• Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    The concern isn’t that these companies have microtargeting data. The concern is about what these companies could use that data for.

    An off-brand t-shirt site would be a fairly ineffective vehicle for political propaganda. Tik Tok would be great at that.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      17 minutes ago

      Isn’t the primary critique of TikTok the number of American leftists and progressives posting on it?

      Seems like the propaganda is coming from inside the house.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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        6 minutes ago

        That’s definitely the critique coming from America’s right.

        That said, both America’s left and right wing politicians seem to agree that it’s dangerous to have a mass media recommendation algorithm in the hands of a foreign adversary.

        If they want to promote content favorable a Chinese political objective, they can use micro targeting data do that with extreme precision - if they wanted to.

        It doesn’t matter who created the content or where it was created. What matters is the message of the content and who it’s being directed to.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      The concern isn’t the input, it’s the potential output. Temu doesn’t have the potential to be used for a large micro-targeted political messaging campaign.

      This is arguably more akin to how the US handles TV and radio. There are national security restrictions on foreign ownership.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      20 hours ago

      They care about companies they have less control over and a foreign adversary has more control over invading privacy, for reasons unrelated to seeing privacy as a good in itself.

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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    22 hours ago

    Is tiktok saying that all Chinese apps that steal our data are also stealing our data because they were designed to steal our data?!

    I am SHOCKED.

      • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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        38 minutes ago

        Lol, what domestic social media apps are the US government trying to ban?

        What’s that? None of them? Ah okay.

        The concern is international espionage, there are really only 2 big players in that space. One of them is the US, can you guess the other?

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      22 hours ago

      Simply reading the article would reveal how ludicrously incorrect your argument is.

        • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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          12 minutes ago

          You’re clearly arguing that tiktok is arguing in court that all Chinese apps steal your data.

          This is patently false to anyone who has read the article. But, of course, it’s much easier to find something to be outraged over when you don’t really know what’s going on.

    • Jin@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      I think it should depend on the software and what’s being collected & shared, also where it’s hosted.

      While Lenovo has have some securities risk & concerns in the past. You can circumvented a lot by installing a fresh copy of windows or Linux. They don’t really havest data or track you like TikTok does. There is no algorithm, no influence on politics or feeding propaganda.

      I think TikTok would be okay, if Android had a better sandbox environment (like GrapheneOS), but google also wants your data…

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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    19 hours ago

    This thread has made me realize that while I was watching the hearings on it purely for comedy aspect, there were actually people out there being like, “Yeah that makes sense.”

    Love it when the government takes away our stuff. Please, take away more of our stuff. Love me that security theater.

    If you don’t like the app, just don’t use it. Nationalism is a hell of a drug.

    This has nothing whatsoever to do with data security and everything to do with other social media companies lobbying to eliminate a competitor, using anti-China sentiment and fear-mongering as a justification. It’s all about the money.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      I’d rather they just ban spy apps in general…but that’s a “dream a little dream, it’s never gonna happen” type of thing.

      • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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        36 minutes ago

        And all the CIA ones.

        Let’s hear some of those app names, you seem to have a few ready to fire off on a whim.

      • NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        that data goes to the US government instead of to the CCP

        Going to blow people’s minds when they find out Temu data also goes to the US government and Facebook data also goes to the CCP.

        This shit is just a commodity. It’s auctioned off at the bid rate. The NSA doesn’t just lay claim to this data, it buys it. And these Big Data companies are only handing it over because of the absurd margins NSA (and MI5 and the rest of the Five Eyes) directors are willing to pay.

        Your data isn’t any safer because the parent company is owned by a foreign plutocrat. This is a big club and you ain’t in it.

        • TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          Oh no, I’m not under any illusion that my data is safer with any of them lol. I’m just saying that that’s why the US doesn’t ban American social networks/companies. Because it’s all about control.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Technically, the second partof that bill bans sending user data to China for all companies, so it’s foreseeabke that they get fined into the dirt if nothing else.

      I hope the Facebook multi-billion dollar fines act as precedent.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        it’s foreseeabke that they get fined into the dirt if nothing else.

        Or they just route the sale of traffic through a domestic data broker and buy “analysis” on the Chinese side of the legal fence. There are so many badly policed and underregulated aspects of the data business that this shit never amounts to more than publicity stunts.

        American trade with China only ever increases year-to-year, despite all the noise about a Trade War. Chinese based drop-shipping schemes only ever eat into our domestic market share, because American incomes are falling into line with the global average and that’s the kind of trade good international middle class workers can afford. And all this shit is getting blended together - Indian and Chinese businesses outsource to Indochina and Malaysia and Indonesia where labor is cheaper. Everything gets routed and flagged through Singapore anyway, so the real origin of a good is obscured by the time it lands on your doorstep. And nobody in the business of making money wants to pay a politician to do anything about this in practice.

        Nobody is getting fined, much less into-the-dirt.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Or they just route the sale of traffic through a domestic data broker and buy “analysis” on the Chinese side of the legal fence. There are so many badly policed and underregulated aspects of the data business that this shit never amounts to more than publicity stunts.

          That is literally what Facebook was fined for, BEFORE the new laws were put in place. Cambridge Analytica did what you just described.

  • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    You can’t spy on our citizens, that’s our (and our corporations’) job!

    Signed, the US Government