign one? US policy makers must not care about me at all then! US policy makers must not have my best interests in mind.”
dunno how they wiggle out of this one.