It has been irreversibly admitted. We can see that this trojan horse is getting blown up before it has hit the public markets.
Just like the lies they said about accessing US data from China after yet another leak [0], no sentence can be believed from them at all and like Facebook, they should be fined in the billions.
Is there anything actually interesting in these? It seems like it's just a document that formalizes talking points for main issues/questions they get. Talking points they've actively used!
I don't get why this is salacious. That TikTok PR thinks about these things? That TikTok PR tries to get people in the company aligned on how to respond? Thats what PR does. It'd be WAY weirder if they didn't.
If this document had "The Chinese Government reads all of your posts", I'd say there's something here. However, all this doc that says is stuff like "our CEO is American" and the only leaked out info is basically "The daily spending limit is $1000."
the real issue with tiktok is faang hasn't been able to buy or bury it despite hourly content scrapes to Facebook and YouTube shorts, same with huawei and the telecom giants. you can certainly play on the red scare sentiments of americas octogenarian bureaucrats however.
Its pretty pathetic that american companies cant compete with tiktoks social media dominance (because they are too busy optimizing for maximum ad engagement over user experience) and so are trying to engage in a xenophobic propaganda campaign instead of just giving some product managers the power to override decisions by the ad dept.
Instagram has a horrible ux, and they accept that because they'd rather chase dollars than user satisfaction. There is no moat around tiktok, it's just stubborn hubris.
all of social media is a national security threat, we just handwave away the dangers of domesticly owned social media because of excessive trust in the state and greed
facebook could extort billions out of its users using the data its already sitting on. they could also monetize that data by selling it to foreign intelligence. we've seen evidence of them doing similar things in the past, seems naive to expect they will never turn more evil, especially if they face a recession
I thought there were plans to force Tiktok to sell its American assets for peanuts and no data leaves US (only US corporations are allowed to spy on US citizens).
From the Gizmodo article, some statements from TikTok:
> “There’s a lot of misinformation about TikTok right now. The reality is that the TikTok app isn’t even available in China."
Yes it is, it's just called Douyin there. It's got different content but due to the language barrier none of that would be interesting in western markets anyway.
> "We have not and will not share user data with the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked.” TikTok used this one in response to BuzzFeed News."
Right, A Chinese company standing up to the CCP. Good luck with that. Remember Jack Ma? I wonder if he does.
I agree this doc doesn't really prove they do associate with the CCP either. This is just spin doctor stuff, the stuff they want us to beieve. But it doesn't prove whether that's true or not.
But this is the thing, in China every company follows CCP rules. It's just how things work over there. Especially with social media companies because the CCP is really worried about citizens organising themselves. They take a lot of control over those.
I'm sure in the western world with "National Security Letters" things work the same way. But at least there is some kind of oversight and people speaking out. No I don't trust Facebook or Google any more than I trust TikTok and I minimise the use of services from either. But at least Facebook and Google are from a country I'm more morally aligned with.
PS: I don't even use TikTok because I know I will hate the service. I hate the whole 'funny videos' category and videos in general. I don't even use YouTube much. But I was considering buying a Pico 3 headset before.
> Right, A Chinese company standing up to the CCP.
It's not a matter of if they willingly do it (or even knowingly do it). The only rational position is to assume that any data which is a) desirable for intelligence or competitive reasons, and b) located in (or transits through) China, Russia or any of the western 'Five Eyes' countries is being intercepted. This remains true whether the company agrees or even knows about it.
The only weird thing is that all the companies (including FAANG) don't just come out and say this. Hell, they can even add that they do their best to secure their data and that 'to their knowledge' it's not happening but knowing the capabilities and history of large state actors, it would be naive not to acknowledge their systems may be compromised. The only difference between western based companies and China/Russia based companies is that the western ones may mostly be intercepted for intelligence purposes and less frequently for extra-judicial (warrantless) domestic law enforcement.
If you spend enough time in the hacking/privacy sphere you’ll hear about gag orders that have been (allegedly) been placed on major tech companies that prevent them from disclosing major backdoors or taps that 3 letter agencies have put in place.
Plus all of the fiber backbones are tapped anyways.
> No I don't trust Facebook or Google any more than I trust TikTok and I minimise the use of services from either. But at least Facebook and Google are from a country I'm more morally aligned with.
Funny, I feel oppositely - Live in the USA, probably never going back to PRC, am not "overseas Chinese" and don't have family in vulnerable jurisdictions (though maybe those include some less developed African and Asian countries not just PRC). So if the CCP wanted to make trouble for me it would be a large and probably unsuccessful effort (real trouble meaning beyond remote/online harassment). Whereas if the US government wants to make trouble for me, even if they follow the letter of the law re: procedural due process and I eventually prevail, it is likely to be a very bad experience.
16 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 58.0 ms ] threadLinked article from Twitter thread: https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-master-messaging-pr-playbook-chin...
Just like the lies they said about accessing US data from China after yet another leak [0], no sentence can be believed from them at all and like Facebook, they should be fined in the billions.
[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
I don't get why this is salacious. That TikTok PR thinks about these things? That TikTok PR tries to get people in the company aligned on how to respond? Thats what PR does. It'd be WAY weirder if they didn't.
If this document had "The Chinese Government reads all of your posts", I'd say there's something here. However, all this doc that says is stuff like "our CEO is American" and the only leaked out info is basically "The daily spending limit is $1000."
Watergate, this ain't. Yawn
Instagram has a horrible ux, and they accept that because they'd rather chase dollars than user satisfaction. There is no moat around tiktok, it's just stubborn hubris.
facebook could extort billions out of its users using the data its already sitting on. they could also monetize that data by selling it to foreign intelligence. we've seen evidence of them doing similar things in the past, seems naive to expect they will never turn more evil, especially if they face a recession
Either china has no security at all, or "some people" are actively spying on them and trying to hack them
> “There’s a lot of misinformation about TikTok right now. The reality is that the TikTok app isn’t even available in China."
Yes it is, it's just called Douyin there. It's got different content but due to the language barrier none of that would be interesting in western markets anyway.
> "We have not and will not share user data with the Chinese government, and would not do so if asked.” TikTok used this one in response to BuzzFeed News."
Right, A Chinese company standing up to the CCP. Good luck with that. Remember Jack Ma? I wonder if he does.
I agree this doc doesn't really prove they do associate with the CCP either. This is just spin doctor stuff, the stuff they want us to beieve. But it doesn't prove whether that's true or not.
But this is the thing, in China every company follows CCP rules. It's just how things work over there. Especially with social media companies because the CCP is really worried about citizens organising themselves. They take a lot of control over those.
I'm sure in the western world with "National Security Letters" things work the same way. But at least there is some kind of oversight and people speaking out. No I don't trust Facebook or Google any more than I trust TikTok and I minimise the use of services from either. But at least Facebook and Google are from a country I'm more morally aligned with.
PS: I don't even use TikTok because I know I will hate the service. I hate the whole 'funny videos' category and videos in general. I don't even use YouTube much. But I was considering buying a Pico 3 headset before.
It's not a matter of if they willingly do it (or even knowingly do it). The only rational position is to assume that any data which is a) desirable for intelligence or competitive reasons, and b) located in (or transits through) China, Russia or any of the western 'Five Eyes' countries is being intercepted. This remains true whether the company agrees or even knows about it.
The only weird thing is that all the companies (including FAANG) don't just come out and say this. Hell, they can even add that they do their best to secure their data and that 'to their knowledge' it's not happening but knowing the capabilities and history of large state actors, it would be naive not to acknowledge their systems may be compromised. The only difference between western based companies and China/Russia based companies is that the western ones may mostly be intercepted for intelligence purposes and less frequently for extra-judicial (warrantless) domestic law enforcement.
Plus all of the fiber backbones are tapped anyways.
Funny, I feel oppositely - Live in the USA, probably never going back to PRC, am not "overseas Chinese" and don't have family in vulnerable jurisdictions (though maybe those include some less developed African and Asian countries not just PRC). So if the CCP wanted to make trouble for me it would be a large and probably unsuccessful effort (real trouble meaning beyond remote/online harassment). Whereas if the US government wants to make trouble for me, even if they follow the letter of the law re: procedural due process and I eventually prevail, it is likely to be a very bad experience.