Justice Department says TikTok collected US user views on issues like abortion and gun control
Justice Department says TikTok collected US user views on issues like abortion and gun control
Justice Department says TikTok collected US user views on issues like abortion and gun control
In a fresh broadside against one of the world’s most popular technology companies, the Justice Department late Friday accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion.
Government lawyers wrote in documents filed to the federal appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to enable TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China.
TikTok employees used Lark to send sensitive data about U.S. users, information that has wound up being stored on Chinese servers and accessible to ByteDance employees in China, federal officials said.
One of Lark’s internal search tools, the filing states, permits ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to gather information on users’ content or expressions, including views on sensitive topics, such as abortion or religion. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported TikTok had tracked users who watched LGBTQ content through a dashboard the company said it had since deleted.
Let's be clear, though, all major companies do this. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, even non-social media like Amazon. They all track users in this way. TikTok is just making the news because it's controlled by China, who has an adversarial relationship with the US.
Xnxnnxx
Were they? I don't really recall users doing much to help Tik Tok at all.
And US companies do the same thing but arguably in a way that's worse for our country. Elon is actively interfering with X/Twitter to make a more conservative user base, and Facebook is famous for giving this influence to other private companies leading to Trump. US companies, and the billionaires who own them, are using their influence to make the country more fascist by actually getting us people like Trump or asking the next President to change out the effective FTC leader or making us give tax money to a foreign power like Israel instead of US citizens. Meanwhile Tik Tok is, so far, just kind of limply asking users to save them when banned (equivalent to Google's pleas during like the SOPA talks) and it resulting in... not much.
Do I want Chinese companies having my data? No. But I also don't want US companies having my data, and I'd rank them equally, if not the danger of the latter to my well being actually higher.
I think it’s twofold. There is an influence concern, but I think it’s more that the US doesn’t feel like it can lean on TikTok to push their propaganda while it very clearly does on other social media platforms. I also think that there’s a monetary thing. Congress doesn’t have an issue with American companies doing it because the companies make a ton of money selling influence and advertising data. Congress doesn’t like the fact that those advertising dollars aren’t going to US billionaires
Came here to say this. The ability to infer the interests, opinions, and (by a pretty simple extension) political views of users is the cornerstone of all social media. TikTok is clearly being singled out here.
I would hope that the public would be educated enough by now to realize that they are always the product with any "free" service. But I also know that is a lofty wish.
Controlled by China is a strong way to put it. China doesn't need TikTok to get info on anyone. It's not like there's a government official pouring over TikTok data. I'm sure if the Chinese government asked for information on someone TikTok would give it over but that's no different than how the US government gets their data.
You grossly underestimate ML data collation.