This comment makes it pretty clear you don't use tiktok or have a very clear understanding of its content. A huge portion of content is political, and especially divisive. People are constantly targeted with content that either reinforces or insults their more extreme political beliefs. This is exactly how personal data is being used against individuals - to target divisive political content and maximize political angst. It's clearly working.

You're literally describing every major user generated content platform.

Yah nuh, it's not as if youtube don't do the same. More to the point, ycombinator is infamous for being a neoliberal silicon valley poster child. Nobody forced me to come here, or to tik tok

"Yes but what about the US Government?" is not an actual response to concerns about Tiktok, it's a lazy attempt at deflection and distraction.

And the US Government doesn't use private sector data to round up and imprison their citizens in concentration camps. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/12/14/huawei-surve...

I don't answer to concerns about TikTok because I don't think there are any, and so I instead point to the ever-present elephant in the IT security discussion room.

And as for the US Government and concentration camp, maybe they don't use private sector data for that, but they sure do it based on ethnicity and origins, such as Japanese Americans in concentration camps during WW2, and South American children and their immigrant parents literally put in cages just a couple of years ago.

You responded to a question with a demonstration of your politics (ie. who you trust, and who you don't trust). Trusting the Chinese Government when they are in the midst of using technology to enable horrific crimes against humanity is a weird political position to take.

And pointing out anything that has nothing to do with Tiktok in a thread about Tiktok is not providing context, it's an attempt at distraction and deflection away from the thing you trust (the CCP, somehow) towards the thing you don't (the US Gov).

The original post above framed the issue from a national-security angle.

Whether "this side" is-doing/has-done it as well is an orthogonal concern, i.e. not pertinent here. We have a small but non-zero ability to affect change on our side.

Exactly. Plus the product is free. What do you expect? Oh no im gonna get targeted for ads on another site because of tiktok. What an uproar!