Why is TikTok seen as privacy invading and bad, but Facebook is fine?

Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Baku@aussie.zone⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I’m not here to claim that Tiktok is completely harmless, or that it’s even a good site. I’m sure they absolutely do collect as much personal information as they can, and I’m sure they give it to the Chinese government whenever they ask. But I don’t understand how Meta and Facebook are meant to be any better? There’s always a lot of hoo-haa going on with politicians promising to ban tiktok, and (at least back on Reddit) everybody’s vowing they will never use tiktok because it’s such a privacy invasive site. Yet I never see anybody going up against Facebook, at least the average person, but they collect just as much personal info and I’m sure hand it over whenever any government agency in the US asks them to

It kind of feels to me like this is some sort of country thing. China is bad, so they shouldn’t have your personal info. But the US is the last bastion of free speech and privacy, so their companies would NEVER dare to invade your privacy, and their government would never abuse their power to get people’s personal info

I’m aware Lemmy probably isn’t the best place to ask since most people here seem to be deep into open source software and often privacy focused (so I suppose wouldn’t use either) but this also feels like the only place on the internet I might actually get an answer that isn’t just “TIKTOK BAD”. If you refuse to use tiktok but are ok with Facebook - why?

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shellsharks@infosec.pub ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
China. Also, no one is saying FB is fine, but since it’s American then gov pretty much shrugs. It was FB after all feeding the NSA yeah?

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- Baku@aussie.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Not so much saying it, but I personally know several people who’ll argue that Tiktok is a privacy invading god awful website that should be banned then 5 minutes later proceed to doomscroll Facebook
  
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  - scottmeme@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I tolerate Facebook on my network, but tiktok is an absolute no for me, null routed.
    
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  - wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t use any service where I’m the product.
    
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paddirn@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is the first time I’ve ever seen the phrase “Facebook is fine” ever written out.

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- 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Mhm, me as well.
  
  They all suck dude, they all collect data. It’s just a matter of preference who you give your data to. Or you could live in the stone age and not give any data away, your choice 🤷. (My point is, even Lemmy collects some data, undoubtedly).
  
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skulblaka@startrek.website ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Facebook is most definitely not fine. However, as far as I know Facebook hasn’t pushed known RCE (remote code execution) exploits into their product updates. Politicians don’t care about this but literally everyone else should.

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- sheogorath@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Facebook is bad but TikTok is bad^bad. I use neither, Soo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  
  For real tho, when me and my partner decided to delete our social media our mental health and relationship improved immensely. It even improved our social lives too, if I wanted to know how someone is doing I’ll just shoot em a text or call em and catch up or setup an outing together.
  
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- Amaltheamannen@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Got any source for that TikTok RCE exploit? All I could find was a single bug 3 years ago.
  
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  - skulblaka@startrek.website ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    At this point it’s possible that it’s been fixed. I remember hearing about it a couple years ago, in the context of the bug, but I also remember hearing about how a component of their updater, when the app was broken down and deobfuscated, would just run whatever remote code package was handed to it without alerting the end user.
    
    Even if the RCE has been fixed or removed though, the rest of their security theater is unreasonably bad, and I don’t trust them near enough to ever install their app.
    
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slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
People in the know understand how shitty Facebook is, but at the very least, they’re a private company. ByteDance is Chinese, and there’s very little separation between Chinese companies and the Chinese government.

So, for all intents and purposes, it comes down to a company spying on you vs. a foreign government spying on you. They’re both invading your privacy, but for different nefarious reasons.

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- s38b35M5@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Facebook is open about the fact that it hands private user data over to the US Gov’t if they simply ask. Third party doctrine.
  
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  - wahming@monyet.cc ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes but at least in theory, there’s a lot less the US govt can do with that info
    
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pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
They’re both bad but tik tok is on steroids. There are a bunch of security researchers out there that have uncovered the crap tone of shit tik tok collects. It’s basically a spyware app that also comes with a social media app. From the ground up it was meant to collect personal information and every little bit about your device. I block it on my network because any tik tok device also scans the entire network and I don’t want that to happen.

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- s38b35M5@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You can replace tiktok with Facebook in your comment, and it’s all still true. If you really believe that tiktok is somewhow worse than FB, you aren’t paying attention.
  
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  - pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I don’t use fb either but facebook is even less invasive than Tik Tok and that says a lot.
    
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ohlaph@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Facebook isn’t fine. But TikTok is worse because it’s not fully controlled within our borders.

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- trolololol@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Since I don’t live in neither country Id be spied by both countries. Just like most of 6b people in the world.
  
  Fuck them both.
  
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- mojofrododojo@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yup, it’s an arm of the state practically, and while FB is bad (oh really bad, don’t get me wrong) the US state department isn’t weaponizing it against journalists.
  
  forbes.com/…/tiktok-tracks-forbes-journalists-byt…
  
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ABoxOfPhotons@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Tiktok is Chinese and Facebook is American… That’s why they are saying tiktok is bad… Facebook is probably worse by a considerable degree.

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aspiring_sage@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Facebook is certainly not fine, it’s just talked about less, especially among the younger generations. Teens and twenty-something’s haven’t been drawn to Facebook for quite some time, while TikTok is currently the place to be if you’re in that age range. You don’t need to convince a Zoomer to avoid Facebook, because Facebook is where their grandma does social media, but TikTok is currently dominating their attention.

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Jentu@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Haven’t seen this mentioned, but Meta hired marketing consultants to present to the government how dangerous TikTok was just so their Facebook/IG reels or whatever they are called can take their place. This spawned a ton of news articles and opinion pieces about the government talking about this new dangerous TikTok thing and how bad it is.

And I’m not saying it isn’t a breach of privacy. I also use Google maps too, so I’m not too terribly concerned with it. But it does just seem like a marketing smear campaign centralized around the facade of xenophobia and “think of the children”

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zed@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Facebook is definitely not “fine” when it comes to privacy. It’s less worse than TikTok because it’s an American-based company, so in theory there’s a more accountability compared to TikTok (owned and operated by China).

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- olutukko@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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  - guacupado@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Bless your heart, sweet summer child.
    
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Gork@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Facebook collects far more than we think it does. I don’t understand why they aren’t getting hard with HIPAA violations yet.

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originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
to boil it down; "only our government gets to spy on us"

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solitaire@infosec.pub ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
TikTok is owned primarily by western investors and it’s board is majority American. Usually I would be here to give the contrarian opinion that the government that is most likely to harm you is your own and that the majority of people would be better off with a non-cooperating country having your data. However, TikTok is just as likely to hand over user data to the US as Facebook is. It’s the worst of both worlds.

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macrocarpa@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s not fine - it’s been around longer and the user base is rusted onto it.

I left Facebook in 2018 after discovering the level of behavioural tracking, and the discovery that Facebook had both captured and sold this information to advertisers. I found this out at a marketing technology showcase after chatting with a FB engineer.

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elephantium@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What if I told you both were bad?

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520@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It isn't fine for us. It might be fine for US politicians because Facebook is a US company subject to US laws.

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johnlobo@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
because USA is a hypocrite country

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lorty@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
China is the enemy, therefore when they do it it’s bad.

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BadActorLol@talk.macstack.net ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
TikTok China and Facebook USA

Obviously China bad

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ksgt69@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Meta/FB doesn’t want anyone else sound what they do

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mypasswordis1234@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
That’s because all those boomers don’t use TikTok so it’s easy for them to say that “it’s bad and privacy invading”. However, when you have to accept that the platform you rely on so much is bad, it’s not so easy to say “it’s bad and privacy invading”.

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habitualTartare@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Coming from someone who uses neither currently but has used Facebook before, I think it’s more to do with the fact that people are used to Facebook, Google and other companies collecting data. Facebook does a ton of lobbying to tell you just how much they value privacy.

Facebooks data policies are supposed to follow US law. As you already mentioned, I won’t go any further on that. With a foreign country that isn’t exactly super friendly with the US, they could use this same data against citizens. You have no real GDPR, or US privacy laws to protect you if China decides to target a diplomats family or whatever.

For most people, it’s probably not going to affect you either way, but because data is something we really don’t understand the full value of. As an Example, ethnic groups could be targeted and tiktok can be used as a data source.

With the whole Facebook being used to potentially manipulate elections, Tiktok could be as well and the US/other countries have even less they can do to stop it.

But a lot of the hate that you’re seeing on the news is playing into China bad and not really casting light that they are okay with US companies collecting the same data. See: www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/…/373648/

theguardian.com/…/brexit-voter-manipulation-eu-re…

businessinsider.com/tiktok-censor-china-critical-…

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Meatballs@mander.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Tiktok is considered worse because it’s involvement with a foreign government.

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- Baku@aussie.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Sure but this seems to be a thing in many countries, not just the US. I live in Australia, so both of them are involved with “foreign” governments. In fact, most of the social media people here use is owned by foreign companies
  
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  - CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m in Asia. I can’t speak for everyone but the people I know distrust the CCP much more than the US government. Sure, the US is far from blameless, but at least over here the CCP has a much worse reputation. I guess that’s one factor.
    
    Another is more than a few people seem to think Meta is strictly a private company while tiktok is somehow being used/controlled by the Chinese government.
    
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  - azdle@news.idlestate.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    For the purposes of data collection, the US basically isn’t foreign for AU: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
    
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Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because boomers use Facebook.

I don’t use either.

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yarr@feddit.nl ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why is syphilis seen as infectious and bad, but herpes is fine?

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njordomir@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I can’t speak to the privacy aspect, but its at least possible to interact with Facebook in a less algorithmized way, especially if you turn off the news feed and just search for interests or visit grandma’s page. Ticktock, from what I understand, just profiles you into boxes and proceeds to shovel a stream of swill into your trough until you are maximally isolated and radicalized in your echo chamber. I think it’s crazy to trust either and I’m glad to see GenZ shunning FB a little more. I avoided Ticktock, but do have a Facebook account.

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guyrocket@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
fb is evil

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