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The TikTok Flip-Flop

Sure, I am bothered. But Google's data isn't going to be available to the CCP. That's not a small thing.

The article you posted released the data publicly. It was something everyone could see, CCP included and they didn't even manage the app.

Again, to me it's fear mongering. If you think the CCP couldn't hack fitbit or some other company to get vastly more information than what they'd get from TikTok then I have a bridge to sell you.

As is always, we won't agree. If you want to go back and forth multiple times about this then we certainly can, but I'm not changing my view because I've looked into it a ton. I have no concerns.
 
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Sure, I am bothered. But Google's data isn't going to be available to the CCP. That's not a small thing.
1) that is a huge assumption

2) what difference does it make? Do you think Peter Theil and Palantir, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, the House of Saud, or any other shady billionaire is an appropriate steward of our data? If Google finds a way to do business with the CCP, do you think they can't bribe their way into Trump's blessing for such a deal?
 
It's not exactly a ban. It's essentially a requirement that the company be divested from China.
Right, but since Bytedance owns the algorithm and controls the global user accounts (outside the U.S.) divestment means that TikTok (US only) will become a network unto itself, with much smaller reach and an inferior algorithm.
 
Right, but since Bytedance owns the algorithm and controls the global user accounts (outside the U.S.) divestment means that TikTok (US only) will become a network unto itself, with much smaller reach and an inferior algorithm.
And, if Musk takes over, Tik Tok will go the way of Twitter.
SOmeone else will develop another algorithm which does the same thing, and will take a good deal of Tik Tok share.
Not that it matters to me personally, since I cannot stand Tik Tok...all style, little substance. Too many people trying to hard to be "cool and hip".
 
2) what difference does it make? Do you think Peter Theil and Palantir, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, the House of Saud, or any other shady billionaire is an appropriate steward of our data?

Nope. But doing something about them is harder. This is pretty easy. So I'm OK with doing something we can easily do. The fact that there's another problem we haven't fixed isn't an excuse to not do something about this problem. And if you've got a suggestion for what to do about Google, I'm all ears.
 
Nope. But doing something about them is harder. This is pretty easy. So I'm OK with doing something we can easily do. The fact that there's another problem we haven't fixed isn't an excuse to not do something about this problem. And if you've got a suggestion for what to do about Google, I'm all ears.

I'm still confused on why it's a problem, can we tackle that first? It's not required for people to use, it's entirely voluntary.
 
So, if tiktok gets sold to some shady billionaire or PE firm, problem solved?

You saying that made me think how ironic his post is considering he wants TikTok to be sold to someone in the US, but also says that getting social media platforms in the US to stop collecting all of our data is significantly harder. So he wants it to be easier for TikTok to gather data, and probably more data than they're gathering now, and also to make it harder for us to stop them from collecting data as long as TikTok isn't owned by CCP? Truly it's a dizzying intellect.
 
You saying that made me think how ironic his post is considering he wants TikTok to be sold to someone in the US, but also says that getting social media platforms in the US to stop collecting all of our data is significantly harder.
It's significantly harder to get them to stop collecting data than it is to force a sale of TikTok, yes. I never said it was easier to get TikTok to stop collecting data, it isn't, that would make no sense, and I have no idea why you thought I was saying that.
 
"I don't want Facebook ... doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!" he wrote."

Trumpy is really into the authoritarian dictator phrases. Just a coinky-dink. Right?
 
It's significantly harder to get them to stop collecting data than it is to force a sale of TikTok, yes. I never said it was easier to get TikTok to stop collecting data, it isn't, that would make no sense, and I have no idea why you thought I was saying that.

That wasn't my interpretation but it doesn't matter.

The fact is that the CCP isn't going to get a damn thing from TikTok that they can't get from a thousand other sources, legit or not. They live in portions of the US government servers. It's a known thing. Just like the US lives in theirs. Banning TikTok is dumb. It's just a flex. It's a solution looking for a problem.
 
You saying that made me think how ironic his post is considering he wants TikTok to be sold to someone in the US, but also says that getting social media platforms in the US to stop collecting all of our data is significantly harder. So he wants it to be easier for TikTok to gather data, and probably more data than they're gathering now, and also to make it harder for us to stop them from collecting data as long as TikTok isn't owned by CCP? Truly it's a dizzying intellect.
Trump sees CHina as the US's Great Adversary....and I actually sort of agree with him on that.....but he invites XI to his inaugration. PUzzling.
 
That wasn't my interpretation but it doesn't matter.

The fact is that the CCP isn't going to get a damn thing from TikTok that they can't get from a thousand other sources, legit or not. They live in portions of the US government servers. It's a known thing. Just like the US lives in theirs. Banning TikTok is dumb. It's just a flex. It's a solution looking for a problem.
I despise the CCP as much as anybody, but you are right; I doubt they depend on it much for intelligence gathering.
For the record the critcism from a lot of people was not so much about the intelligence gathering on Tik Tok but that it was being used for propaganda purposes by CHina. Like if Tik Tok is shut down, they csnnot use other services. they will just have to pay more.
 
Not that it matters to me personally, since I cannot stand Tik Tok...all style, little substance. Too many people trying to hard to be "cool and hip".
First they came for TikTok, and I said nothing because I post at ISF. :p
 
Trump sees CHina as the US's Great Adversary....and I actually sort of agree with him on that.....but he invites XI to his inaugration. PUzzling.
I've never understood our relationship with China. We are utterly dependent on them for goods and products, to the point that our domestic production of consumer jazz is effectively zero. And we have given this power over ourselves to a political adversary?
 
I've never understood our relationship with China. We are utterly dependent on them for goods and products, to the point that our domestic production of consumer jazz is effectively zero. And we have given this power over ourselves to a political adversary?
That's capitalism for ya. But take comfort in the fact that our capitalism infects them, too, and now they have billionaires and wealth inequality despite being communists. So...encouraging?
 
I despise the CCP as much as anybody, but you are right; I doubt they depend on it much for intelligence gathering.
For the record the critcism from a lot of people was not so much about the intelligence gathering on Tik Tok but that it was being used for propaganda purposes by CHina. Like if Tik Tok is shut down, they csnnot use other services. they will just have to pay more.

I have encountered exactly 0 propaganda from the CCP. I see ◊◊◊◊ from the right, ◊◊◊◊ from the left, and a bunch of ◊◊◊◊ from the US, but I've never seen anything even reference the CCP in my TikTok feed. Ever. My algorithm is stand up comedy, anime cuts, and dog videos. I see nothing other than that unless I go searching for it. Any implication that there is a bunch of CCP propaganda that is being force fed to users is absolute bull ◊◊◊◊. If you want to see that log on to X. X shoves right wing trolls in your feed all of the time, whether you want it or not.

Also, the CCP won't have to pay for anything for intelligence gathering. It's already built in to their budget and they know where the information is going to come from and it ain't TikTok. Anything they could get from TikTok, as I said, they can get from somewhere else and that somewhere else will probably be more detailed to their needs than a bunch of teen twerk videos.
 
I'm going to ask this as straightforward as possible in hopes that someone here will be able to answer it. I've asked this a ******* thousand times and no one seems to be able to tell me.

What agenda is China pushing through TikTok? It's a series of videos. It's the same as youtube shorts, or instagram, or the old vines program. If the idea is that they're stealing\hording\selling\using data from my phone then tackle that problem, but I've watched dozens of hours of TikTok and I haven't seen an agenda outside of my own algorithm.

The "attention span" nonsense is the same bull **** we've been hearing since video games, and before. If you don't like it, then don't like it. It's seriously that easy, but the US government don't seem to give much of a **** about Google mining every possible piece of information, or Facebook, etc. Sure they pay lip service to it, but what is this Chinese company walking away with that I'm supposed to be scared of? Reminds of the "stick hoop" scene in A Million Ways to Die in the West.

Did TikTok influence Romania's presidential election?​


The short video app TikTok is said to have played a role in the outcome. Calin Georgescu, the far-right and pro-Russian presidential candidate, was massively promoted via TikTok with the help of coordinated accounts, recommendation algorithms and paid advertising.

Georgescu, who was previously largely unknown, does not belong to any political party, polled extremely low in all preelection surveys and did not take part in any of the TV debates. Nevertheless, he won the first round of voting.

 

Did TikTok influence Romania's presidential election?​





I'm not seeing anything in there that shows TikTok pushed any propaganda at all in any way. Per your source:

This was mainly due to his presence on social media, especially on TikTok.

Georgescu's channel has more than 520,000 followers and has garnered 5.7 million likes, and his campaign videos have been viewed on TikTok millions of times.

He appeared to be popular on TikTok but I'm not seeing any evidence that TikTok *made* him popular or promoted his channel. Your source doesn't make that claim either. Your source doesn't appear to refute or contest anything I said. TikTok isn't pushing propaganda and I don't know how this guy would benefit the CCP in anyway. He was a huge Putin supporter.
 
I'm not seeing anything in there that shows TikTok pushed any propaganda at all in any way. Per your source:



He appeared to be popular on TikTok but I'm not seeing any evidence that TikTok *made* him popular or promoted his channel. Your source doesn't make that claim either. Your source doesn't appear to refute or contest anything I said. TikTok isn't pushing propaganda and I don't know how this guy would benefit the CCP in anyway. He was a huge Putin supporter.

Ok. I still think TikTok is a threat to democracy.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen weighed in on Tuesday: “Following serious indications that foreign actors interfered in the Romanian presidential elections by using TikTok, we are now thoroughly investigating whether TikTok has violated the Digital Services Act [DSA] by failing to tackle such risks,” she said, announcing a formal probe — a rare public comment from the EU chief on such an investigation.

The escalation comes after weeks of wrangling between European and Romanian officials and TikTok executives. At the heart of the saga are reports and research that Georgescu got a boost from a network of paid influencers and bots, and allegations that TikTok didn’t properly address these threats. Romanian authorities this month declassified a series of documents suggesting these campaigns were eerily similar to Russian influence operations in Ukraine and Moldova.

 
Ok. I still think TikTok is a threat to democracy.

You're absolutely entitled to that opinion. I don't have any desire to take that away from you. As ponderingturtle pointed out, I don't see it as any more of a threat to democracy than any other social media platform. Facebook, X, etc. have all been shown to have the same issues, if not worse in some cases. I don't have any desire to discuss the damage social media can have on elections. I'm saying people hyper focused on TikTok are only doing it because of China, which is stupid to me.
 
That's capitalism for ya. But take comfort in the fact that our capitalism infects them, too, and now they have billionaires and wealth inequality despite being communists. So...encouraging?
You had rich and poor in the Soviet Union as well. The Party bosses lived like kings. THey just hid it better then the Chinese do.
And that is one of my problems with Communism: It has always failed to deliver on it;s probmises and always ends up with a Party elite in no way better then the ultra wealthy in this country. Orwell saw this early on with his "inner Party" in 1984.
 
You're absolutely entitled to that opinion. I don't have any desire to take that away from you. As ponderingturtle pointed out, I don't see it as any more of a threat to democracy than any other social media platform. Facebook, X, etc. have all been shown to have the same issues, if not worse in some cases. I don't have any desire to discuss the damage social media can have on elections. I'm saying people hyper focused on TikTok are only doing it because of China, which is stupid to me.
That's the problem, really: How do you control Social Media without throwing Free Speech out the window?
 
I would love it if TikTok got sold to a PE firm. That's about as close to "kill it with fire" as you can get, in the business world.
Will they finally get off your lawn?

While the entity you aren't in contact with goes away, the security concerns don't. The data collected is in the hands of people who are about as trustworthy and loyal to the US as the CCP.
 
Will they finally get off your lawn?

While the entity you aren't in contact with goes away, the security concerns don't. The data collected is in the hands of people who are about as trustworthy and loyal to the US as the CCP.
And yet still somehow better than the CCP. Probably because they'd use TikTok to make money, rather than to wage socioeconomic war on the US. And of course they'd promptly run it into the ground, sell off the parts, and move on.
 
In context, I thought jazz meaning stuff should have been fairly clear. No? "All that jazz"? No?
Missed it completely; thought that maybe you'd deliberately picked something distinctly American and difficult to offshore.
 
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