The fundamental difference is who is in control, and for what purpose.
American spyware is controlled by corporations, and is all about selling you shit you don’t need.
Chinese (and Russian) spyware is–apparently–controlled rather directly by their respective governments, and is being used to suppress democracy and increase polarization in the US and EU.
I don’t like any spyware. But the latter category–spyware that’s functionally state-sponsored–is clearly more immediately dangerous. The former is more like a slow-growing cancer.
All of the US corporate social media platforms are part of the US military-industrial-intellegence complex now. Look at their boards of directors and executives. Look at the Twitter Files. Look Hamilton 68.
Look at Reddit:
- Facebook Partners With Hawkish Atlantic Council, a NATO Lobby Group, to “Protect Democracy”
- Jessica Ashooh: The taming of Reddit and the National Security State Plant tabbed to do it
- A Reddit AMA Claiming To Be A Uyghur Quickly Exposes A CIA Asset Slandering China
- r/neoliberal was created by a neoliberal think tank » BPR Interviews: The Neoliberal Project
.
TikTok as well. The US already forced them to move their service to the US on an American-owned hosting provider, and they have already put people with a history of aligning with “American interests” into executive positions, like CEO Shou Zi Chew and vice president Michael Beckerman.They have their eye on the fediverse now: Atlantic Council » Collective Security in a Federated World
Twitter files are mostly a tool for Elon Musks policy. Wiki entry shows enough of why they are problematic. The Hamilton 68 controversy isn’t a big thing like you are pretending. If anything their database was misunderstood. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-hamilton-68-russian-online-influence-tracker-2023-2?op=1
Glad to see the first comment in this chain being one calling out the usage of the Twitter files as a serious supporting point for anything but a point of deflection by Mr “I don’t use pr firms”.
Immediately emptied out a salt shaker on how I viewed everything else in the original comment :| homie thinks the Twitter files are relevant… ehhh I probably don’t have much interest or respect in any of their other opinions
Here’s my heuristic for whether to take someone seriously:
How’s the weather in Kekistan?guess I’m being downvoted by the tinfoil hats in here anyway. Same as the twitter users, it’s often not bots that are the problem but rather dumb people :-(
There’s already loads of upvote/downvote bots in the fediverse here - would not be shocked if a large portion of them are from governments
There are not loads of upvote/downvote bots on Lemmy… yet. We admins see all the votes; we see the patterns.
Id be surprised if all admins of every instance that’s federated with Lemmy are all on the same page, let alone looking for narrative driven bots.
I see “Ukrainian combat footage” with hundreds of upvotes and no comments, there was also an article speaking positively about facebook that had lots of upvotes and no comments (it’s in my history of you look, because I commented lol) - those look like red flags to me
I don’t find the first strange, but I also find combat footage both interesting and not worth commenting on. Plus I think a lot of people just upvote Ukraine stuff and move along because there’s no more conversation to be had in general.
That second one does seem a little weird, but Lemmy’s more than capable of licking corporate boot when you phrase it correctly to them. I’ve always found that strange in general.
You must be getting botted right now, amirite?
So it’s only okay for them to suppress democracy and increase polarization if they use American platforms? Because that’s already happening.
The former is more like a slow-growing cancer.
One that we can actually fight, I might add, and we should.
Absolutely.
I mean, that’s part of the reason that I’m here, rather than The Place That Shall Not Be Named. That, and because my account was permanently banned because I suggested torching the house of a someone flying a nazi flag.
I’m not defending China here, but since Snowden we now know that American corporate spyware does serve the government. And they are suppressing democracy - this isn’t a democracy yet, and peaceful protests for democracy are met with violent police resistance - Occupy, BLM, etc.
I sincerely hope that Lemmy can grow large enough to serve as a staging ground for democratic protests in America, just because it’s not corporate controlled.
I would love to know how all the cat and cooking videos in my tiktok feed are being used to suppress democracy 🙄
My main reason is I’m an American, China (probably) can’t do shit to me. But here I’m subject to so much shit America can do legally and illegally, with zero repercussions.
If China fucked me in particular over, odds are it would at least spark debate here. If America spied on my messages and stopped me from protesting something, that’s just a Tuesday afternoon here.
The only reason why Congress wants to ban it, is due to pressure from news agencies and the government, because TikTok can’t be controlled by the CIA. You can’t manufacture consent of the people if the content comes from someone else you don’t control.
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1237501725/house-vote-tiktok-ban
They’ll ban tiktok but won’t punish overly aggressive police.
They’ll ban tiktok but won’t make food or rent affordable.
They’ll ban tiktok but won’t denounce Israel’s bullshit.
They’ll ban tiktok but won’t cancel student loans.
They’ll ban tiktok but won’t take Covid seriously.
Fucking preach
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Deleted/removed because I meant to reply to someone else.
Honestly way less afraid of China snooping on my data than US corporations. Only one of those groups regularly colludes with the FBI/CIA/other three letter agencies.
only one can send armed goons to my house too
Hah! yeah
How does Microsoft always fly under the radar?
2013: Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.
The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.
Well yeah, by default Microsoft holds your encryption keys. Why wouldn’t they be able to unencrypt it? Implement Customer Key if you want to hold your own encryption keys.
For fun context, Google “Microsoft Vortex Service”
I’m not big of a fan of Chinese surveillance but to most peoples point that have already posted here, if this was about privacy then the government should be passing laws to protect consumer privacy as a whole and not just targeting Chinese companies. Really shows that the government doesn’t give a shit about your privacy just who’s able to get it.
What China can do in violating my privacy is much less than my own government.
Does your government violate human rights?
Is this a joke?
- List of Atrocities committed by US authorities
- Second Thought: Are We The Baddies?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Yes. My government still has legal slavery.
Edit to add: I’m talking about the US. The 13th amendment didn’t outlaw slavery, all it takes is for the government to decide you are a criminal and you’re now legally a slave. You can imagine this might be a good reason to not want the US government involved in your privacy because it can lead to you being a literal slave.
Yes, massively.
The USA has a very strong first amendment. Cruise social media and you can find Americans literally calling on fellow Americans to overthrow the government. And these people are largely left alone by the government. Heck, a fair number of folks who were involved in the January 6th insurrection are still walking free.
Contrast to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dissidents#Detained_and_jailed_people
But yes. The US is absolutely not perfect.
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/13/1237501725/house-vote-tiktok-ban
Advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have called the bill “censorship plain and simple,” arguing that “jeopardizing access to the platform jeopardizes access to free expression.”
At 27 years old, Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost is the youngest member of Congress, and he opposes the bill.
“I think that it is a violation of people’s First Amendment rights,” he said. “TikTok is a place for people to express ideas. I have many small businesses in my district and content creators in my district, and I think it’s going to drastically impact them too.”
The fact that Republicans started it is enough for me to be at least suspicious of why its even being considered.
EDIT: Also lol at “strong first amendment rights” when redneck states ban any books with queer or black characters. And lmao at “Strong first amendment rights” when people get fired for talking about forming a union, let alone even trying to make one.
Hey, what happened at Standing Rock?
Communist Control Act? Sounds like First Amendment to me.
Lol comment removed for (I guess?) linking to a Wikipedia article on Chinese dissidents…
If all you did was drop a wiki link that’s a pretty worthless comment. Do you think China is the only country where dissidents get in trouble with the government? Do you think the U.S. doesn’t harass (or worse) dissidents?
Who knows, use your words
I think the comment shouldn’t have been removed, but principally because it is trivial to refute. The US is well aware of the fact that people calling for revolution have no teeth, while the people who actually did substantial law-breaking on Jan 6 (which itself had no teeth, but I digress) were indeed arrested.
Meanwhile, Wikipedia’s list of Chinese"dissidents" includes blatant fraudsters like Miles Guo, who fled China to evade capture for financial crimes before being imprisoned in the US for continuing to commit financial crimes, to say nothing of the “dissidents” involved in actual insurrectionary activity that killed PLA soldiers.
The concern about TikTok acquiring your private information for marketing purposes is a red herring. The concern of our government here is propaganda and narrative control – power.
I’m European and I definitely feel that way. I don’t like American spyware, but I trust the Chinese government much less than I do American corporations.
Vibes-based threat modeling, a classic.
Remind me again who was wiretapping Merkel’s cell phone? China right? Oh wait no sorry, it was the USA.
Who was caught wiretapping.
Between August and September 2007 Chinese hackers were suspected of using Trojan horse spyware on various government computers, including those of the Chancellory, the Ministry of Economics and Technology, and the Ministry of Education and Research.[180] Germans officials believe Trojan viruses were inserted in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files, and approximately 160 gigabytes of data were siphoned to Canton, Lanzhou and Beijing via South Korea, on instructions from the People’s Liberation Army.[181]
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_abroad
It is a very long Wikipedia article (as is anything involving CIA activities abroad, to be sure).
China does not even spy a hundredth of what USA does. Since Anglos love to quantify everything, it might be a good idea to quantify spying too. 160 GB sounds like nothing to me compared to millions of TBs in Utah datacenters. By your logic, one person who killed one person, and one person who committed a murder of 10000s of people, are equally guilty.
How about I share something from my own country. What I reckon is that only some of my data goes to the US government through Google, Microsoft etc. while the Chinese government controls corporations like tencent much more than the US government controls US corporations. Besides all that, services from Microsoft and Google are much harder to avoid than for example tiktok and Huawei. So the US is getting my data no matter what, I might as well limit how much of it goes to china.
while the Chinese government controls corporations like tencent much more than the US government controls US corporations
welcome traveller from an alternate universe where Snowden leaks didn’t happen 😂
In the US it is the big corporations that control the government.
looks like US propaganda machine is working smoothly in Europe
Yes, we’re all aware that Europeans are racist.
Looks like there is no concrete basis for threat modelling. Xenophobic biases, everywhere!
A whole lot of censoring on these posts on lemmy.ml
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If I had a nickel for every time I saw one of these posts, I’d have two nickels, Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice on the same day
And posted the same account that was created yesterday!
Fuck the USA and fuck China. Spyware sucks no matter where it’s from.
Common “both-sides” fence sitter L
As if China isn’t an authoritarian country that practices censorship and is also committing a genocide.
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LETS RISE UP AND DESTROY THE NSA, CIA, ATF AND OTHER AGENCIES THAT MEAN NOTHING TO US REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HERES A PICTURE OF LAUREN BOEBERTS SON!!!
Aww, poor tankie!
Aww, poor fashie!
They are not the same thing. Facebook is bad too (and actually, a platform-neutral legal restriction based on behavior would be better), but TikTok is absolutely unique in the type of threat it poses:
- The Chinese government treats communication networks as their personal hoovering-attachment for any data they might want. Companies are required by law to operate as an arm of Chinese intelligence, both in terms of giving information and in terms of manipulating what information people on their network are allowed to see. The FBI and NSA definitely spy on Americans too to some extent, but it’s simply not in the same league or with the same type of goals.
- It’s not just your TikTok data. It’s photos and files on your phone, your contacts, your messages, basically anything that the app with its too-permissive permissions can get its hands on, can potentially go up to Chinese intelligence.
- TikTok is not structured like any other app. It has features like custom-downloading and running arbitrary binaries from its central server that honestly don’t even make much sense except as spying apparatus (consistent with #1).
- What China might do with this unprecedented level of access to everyone’s phones is malevolent in a different way than, say, Facebook’s access to everyone’s data. Like Facebook they have the ability to e.g. influence an election, but they also have the ability to try to blackmail an individual to compromise them, or do for-real torture in the real world (say by tracking down a dissident via TikTok spying and then having one of their little Chinese-police-in-America units grab them).
Citations:
- https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/532583-for-chinese-firms-theft-of-your-data-is-now-a-legal-requirement/
- https://www.proofpoint.com/us/blog/threat-protection/understanding-information-tiktok-gathers-and-stores
- https://www.currentware.com/blog/block-tiktok/
- https://www.businessinsider.com/china-hong-kong-spy-agency-official-presence-national-security-laws-report-2020-6 https://www.npr.org/2023/04/17/1170571626/fbi-arrests-2-on-charges-tied-to-chinese-outpost-in-new-york-city
Chinese-police-in-America units
Five Eyes governments & corporate media Cold War II propaganda slop: False Witnesses and Sinister Plots: Exposing the CIA Connection in the ‘Chinese Police Station’ Narrative
What is the Chinese state going to do to you from the other side of the world, other than feed you targeted ads? Attack you with Havana Syndrome or turn you into a Manchurian Candidate via 5G? Why would the Chinese state be the least bit interested in you?
Does no one remember how ridiculous the red scares and the first cold war hysteria looked in the rear view mirror? Because the new hysteria looks just as ridiculous to me now. Same cartoonish propaganda, same credulous acceptance of it.
Do you have a source that is a little more reliable?
Tankies trying so hard to have any spyware be acceptable. Sorry (not sorry), but tiktok is just as evil as Google.
I am tired of the unspoken Western Big Tech apologia. TikTok OBJECTIVELY collects far lesser data than Big Tech apps and services, according to reports from 2 reputed data collection analysis companies. Moreover, the below assumes you have an account, which is not even needed to use TikTok, unlike Instagram or Snapchat.
https://clario.co/blog/which-company-uses-most-data/ https://www.truepeoplesearch.com/insights/info-tech-companies-collecting-from-you
One of the key important aspects of threat modelling for your desired privacy is the acceptance of facts instead of false nationalist opinions.
Moreover, while TikTok collects basic data, it never forces you to login other than for commenting (for obvious reasons) and similarly personal things, unlike Instagram. If you open an IG link in web browser, you cannot replay the video second time, and if you scroll the account’s posted images and videos, you will not be able to flick through a second time.
Unlike Tiktok, with Western platforms and services like Facebook, you give phone number, contact book, IMEI, location data, email, some name or pseudonym et al. With TikTok, none, because you do not need an account for it.
Facebook/Instagram and major Western platforms’ data collection on a user is more than what TikTok does on a user, even if there is an account on both services. On top of this, TikTok does not have tracking pixels, ad networks, CDN and other methods of tracking on other websites, unlike Facebook ecosystem. This allows Facebook ecosystem to correlate, interlink and form data clusters on users and IP addresses. Remember how Facebook ecosystem disallows accountless access? Or how they C&D’d Barinsta developer Austin Huang, citing they dislike anonymous access to Instagram?
Western platforms also inject malware in browser using domains like https://netseer-ipaddr-assoc.xy.fbcdn.net/, something TikTok does not do if you do not have an account.
This is precisely what makes TikTok objectively so harmless without an account, and even with an account, relatively far less harmful. It does not mean TikTok does not collect data, but the difference is too wide. These are the facts, free of American nationalist propaganda.
I do not even use TikTok.
I read through the first link you provided, it doesn’t align with your claim “TikTok OBJECTIVELY collects far lesser data than Big Tech apps and services.”
We go section by section
TikTok is worst here, collection all possible voice, face, environment data
Again TikTok infer as much information as possible, worst among all listed.
The later couple section did not mention tiktok, so I cannot compare it.
Finally
TikTok ranked number 3 in among all the social media, above clubhouse and twitter, just below facebook and instagram.
Now remove the need to use TikTok’s app and account, and count what all metrics get sent when you use it like that. You can use TikTok freely in any web browser. That makes it WAY better than any Western Big Tech services.
And no, TikTok is NOT the worst in any category, and is far below Facebook and Instagram.
You misinterpret the data shown in there, and ignore what I said about not needing an account. Services like Instagram make it mandatory to have an account and its app to use it.
TikTok OBJECTIVELY collects far lesser data than Big Tech apps and services
This is not true for a number of reasons, first being that once the data gets sent to a Chinese server, it’s gone. It’s like a void. Those “data collections analysis” can speculate, but they truly have no idea what happens with that data. Another reason that TikTok is as bad as Instagram, is that they farmed all the data from the in-app browser. Every click, scroll, everything.
You can argue that they have a different approach to data farming, and they do: they try and rope you in, trick you into giving them your data. But it’s demonstrable wrong to say that they collect less data. I wouldn’t say they collect more data than typical west social media platforms, but I think it’s disingenuous to say they’re somehow better.
once the data gets sent to a Chinese server, it’s gone. It’s like a void.
This sounds insanely xenophobic and racist.
Those “data collections analysis” can speculate, but they truly have no idea what happens with that data.
The one doing speculation is you. Analysis is not speculation. Maybe check a dictionary.
it’s demonstrable wrong to say that they collect less data.
I wouldn’t say
Facts or feelings. Choose one. You have not yet chosen facts.
Whos tankies ?
Tankies failing to comprehend the fundamental difference between an actor who tries to make money off you and an actor trying to manufacture dissent and influence the public narrative
Yeah because Facebook totally doesn’t do that.
Point taken, though it’s still an American company they could crack down upon if they prove too dangerous too.
To be clear: I don’t want to get spied upon by anyone and I don’t use most of the American services for that reason. But obviously domestic bad actors are better than bad actors controlled by a foreign and hostile government
It’s crazy to me that people such as you unironically believe the position you’re saying that American companies are easier to crack down on.
We are literally seeing concrete proof in action that domestic companies are much harder to crack down on or regulate. They are much better positioned to lobby and are currently using their immense political power to protect themselves while removing their foreign rivals. There isn’t even talk of taking action against them because they are so politically powerful.
It would be a lot better if Congress could pass a comprehensive privacy bill, but we lack a functioning government so I guess this is the best we can do.
Greatest democracy in the world, right here.
But obviously domestic bad actors are better than bad actors controlled by a foreign and hostile government
How the fuck is that “obvious” to anyone who isn’t an ultra nationalist. I’m way more concerned about my domestic hostile government spying on me.
… it’s obvious because a domestic entity is subject to local laws, and can if push comes to shove be shut down or nationalized. A foreign one is essentially out of reach.
Lol, yeah. The American government definitely always follows the law…
Also lol at the idea that the US government would shut down or nationalise a domestic big tech company for spying on its customers.
Why is it contentious that a government can better curb foreign interference if it is done on a domestic platform? Regardless of how shitty the United States are that’s a simple fact and also practiced by China, only to a much greater extent.
better curb foreign interference
Wtf. We were talking about domestic bad actors, and now you’re going off any foreign influence?
only to a much greater extent.
If this is a “simple fact” I presume should easily be able to prove it, and aren’t just basing it off general xenophobia.
we need more foreign influence in the US. USonians live in a bubble
The existence of the article you’re literally commenting on directly refutes what you’re saying here. Like you’re in a thread because of news that demonstrates that the opposite of what you’re saying here is actually true.
If you need more examples - What happened to Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal? They got banned by congress right? They got shut down? The government stopped them from continuing to manipulate the public?
Libs failing to actually read Manufacturing Consent.
I would argue it is xenophobia and dishonesty rather than a misunderstanding.
trying to manufacture dissent and influence the public narrative
That shit is all over American social media too buddy. If that’s the issue it should all be banned.
I’m game
The us government probably not tho
trying to manufacture dissent and influence the public narrative
Damn, was Noah Chomsky talking about China in his masterclass documentary?
Read the other comments, I don’t want to repeat myself for every idiot jumping on the dogpile. Why does every single China fan assume I love the United States and have a blind eye towards their bullshit? I’m not an American.
every idiot jumping on the dogpile
every single China fan
You have a funny theme going on.
Do you have anything substantial to add or…?
I think you are speaking to yourself here, considering you are accusing me of the things you are doing.
But I am not accusing you of anything…? Unless you think asking you to check If what you’re about to comment has been commented several times before is an accusation.
It’s okay though I’m just about done arguing over this topic. All responses can essentially be summed up with “but the USA do it too”.
You pretend you are objective, while insinuating the motive of USA companies is solely to make money and advertise, while China is the big baddie “narrative” manipulator, which is some alternate reality bullshit. China is not the country that has done foreign interventions and/or genocides in 100+ countries. Or stuff like the genocide in Myanmar which Facebook facilitated, or the intentional misreporting Reuters did during Tiananmen Square to make it look like those CIA paycheck “democracy” students who burnt PLA soldiers alive first were good people.
