TikTok kept list of users who watched LGBTQ+ content, former employees say
thepinknews.com
thepinknews.com
TikTok is a spyware company. Always has been. "They include gay people in their spying!" is not news.
> A TikTok representative told the Wall Street Journal that the data set was accessible on the dashboard to authorised employees only and that the dashboard was deleted in the US almost a year ago.
That said, the fact that even a database view exists is a problem. The threat is real-- it's the same reason the Chinese were interested in buying Grindr.
A lot of comments here seem to be hyper focused on the inherent properties of a social network necessary to serve users relevant content. As a tech community, we’re better equipped to understand this inherent property, but arguably the average user won’t have the same intuitions.
There are two ways I think this can be read:
1) TikTok does what every social media platform does, but because of the cultural context, articles like this seek to warn users that their preferences are now on a list somewhere. In this case, it’s not that the existence of a list is surprising, but that who holds the list is worrisome.
2) Above and beyond the base functions of a social network, TikTok specifically maintains topic-specific reports for <reasons>. If this is indeed true, it just magnifies the concern, because now it’s not just about “TikTok could do this”, but “TikTok is doing this”.
In other words, it’s one thing to have data about users as a natural byproduct of running the network. It’s another thing to build highly sensitive reports on that data, and depending on who builds those reports and why, questions will naturally arise.
What’s not clear from the article is which thing is happening.
> “TikTok does not identify individuals or infer sensitive information such as sexual orientation or race based on what they watch.”
If they’re going to do something nefarious with this kind of data, it’s not necessary to infer orientation or race. This is a non-answer.
On the other hand it's helpful to remind the public of what these companies are doing to make money from us.
What's interesting is that TikTok is getting the criticism these days, meaning that they're currently at the top of social media mind share.
And this is not a problem, as long as it's handled with care, and not leaked or abused. It doesn't even matter who might be accessing the data, be it China, USA, the Church, your eternal enemy, whatever... It's crucial data, which can be weaponized against people depending on the political situation. And people should be aware of this and should have a strong interest in implementing strong laws for protecting those data and being linked to their identity.