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What's TikTok Selling That The Others Aren't?


Razors Edge

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Assuming the Chinese are using it to gather data on countess Americans, what is the additional bit that makes them different from Facebook, Instagram, or Google or any other tech company that uses the user as the "product"?

IOW, they - the evil Chinese - probably can (are) buying all that info already on the open market and also getting additional stuff from the black market/dark web, so did they just luck out with TikTok's success, so maybe now it is somehow cheaper to get the info that they want?  

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I've never used TikTok but a quick google search says:

 

What is unique with TikTok?
TikTok is a popular social media app that allows users to create, watch, and share 15-second videos shot on mobile devices or webcams. With its personalized feeds of quirky short videos set to music and sound effects, the app is notable for its addictive quality and high levels of engagement.

 

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1 minute ago, MickinMD said:

share 15-second videos

I saw a guy who said he makes up to 10 min videos.  

But I "get" their business (sort of), but what I don't get is why they are more dangerous than FB or IG or Google or Twitter or any other media business where the collection of user data IS the business.

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21 hours ago, Fret Buzz said:

I saw a guy who said he makes up to 10 min videos.  

But I "get" their business (sort of), but what I don't get is why they are more dangerous than FB or IG or Google or Twitter or any other media business where the collection of user data IS the business.

I was puzzled too. I'm sure mainland Chinese are monitoring and auto-collecting data via Twitter, FB, etc. also if they want to understand how to influence and use soft political leverage. I'm not sure how censorship works for local mainland Chinese because they might be blocked abit more than us.  

People here do not quite understand there is real censorship going on there. If you are Chinese feminist comedian and satirizing about birth control, domestic violence, etc., you will be socially ostracized more loudly than your supporters. And prevented from performing comedy/their shows.

Then China has had very rich multi-millionaires who have spoken against their govn't...who suddenly go quiet/disappear from news feeds. And no one knows what is going on.

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22 hours ago, Fret Buzz said:

probably can (are) buying all that info already on the open market and also getting additional stuff from the black market/dark web

Why buy from other platforms or the black market what is readily available on TikTok? (rhetorical question)

22 hours ago, Fret Buzz said:

so did they just luck out

Ah, no.  TikTok - and any other social platforms - are all specifically designed and engineered to capture your attention and keep you engaged.  Any social platform that did otherwise, and that didn't maintain an internal group to study and test improvements would soon become yesteryear, lose revenue, and fail as a company.

22 hours ago, Fret Buzz said:

to get the info that they want

People opposed to TikTok get their panties all in a twist about the Chinese government gaining access to users' personal information.  I don't believe that's the main purpose, although it could be one of several.  I think the main, larger purpose of TIkTok is so the Chinese government can - if it so chooses - access the information to determine social trends and regional dispositions of people as a whole.

If you assume the Chinese government does or can indeed have access to the information, the Chinese government cares little or nothing about what the individual average person puts on TikTok.  They would take note when 250,000 or a million people post similar thoughts, feelings, sentiments, etc.  And not only when, but where, to what intensity, who has influence and why.

Should you ever need to broadcast a message, either in the open or through more subtle campaigns, you need to know the temperament of the audience toward your message.  Quite simply, if you fly in blind without that information you're practically doomed to failure.

In the past countries would use spies to try to harvest that information about their opposite's society.  The weak part of that is a spy can only collect pinpoint information on what surrounds the spy; what he hears, sees, and is able to collect.  Using an app to collect that or similar data, that could in turn be sorted and parsed multiplies such intelligence gathering about a society or population a million fold, without any of the inherent risks and potential embarrassments of a traditional spy because the users supply the needed data voluntarily.

So, is China using TikTok to gather such information on/about America and other countries around the world?  The CEO of TikTok says he 'has no evidence that's being done' and I'm quite sure he doesn't.  However, would the Chinese government use such data if they thought it could provide an advantage were it to come to a conflict or other crisis/event?  I personally have no doubt they would, and in an instant.

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Seems to me that Silicon Valley should be pretty chastened and egg faced that they missed this.  I heard there was a similar thing with short videos anyhoo, Vine, that dyed on the well, you know.

 

Competitors

Instagram added 15-second video sharing in June 2013. Since then, the video functionality expanded with additional features: widescreen videos, 60-second videos, and up to 10 minutes of video in a multi-video post. As with Vine, Instagram videos loop and have no playback controls by default. Snapchat added 10-second video sharing in December 2012.

YouTube launched a GIF creator in 2014.[60] This tool allows up to six seconds of any supported YouTube video to be converted to a GIF.[61] Sign-ups for the GIF beta are now discontinued.[62] YouTube later began catering to those who create primarily shorter videos with its YouTube Shorts platform.

TikTok (called Douyin in China) was created a few months before the discontinuation of Vine. Its current edition is the result of the merger of the original TikTok app with Musical.ly, which was founded in 2014 and became popular in 2015.[63] TikTok is similar to Vine in that it is a simple short video platform with the added option of Duet, meaning that two different TikTok creators may collaborate at different times to create a final video; The Verge called it "the closest thing we'll get to having Vine back".[64] TikTok is not much younger than Vine, as its predecessor Musical.ly was introduced only a year after Vine's inception, but it exploded in popularity in the late 2010s after Vine was shut down.[65]

 

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3 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

Ah, no.  TikTok - and any other social platforms - are all specifically designed and engineered to capture your attention and keep you engaged.  Any social platform that did otherwise, and that didn't maintain an internal group to study and test improvements would soon become yesteryear, lose revenue, and fail as a company.

This is the one area where I see Chinese influence (control) over TikTok being different than the normal FB/IG/Twitter/Google/etc. social media businesses. 

The other stuff - your longer stuff on the spying using the data for trends & dispositions etc. - is, to me, readily available and while requiring $$$, a multi-trillion dollar economy with money to burn especially in the long game, is not gonna mind buying or using other means to just grab the raw data in other ways. 

What they CAN do, with TikTok, is simply start tweaking the "algorithm" (a 21st century boogeyman) to start GUIDING users towards certain goals of theirs.  Sort of how FB or others slowly lead many folks down the path to anorexia or white supremacy (using a nebulous but effective set of algorithms), TikTok could find a way to guide their viewers down that same sort of ratholes.

It can be done and I definitely think it may be already being done.  

Of course, that's not to say the dangers from TikTok are any worse than the ones from the other social media groups, just that they are from China as opposed to some other less obvious sources (and certainly not a known rival/adversary).

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personally to me, TicTok is bot stifling the abilities of people to say what they want where the other platforms have bots that remove posts or put people on suspension. I'm just done with all the BS around this and the gubbermenet trying to take everything away from people because they cant control it 

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Videos of young kids eating a lemon slice for the first time? Or taking a big spoonful of cocoa powder? How about throwing flour all over the house? Or cutting their younger brother’s hair? There’s the video of dark spirits leaving a burning house. Or the one of an angel hovering over a car accident. It might be the videos of people cleaning while talking about random events in their lives. Or maybe girls dancing with expressionless faces. Wearing baggy pants.

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