I'd absolutely consider Meta to be security sensitive. And Microsoft. And Google. And Netflix.
"You watched Red One, and we'll tell you employer and wife about it unless you ..."
How does this work?
If TikTok can infer something about a person, then Netflix can also infer it.
What does that even mean in this context? Have you used TikTok before?
TikTok's CSAM problem is well documented [1].
Disposable idiots are a necessary asset for any intelligence operation. Kim Jong-nam's assasins, for example, "were told to play harmless tricks on people in the vicinity for a prank TV show" [2].
[1] https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/tiktok-under-fede...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Kim_Jong-nam
It isn't like TikTok are the only part of the internet with a CSAM problem. By default anything that offers file hosting has a CSAM problem. To keep the Chinese away from blackmail material the US would have to ban any form of image hosting served from the Chinese mainland - the CSAM people go to the CSAM, it doesn't proactively seek people out.
Of course not. I was just providing an easy example of what TikTok may have that we don’t want the CCP to.
Did you mean for that link to go somewhere different?
Your link doesn't say anything about TikTok?
> Kim Jong-nam's assasins, for example, "were told to play harmless tricks on people in the vicinity for a prank TV show"
What? How is that connected to "blackmailable individual profiles"?
How can they blackmail me? Please explain. You mean like "I see you watch cat videos so now go revolt against your government or I will tell everyone you watch cat videos?", this is the blackmail part?
They may not be able to. But it sure would be helpful to have a list of people in likely financial distress with addresses close to military installations. Such a person may not ask questions if given a job offer from an influencer or whatever to take selfies around town.
Sure, that's possible, but I think it's a bit of a stretched argument. Can't you target people like that on Facebook with ads? Can't you buy data about these people from U.S. data brokers? Can't you already access this data publicly because people share it openly on social media?
Ads have too low of an SNR--you'll blow your cover before getting anything useful. Buying works, but (a) you'd need to be careful about hiding your intentions and (b) it's never going to be as high fidelity as the direct data stream. (Think of the amount of unique data they got from their copy-paste hijacking alone [1].)
Having the data yourself means you can silently query high-fidelity real-time data on a third of the American population. That's difficult to replicate. Again, if you need a familiar bogeyman, consider what the NSA would ask Meta to do if Instagram weren't banned in China.
[1] https://lifehacker.com/is-tiktok-really-recording-everything...
We could shut all of this shit down if we actually wanted to, but that means going after American companies too, which they won't. They want to have the cake and eat it too: outlaw foreign spying on American users without outlawing domestic spying on American users. They want to make it so China can't do exactly what social media et al does in America, to Americans. Americans are not stupid: they are perceiving this. They know they are being manipulated, perhaps by China, perhaps by the U.S., definitely by dozens if not hundreds of private enterprises, likely all fucking three.
On one hand, the American government's priority is the security of America and her citizens, but on the other, we have an entire segment of the economy now utterly dependent on being able to violate citizen's privacy at will and at scale. Surveillance capitalism and foreign surveillance are effectively interoperable. You can't kill one without killing the other.
Edit: And even more on the personal front, for your every day Joe: this is completely stake-less. "Oh China is spying on me!" big fucking deal. The NSA was caught spying on us decades ago, and by all accounts, they still are. Google AdSense probably knows my resting heart rate and rectal measurements that it will use to try and sell me the new flavor of Oreo. We accept as a given that our privacy is basically long gone, not only did that boat leave the pier, it sailed to the mid-Atlantic, sunk, and a bunch of billionaires imploded trying to check out the wreckage in a poorly made submarine. I don't fucking care if China is spying on me too, that's just a fact of my online existence.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/duolingo-sees-216-spike-in...
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/meta-boycott-faceb...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/over-half-million-tiktok-...
People are protesting because it's cool to do especially when you're a rebellious youngster but I'm pretty convinced it's going to fizzle out. I don't think it's fair to say it's disingenuous to believe as much. Maybe you could say it's "too early" to write it off, to which I'd respond saying it's too early to buy into the belief that it will take over American culture in any way that resembles TikTok.... and that even if it did, that it wouldn't be banned from the US again.
Just wait until the Chinese government realizes young American social media users have no problems talking about politics, sex, and drugs on social media.
We'll see how long open platforms with citizens of both countries last.
That there exist other problems is not a justification for inaction on this particular problem.