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  1. #1201
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    Quote Originally Posted by 75Crazie View Post
    Pedants everywhere salute you.
    hey, he's an accounting dude, this is the way they are!

  2. #1202
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
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    On the Road to Nowhere
    Quote Originally Posted by burnspbesq View Post
    if the data presented here are accurate, it’s quite bad.

    https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/...evenue-fleeing
    fake news!

    “what i’d say to advertisers and brands is: Use twitter for yourself and believe what you see on twitter, not what you read in the newspapers,” said musk. “because what you see on twitter is the real thing and what you read in newspapers is not.”
    Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. - George Jean Nathan

  3. #1203
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    Is there a security risk inherent in TikTok that is materially different than Twitter and FaceBook? Or is the concern that the Chinese government can force TikTok to give them that type of data (as opposed to Elon Musk selling it to someone or Mark Zuckerberg allowing the lizardoid aliens of which he is one use it to destroy and enslave humanity)?

    Is this a “who” problem instead of a ”what” problem?

  4. #1204
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    Washington, DC area
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Is there a security risk inherent in TikTok that is materially different than Twitter and FaceBook? Or is the concern that the Chinese government can force TikTok to give them that type of data (as opposed to Elon Musk selling it to someone or Mark Zuckerberg allowing the lizardoid aliens of which he is one use it to destroy and enslave humanity)?

    Is this a “who” problem instead of a ”what” problem?
    I think the main concern is state-sponsored manipulation of their algorithm. Perhaps before an election. (And that thread can wait a bit longer!)

    -jk

  5. #1205
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    (And that thread can wait a bit longer!)

    -jk
    You monster !

  6. #1206
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    Undisclosed
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    I think the main concern is state-sponsored manipulation of their algorithm. Perhaps before an election. (And that thread can wait a bit longer!)

    -jk
    Thanks. Like Musk did with Twitter with the new “For You” algorithm? My feed filled pretty quickly with posts of a particular political persuasion (a discussion of which agreed can wait).

    I guess it’s a matter of who you trust more. Persuasion through media content (whether social media or traditional media) is ubiquitous. I’m not sure I see much difference between Twitter and TikTok in this instance, or between those and the editorial decision of several mass-consumed “news sources.”

  7. #1207
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    Feb 2007
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    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Is there a security risk inherent in TikTok that is materially different than Twitter and FaceBook? Or is the concern that the Chinese government can force TikTok to give them that type of data (as opposed to Elon Musk selling it to someone or Mark Zuckerberg allowing the lizardoid aliens of which he is one use it to destroy and enslave humanity)?

    Is this a “who” problem instead of a ”what” problem?
    No.

    Gen Z effectively used TikTok to get out the vote. You were not hearing calls for banning TikTok before young people showed up to vote in proportionally larger numbers than people of that age group have ever voted before. Old people don't want young people voting too much, particularly the old people in Congress.

    If Congress actually cared about the security risks of data collection, Facebook and Twitter would be a part of the conversation. They aren't. It's not about the data.

  8. #1208
    Quote Originally Posted by OldPhiKap View Post
    Is there a security risk inherent in TikTok that is materially different than Twitter and FaceBook? Or is the concern that the Chinese government can force TikTok to give them that type of data (as opposed to Elon Musk selling it to someone or Mark Zuckerberg allowing the lizardoid aliens of which he is one use it to destroy and enslave humanity)?

    Is this a “who” problem instead of a ”what” problem?
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    I think the main concern is state-sponsored manipulation of their algorithm. Perhaps before an election. (And that thread can wait a bit longer!)

    -jk
    But, but the Tiger King is now in the race. (I've got my BP under control so I can wait for as long time as possible).

    Back on topic. It goes even beyond that. It doesn't get the press but the TikTok app is chock full of security vulnerabilities. And these aren't just new ones. Some have been known for years. It doesn't even do simple things like use https for videos. Some of the stuff is so trivial to fix that's it’s security malpractice not to do something. The only reasonable explanation to keep the vulnerabilities would be to possibly take advantage of them in the future.

    Social media platforms hoover up tons of data and TikTok takes everything: phone model, location, usage metrics, current OS, phone number, email address, biometrics, beacon data, contact lists, etc. One can build not only an extensive and accurate profile but also a web of interconnects of users. It has built one of the largest facial recognition databases in the world when combined with it's sister app Douyin (TikTok in China). It could be possible to micro-target person A as to effect seemingly unrelated person Q downstream. It can build a database of travel patterns of not only regular folk but also persons of high interest and their families. Well so can Facebook, YouTube and Twitter right? Palantir probably does the same with the services it sells to the government. Yes, the power of all social media can be abused but there's the matter of consequences and incentives. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter could be punished out of existence if they abuse that power. (It's theoretical because Facebook got away with the Cambridge Analytics scandal). They have an incentive to remain in business. Honestly, their big thing is to keep people engaged and glued to the screen. I do not know if advertising profit is a primary concern for TikTok. It might just be a bonus if they are selling other services or building something else. I do know that it pays creators less than peanuts. It’s several magnitudes less than YouTube shorts. Creators use it more for exposure and reach rather than dollars and cents.

    The danger of TikTok is also not just any overt bias it could/would inject, it's the subtle ones too. Slight pro Chinese/Russian nuggets here and there over years can change perception. What about the impact of climate change? Workers right? The US isn’t above this as we’ve used Hollywood to do the same. TikTok’s reach is just greater, quicker and cheaper. We’ve seen how mobs and violence can be summoned out of the ether in WhatsApp. Well TikTok could do that on a much wider scale. As Bostondevil points out that door swings both ways. It can be used as a force of good...as long as it's powers that be allow it and benefit from it.

    I freely admit some of this is tin foil hat stuff. That doesn’t mean it’s beyond the realm of reality. Andy Grove said “only the paranoid service.” He could have included “even if you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you are wrong.”
    Last edited by Kdogg; 03-24-2023 at 12:37 PM.

  9. #1209
    One just needs to answer a simple question, does China allow foreign social networks to operate freely in their country?

    I think it is very eye opening to look at which countries ban western social media networks. Hint: it's not the ones that are friendly to the US.

    We should also ask ourselves if we want any of those countries that ban western networks to freely operate their networks in our country?

    To me it is simple. If China wants access to the US market for Tik Tok, they need to allow UNRESTRICTED access to their market for our apps. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

  10. #1210
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by PackMan97 View Post
    One just needs to answer a simple question, does China allow foreign social networks to operate freely in their country?

    I think it is very eye opening to look at which countries ban western social media networks. Hint: it's not the ones that are friendly to the US.

    We should also ask ourselves if we want any of those countries that ban western networks to freely operate their networks in our country?

    To me it is simple. If China wants access to the US market for Tik Tok, they need to allow UNRESTRICTED access to their market for our apps. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

    One just needs to ask the simple question - can Elon Musk sell data to the Chinese government?

    If we, as a country, are concerned about how social media collects data, then address the issue industry wide. If we aren't planning to address the issue industry wide, then it is absolutely ridiculous to assume we can keep data out the hands of any country that wants it. The Chinese have enough money to pay Elon Musk or Marc Zuckerberg for our data, they can get it anytime they want to.

    What's simple to me is that TPTB want our data and want to be able to continue collecting it so they aren't going to actually address the issue, they'll just drum up some propaganda to make it seem like TikTok is somehow different. Banning TikTok will keep absolutely no data out of the hands of other countries if those countries want that data bad enough that they are willing to pay for it. I'm sure Elon Musk will charge a lot, but he'll sell it.

  11. #1211
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Ashburn, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by Bostondevil View Post
    No.

    Gen Z effectively used TikTok to get out the vote. You were not hearing calls for banning TikTok before young people showed up to vote in proportionally larger numbers than people of that age group have ever voted before. Old people don't want young people voting too much, particularly the old people in Congress.

    If Congress actually cared about the security risks of data collection, Facebook and Twitter would be a part of the conversation. They aren't. It's not about the data.
    Sorry, I'm not really following. There was pretty broad bi-partisan criticism during the hearings yesterday. If this were a "suppress the young people who vote D" conspiracy, you wouldn't find so many people on both sides worried.

    And there has been tons of talk for a long time before this most recent election about the dangers concern TikTok ownership by an adversarial foreign government. This did not just spring into existence within the past four months.

    And while I'm highly critical of the way US social media companies have used and abused the data they've collected, I still see TikTok as fundamentally different from all of them.
    They present two different sets of dangers (with some overlap), and will need two different response/remediations (with some overlap).
    A text without a context is a pretext.

  12. #1212
    Quote Originally Posted by Bostondevil View Post
    One just needs to ask the simple question - can Elon Musk sell data to the Chinese government?

    If we, as a country, are concerned about how social media collects data, then address the issue industry wide. If we aren't planning to address the issue industry wide, then it is absolutely ridiculous to assume we can keep data out the hands of any country that wants it. The Chinese have enough money to pay Elon Musk or Marc Zuckerberg for our data, they can get it anytime they want to.

    What's simple to me is that TPTB want our data and want to be able to continue collecting it so they aren't going to actually address the issue, they'll just drum up some propaganda to make it seem like TikTok is somehow different. Banning TikTok will keep absolutely no data out of the hands of other countries if those countries want that data bad enough that they are willing to pay for it. I'm sure Elon Musk will charge a lot, but he'll sell it.
    It's not about the data, though there is some of that, it's more about manipulation of the algorithm.

    TikTok is different because it is controlled by a hostile country. I'm happy to let TikTok have access to American phones as soon as China allows uncensored access to Google, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, etc on their phones.

    Why do you think they don't allow western apps in China? It is the same reason we shouldn't allow their apps here.

  13. #1213
    To bring this back to Twitter, Musk and co have been busy.

    They are retiring the old verification system in April. Now businesses will have to pay $1,000 a month to keep their verification checkmark. For many large companies, that not much but for smaller outfits it's a big jump in costs. They are also deactivating the old non paying blue checkmarks. Strangely, the new paid tier as a option to hide your blue checkmark. Maybe in case the person is embarrassed by it?

    https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/4/23...s-subscription

    Earlier in the month Elon claimed that he would open source its algorithm by the next week. That came and went. Now he claims that Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets by March 31. That might seem noble to let everyone see the secret sauce. If he does this, what it tells me is the algo must be trash. Now, after firing everybody, Elon wants to socialize Twitter's development but privatize any revenue. It's a desperate move.

    In adjacent sour grapes and Elon news:

    Elon Musk was reportedly 'furious' at ChatGPT's popularity after he left the company behind it, OpenAI, years ago

    "Semafor reports that in early 2018, Sam Altman and other OpenAI cofounders rejected Musk's proposal to run the company — a nonprofit at the time — on his own in an attempt to beat Google, which created a fissure between Altman and Musk. As a result, Musk stepped down from OpenAI's board and pulled future funding, per Semafor. More than a year later, OpenAI became a for-profit entity. "

  14. #1214
    Join Date
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    On the Road to Nowhere
    Quote Originally Posted by snowdenscold View Post
    Sorry, I'm not really following. There was pretty broad bi-partisan criticism during the hearings yesterday. If this were a "suppress the young people who vote D" conspiracy, you wouldn't find so many people on both sides worried.

    And there has been tons of talk for a long time before this most recent election about the dangers concern TikTok ownership by an adversarial foreign government. This did not just spring into existence within the past four months.

    And while I'm highly critical of the way US social media companies have used and abused the data they've collected, I still see TikTok as fundamentally different from all of them.
    They present two different sets of dangers (with some overlap), and will need two different response/remediations (with some overlap).
    So you're expecting nuance from our elected officials? Good luck!
    Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. - George Jean Nathan

  15. #1215
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
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    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Woof.

    Twitter’s traditional bird icon was booted and replaced with an image of a Shiba Inu, an apparent nod to dogecoin, the joke cryptocurrency that CEO Elon Musk is being sued over.
    https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/03/inves...ter/index.html
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  16. #1216
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    Quote Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred View Post
    Ok, now he's just chasing his tail.
    Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. - George Jean Nathan

  17. #1217
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
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    Boston area, OK, Newton, right by Heartbreak Hill
    Quote Originally Posted by snowdenscold View Post
    Sorry, I'm not really following. There was pretty broad bi-partisan criticism during the hearings yesterday. If this were a "suppress the young people who vote D" conspiracy, you wouldn't find so many people on both sides worried.

    And there has been tons of talk for a long time before this most recent election about the dangers concern TikTok ownership by an adversarial foreign government. This did not just spring into existence within the past four months.

    And while I'm highly critical of the way US social media companies have used and abused the data they've collected, I still see TikTok as fundamentally different from all of them.
    They present two different sets of dangers (with some overlap), and will need two different response/remediations (with some overlap).
    Perhaps not but I don't give too many members of Congress credit for knowing anything about tech.

    The only thing I hear about it around here is that it's bad because China owns it. Do people post videos filmed in their workplaces to TikTok that they shouldn't because of where they work (Government offices or hospitals for example)? Yes. Do people post videos and photos of workplaces to Facebook and Twitter that they shouldn't because of where they work? Also, yes. Do people sometimes post TikTok videos to Facebook? Yes. If it's on Facebook or Twitter, the Chinese can get their hands on it. And since when is China the only risk to our national security? I am not against banning TikTok from US Government phones and computers, but I don't see why Facebook and Twitter shouldn't be banned from those devices too.

    But OK - TikTok is fundamentally different - how?

  18. #1218
    Quote Originally Posted by Bostondevil View Post
    But OK - TikTok is fundamentally different - how?
    One fundamental difference is that the Chinese government owns a 1% stake in TikTok’s parent company and over representation on its board (three official seats). Also a Chinese law requires companies to give the government any personal data relevant to the country’s national security. Between those two things they potentially have unfettered access to all TikTok data. The US has no equity stake in Meta or Twitter. It has no board streets. To access their data it would require either cooperation or legal measures. General, it’s both to get access. There is no due process for the Chinese government and TikTok. They want. They take.

    It’s not just the information and the databases that a company can create from TikTok user. It’s new tech they can build: AI, machine learning, adaptive databases, deep fake technology, etc. All of that requires data for training. The vast amount of raw data that TikTok has can be used to build something else and users would have no clue. Think of a simple filter on TikTok. To a user it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just something that’s fun or they think it makes them look better. No big deal but it requires a fair amount of computational horsepower to do it in real time. So while one sees only cat ears, TikTok harvests facial data along with location, etc… Data that can be used to create deep fakes or facial recognition software. Meta can do this. Twitter less so but neither come close to having access to as much real time data as TikTok. Even YouTube does not have this much access to real time data.

    Facebook and Twitter have every reason to present conflicting views to its users. The back and forth nature feed engagement (and toxicity), increases view time and thus advertising money. TikTok, for the most part, has avoided that. The visceral and fleeting duration of a TikTok video means that a person just moves on to the next video if they don’t like it. It’s drug of chose is dopamine and giving its users the next hit. So once it knows what a person wants it can feed them more of the same. Along the way nothing stops TikTok from using this as a means of persuasion. Little by little it can push people towards its desired viewpoint by littering the feed with a bit here and a bit there. We’ve seen it in the US with less subtle channels of TV, radio and newspapers. TikTok can do this in stealth. Depending on their feed a person might start to think fascism is not so bad or climate change is a hoax.

    It might not be TikTok. It might be the next big thing. It’s best to aware of the possibilities.

    Also I’m all for banning Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and any app that can track a person from government devices. For the majority of government employees, if you can’t do it from a browser with location data turned off you shouldn’t be doing it on an official device.

  19. #1219
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kdogg View Post
    One fundamental difference is that the Chinese government owns a 1% stake in TikTok’s parent company and over representation on its board (three official seats). Also a Chinese law requires companies to give the government any personal data relevant to the country’s national security. Between those two things they potentially have unfettered access to all TikTok data. The US has no equity stake in Meta or Twitter. It has no board streets. To access their data it would require either cooperation or legal measures. General, it’s both to get access. There is no due process for the Chinese government and TikTok. They want. They take.

    It’s not just the information and the databases that a company can create from TikTok user. It’s new tech they can build: AI, machine learning, adaptive databases, deep fake technology, etc. All of that requires data for training. The vast amount of raw data that TikTok has can be used to build something else and users would have no clue. Think of a simple filter on TikTok. To a user it’s nothing. Maybe it’s just something that’s fun or they think it makes them look better. No big deal but it requires a fair amount of computational horsepower to do it in real time. So while one sees only cat ears, TikTok harvests facial data along with location, etc… Data that can be used to create deep fakes or facial recognition software. Meta can do this. Twitter less so but neither come close to having access to as much real time data as TikTok. Even YouTube does not have this much access to real time data.

    Facebook and Twitter have every reason to present conflicting views to its users. The back and forth nature feed engagement (and toxicity), increases view time and thus advertising money. TikTok, for the most part, has avoided that. The visceral and fleeting duration of a TikTok video means that a person just moves on to the next video if they don’t like it. It’s drug of chose is dopamine and giving its users the next hit. So once it knows what a person wants it can feed them more of the same. Along the way nothing stops TikTok from using this as a means of persuasion. Little by little it can push people towards its desired viewpoint by littering the feed with a bit here and a bit there. We’ve seen it in the US with less subtle channels of TV, radio and newspapers. TikTok can do this in stealth. Depending on their feed a person might start to think fascism is not so bad or climate change is a hoax.

    It might not be TikTok. It might be the next big thing. It’s best to aware of the possibilities.
    You can plug Facebook and Twitter into the bolded sentence. Your argument boils down to "China owns it" and while I do not dispute that the Chinese ownership is a problem, I don't see it as more of a problem than Elon Musk's or Marc Zuckerberg's ownership of our data. We do not regulate who they sell it to, as far as I know.

    As to Facebook and Twitter presenting conflicting view to users - do you honestly believe that is what happens on those platforms? C'mon, every "like" is fed into an algorithm designed to give us the exact opposite of conflicting views. They may not be pushing people to an a priori desired viewpoint but the do push people towards the extremes. There are lots of Facebook and Twitter users who have never been on TikTok that already think fascism is not so bad and that climate change is a hoax. Heck, there are some people that just watch television news that think that.

    To sum up, my argument is that there are lots of issues with the social media industry (broadly defined) and blaming all the problems on TikTok is naive. The push back I get is that TikTok is worse because China owns it. That's not enough for me to see a fundamental difference.

    Where we do agree is that it might not be TikTok, it might be the next big thing. However, I think it's impossible to be aware of all the possibilities if we're just going to focus on TikTok.

  20. #1220
    The way I see it all of our social media platforms (Twitter, FB, YT & Tiktok) are seriously problematic. Too much unregulated data harvesting across the board, Twitter, FB and YT algorithms foster conflict, and so on. I agree all should be fixed as much as possible through federal regulation.

    But therein lies the rub. The operation of the first three are under US jurisdiction. We can pass regulations that they have to follow or face fines, imprisonment or being shut down. In contrast the US cannot regulate what Tiktok does with its data. We can’t prohibit Tiktok from using it for surveillance or state sanctioned propaganda for example. Hell we can’t even fully know what they are doing it with it or demand access to internal documents that would answer those questions.

    Also while I don’t agree (at all) with the way Zuckerberg and Musk and Google run their social media platforms I don’t see them as enemies of the state. I do see China as an enemy of the US and an increasingly formidable one. There is an active arms race going on between China (and Russia?) and the US and the most powerful “weapons” in this race are increasingly data based and AI based. For the sake of democracy worldwide and the US in particular we need to do whatever we can to try to stay ahead in this race.

    So I’m all for shutting down Tiktok and replacing it with equivalent software from the US or a democratic ally. I’m also for regulating the hell out of FB, Twitter and YT. The conflict generating algorithms they are running are seriously damaging the functionality of our society. That and the wild west data collection need to stop.
    Last edited by Skydog; 04-04-2023 at 02:19 PM.

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