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Post by Disciple of Fate on Mar 24, 2023 17:39:58 GMT -5
Hard to say what would be fair, most of the accusations you can level at TikTok are not much different for other social media apps. You could say that the access of the CCP is worrying, but FB and the others allow things that are roughly as bad or worse because it makes money. So the CCP link is apparently because TikTok is headquartered in Singapore (not China), and a board member of the parent company is claimed to be a member of the CCP despite that not actually being true. There's no actual evidence that China has any more access to TikTok than the US does.
The rest of the hearing I've seen has just been an endless series of old people making it clear they don't understand how technology works, like asking if TikTok "accesses the wifi". I *think* they are trying to ask if it's snooping on the rest of the network, but it's not, it's literally just using the wifi as an internet connection to download cat videos.
This isn't true. The parent company of TikTok is the Chinese ByteDance. The CEO of TikTok has ByteDance stocks. ByteDance engineers have access to TikTok data, the question is what they do with it, as the line between government and big business in China is nebulous at best. We know from internal TikTok leaks that ByteDance can access TikTok data in China. The concerns aren't unfounded overall, but you have to wonder if FB or Google are any better at protecting data, even if there is no direct state line.
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herzlos
Ye Olde King of OT
Posts: 656
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Post by herzlos on Mar 26, 2023 16:53:38 GMT -5
My bad. ByteDance being Chinese means there's a high chance that the board will have CCP memberships, even if it's just a token thing.
My understanding from the clips I've seen of the Congressional hearing is that the US data is kept in the US and only accessed as required. Of course, 'required' is open to some vagaries.
The real problem is that the US has virtually no laws regulating the storing of personal data. The EU has GDPR that requires data kept is reasonable, secure and the end user can see / remove it. None of the other companies working in the US will be any better in terms of data.
A few interesting points that also came about:
The one about using eye dilation to determine engagement to boost the algorithm was clearly beyond the speaker so almost certainly was a planted question from someone trying to figure out how TikTok works - like Meta. One speaker pretty much outed himself by asking why the algorithm kept showing him lewd pictures of men. (the algorithm provides stuff similar to what you've engaged with in the past, so if you watch a video on, say, male strippers, it'll show you more).
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Mar 27, 2023 11:53:50 GMT -5
My bad. ByteDance being Chinese means there's a high chance that the board will have CCP memberships, even if it's just a token thing. My understanding from the clips I've seen of the Congressional hearing is that the US data is kept in the US and only accessed as required. Of course, 'required' is open to some vagaries. The real problem is that the US has virtually no laws regulating the storing of personal data. The EU has GDPR that requires data kept is reasonable, secure and the end user can see / remove it. None of the other companies working in the US will be any better in terms of data. The risk here isn't where data is stored or privacy as a general concept. The risk is that as a Chinese owned company, TikTok might have (or get) a backdoor installed for more nefarious purposes. Other companies are terrible, but don't exactly have a short line of ownership to an authoritarian state. CCP influence over Chinese business (leaders) should never be underestimated. An example we saw of this interaction was last year, which was relatively 'small' as far as the potential evil goes, but the implication for people writing negatively on China or dissidents is huge: www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/22/tiktok-bytedance-workers-fired-data-access-journalistsAccess as required is incredibly risky, because all we have to do is trust the promise of a Chinese owned company with a proven track record in doing the opposite (internally admitted to by employees). FB and Google couldn't care less as long as they make money off you, which f.e. Russia has taken advantage of, but TikTok can be actively turned to more nefarious purposes guided by China (given your example, the most 'benign' possibly being an algorithm pushing China 'friendly' content). Neither sort of company is great, but the risks with something like TikTok are more diverse.
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Post by adurot on Mar 27, 2023 23:17:46 GMT -5
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Mar 28, 2023 2:24:21 GMT -5
Finally we have a digital town square with a wall through the middle to keep out the riff raff, he did it, free speech is saved.
Also the bot thing sounds ridiculous when you have more than 1 braincell to rub together. It's just to make 8 bucks off of bot accounts.
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Post by maddocgrotsnik on Mar 28, 2023 4:47:28 GMT -5
Yeah. He says “address”, when he means “monetise”.
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Post by Least censored on the planet! on Mar 28, 2023 9:49:34 GMT -5
It's capitalism. If you can spend 1000x8$ on bots, your opinion count 1000 times as much as someone who can just spend 8$.
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Post by maddocgrotsnik on Mar 29, 2023 16:12:39 GMT -5
Instagram has gone mental on me. Suggesting posts in Arabic, and nothing else.
Normally it’s Doggos, occasional lovely puss cat, thirst traps and shite “not at all carefully rehearsed ‘prank’ videos made by gurning bellends”. But tonight? All in Arabic.
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nfe
OT Initiate
Posts: 142
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Post by nfe on Apr 8, 2023 1:58:00 GMT -5
Access client journalist Matt Taibbi and old meme reposter Elon Musk have fallen out.
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Post by adurot on Apr 8, 2023 21:58:43 GMT -5
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Apr 9, 2023 1:11:03 GMT -5
Seems like someone is worried they might have picked up some extra but so far unreleased 'twitter files'.
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Post by easye on Apr 12, 2023 11:13:34 GMT -5
NPR stops using Twitter after receiving ‘government funded media’ labelwww.cnn.com/2023/04/12/tech/npr-twitter-use/index.htmlOwning your own Social Media platform is the modern equivalent of the rich owning their own newspaper, only with all the veneer of journalistic ethics stripped away! It is more like when Hearst owned his own Newspapers now rather than when the Sulzberger's owned the New York Times post-WWII.
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nfe
OT Initiate
Posts: 142
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Post by nfe on Apr 15, 2023 3:04:02 GMT -5
Same happened to the BBC (though I think it was 'state-funded media') who also lost the rag about it. They were petitioning Twitter to remove it but I dunno if that was successful yet.
Obviously the Beeb are state affiliated though, technically, they aren't state-funded. There are obviously funded through an obligatory payment enforced by the state, though.
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Post by adurot on Apr 15, 2023 8:54:52 GMT -5
Users fact checking the paid for advertisements is pretty glorious.
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Post by maddocgrotsnik on Apr 20, 2023 5:10:07 GMT -5
Not entirely sure this fits, but I think it’s close enough. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/65333115TL/DR? Michael Schumacher’s family are suing a German Gossip Mag, for publishing an AI “`interview” with the man himself. This will be interesting I suspect, as with “AI” being an emerging technology, and the mag not necessarily hiding that it’s AI, it may simply not be well covered by existing law. But by such actions do new laws come about. For instance, photoshop and deepfakes lead to a U.K. Law relating to using a person’s likeness without permission to create Prawn. Particularly when an adult’s face is put on a child’s body, when it still counts as creating CP.
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