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Comment by SighMagi | Hacker News Reader

I am a late comer to TikTok (was curious after a recently reported news article on the potential booting/sale of TikTok back in the Trump days). All it shows me is large breasted women and “crystal polishers” (which I never knew was a thing). Everyone uses fake names - it’s not like Facebook where people offer up their real stuff. I’m kinda confused around where the security problems are.

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> All it shows me is large breasted women and “crystal polishers” (which I never knew was a thing)

It shows me an endless stream of cute kittens. It's amazing.

I'm also confused by the security risks listed, I just checked the iOS privacy report that shows which sensors and data apps used, and TikTok is not even on the list. I'm also struggling to understand things listed in the article such as it accessing texts on the device(?) - like... it can't do that, at least not on an iPhone. As far as "voiceprints" and "faceprints" do they mean it video/audio content can be uploaded to it? Like thousand other apps?

If anything there should be an argument that by default the apps should be better sandboxed and permissions to be an explicit opt-in, this current approach just seems like fearmongering.

Same here. I’m wondering. Is this an Android issue maybe?

TikTok is well-known for using vulnerabilities to access more personally identifying data than it should from users [0], such as MAC addresses [1] and IMEI numbers for the SIM cards.

[0]: https://theforestscout.com/35101/in-lfhs/tiktok-app-comes-wi...

[1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-tracked-user-data-using-...

The fake names on TT are not what is the risk. Its the HUGE amoumt of metadata collected by the app and the opaque nature of its storage and permanence.

As opposed to the responsible parties of Meta and Google?

Yes I don't trust these companies, but I sure as hell trust them more than Bytedance or the Chinese government. The amount of whataboutism in this thread.. Do we have a lot of Bytedance employees on hn?

Those are also bad? Why TT is being talked about is that the bullshit Facebook and Google pull is normalised now so people don't talk about it as much.

Have you seen the list of permissions it requests?

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