huginn

You're missing the whole "growth starts to plateau so management looks for ways to cut costs"

And

"Product comparatively stable so it gets hired out to contractors who inevitably fuck it up because they're cheap and there was 0 knowledge transfer but it's too late you laid off the entire original team"

Yeah seems like we're just of different opinions there.

I firmly believe that American companies have excruciating detail on every single user, as well as most non-users. That's how they can do things like predict pregnancy before the rest of the family has been told...

And that was Target more than a decade ago.

And I also think, with ties to the Chinese govt

It's worth noting that ByteDance has a board that is 3/5ths American. The company has a communist committee like all Chinese megacorps.

China has blocked Youtube because it contained content around Free Tibet & Tienanmen Square. American Congress has decided to ban Tiktok because it might have content that China wants people to see (maybe). There is no credible reason why besides "No totally, trust me it's a problem".

Although, I do think them providing “better” service is subjective.

Sure, better is always subjective

But there's a reason it's way more popular for short form video than anyone else despite coming after them.

It’s basically vine, right? Vine had an “explore” page, right?

Sorta. It's short form video but vine was locked to 7 seconds. TT is anything up to 3 minutes.

But beyond vine: the "for you page" of Tiktok is an algorithmic beast unlike anything else. It is miles better at training to your likes than anyone else manages.

It seems like their main money plan besides ads is shopping. That's been their major push for a year or so now.

With social media companies and ad tech in general it's safe to assume that they're all merciless and cutthroat. They will do anything to profile you better, short of the existentially illegal shit (IE the company would cease to exist if they were caught. Think breaking into your house).

That's why it's always hilarious when people tout whatsapp being e2e encrypted

I was asked to relocate to Texas for a position when I was hired. I said no thanks and went to the NYC office instead.

I know I wasn't the only one to do this.

They were trying to hire in Austin and instead only found NYC talent. Tough break for them.

My point here is less that TikTok is totally cool with privacy (they're not)

It's that tiktok is just as invasive as all other mainstream social media but they provide a better service than any other social media.

That's it: They do more with the exact same.

You can drop instagram straight into that sentence and it reads the same. Except Facebook tracks you even when you don't have an account.

As soon as a user starts using Instagram, the company begins building a profile about them, including their interests, political leanings, sexuality, and every other variable that could impact the selection of videos they see.

Are you talking about the App Privacy page specifically?

Because that page is about as useful as "known to the State of California to cause cancer"

Any social media with advertising will have similar alerts as to what it might be collecting.

How would it be collecting that you might ask?

It's not on your phone: Your browser and your apps are sandboxed from each other. They cannot read from each other. It's a constant pain in the ass for session persistence, you end up having to use wonky nonce patterns to maintain sessions from app to browser & vice versa.

They're collecting it from advertising ids that are on your browser. It's the Google Ad Api - That's it.

Go ahead, look at Instagram or Youtube. They'll have the same laundry list of "Browsing history, Physical Address" etc.

TikTok isn't conjuring that from thin air - It's just that it, like any other advertising app, is using the publicly available data about you to advertise.

Again a side by side:

Which one is TikTok and which one is Instagram?

TikTok isn't doing anything that the other apps aren't also doing - The other apps are just fucking awful at knowing what you want to see.

Let's play a fun game:

Which of the following 2 screenshots is TikTok's permissions?

Is it the one that can prevent the phone from sleeping and runs at startup? The one that sends sticky broadcasts?

Or is it the one that accesses the AdId Api?

I'll give you a hint: I already told you which one it is.

The sheer amount of privileges TikTok requires on your device

The fuck are you on about?

Tiktok has a total of 0 granted permissions from me.

By default it has the same perms as other similar apps: Google Advertising ID.

That's it.

You can't opt out of that: it's Google.

If you give it a fuck load of perms that's your fault. By default it has less access than Discord.

You're just parroting bullshit you've heard elsewhere.

I'm a professional Android developer: Tiktok isn't requesting anything strange. It asks for camera, audio, and storage access when you record a video. That's exactly what you'd need to ask for: nothing more or less.

Yeah I've deleted Facebook and affiliated products since 2017.

Google social never made sense to me but even just for content YouTube does a terrible job showing me what I want to see.

Tiktok had honed in on things I found funny or interesting within an hour of picking it up. And I'm not talking mainstream sports or TV type content, I'm talking niche sub communities and creators with less than 1k followers.

Idk how they're doing it (besides the obvious data collection) but they've got a well tuned algo.

They love tiktok because the algorithm works extremely well.

No other social media actually targets you as well as tiktok does. Instagram is constantly trying to shove you in the direction of whatever makes them the most money even if it's entirely unrelated to your interests. YouTube is clueless to what you like with shorts. Tiktok surfaces new content that is basically unseen anywhere else (thousands of views not millions) that perfectly fits your interests.

Could other platforms do the same thing? Probably: but they're too short sighted to do so.

That's because in the real world we're all fighting to escape the threat of homelessness and starvation which is a constant spectre haunting any "techie" who is paying attention enough to see what's going on.

Personally speaking: when me and mine are safe I'll be dedicating 100% of my remaining life to outreach, teaching and non-profit work.

But as long as you're dependant on another man to feed you every week you're not safe: you're helpless. That's true regardless of if that man is a non-profit or if it's a megacorp.

It's achieved a lot of people talking about it and has achieved damage to the Brand.

Which is better than nothing.