Who needs it?

Heh, nice. Now do American corporations.
- Haha I never downloaded chrome.
  Now google spies on me only through maps, youtube, email, my friends' email, and android. Also chromebooks if I am a highschooler.
  Last one is compulsory. You can't deny using google products if you wanna graduate child.
- Your turn, Captain Noposts!

- It's kinda dissapointing that the world is going from "we should care about our data or privacy" to "why/what's the point".
  Giving up on this also means privacy focused software is going to become more and more "not worth the effort" for devs.
  Huge win for everyone who wants to manipulate you
- They gonna buy my data anyways so...

China doesn't need TikTok to get your data. They can just buy it from data brokers, lol.
- Or sell you ads AND not have to pay for it, while also influencing us algorithmically directly. If that's even the case, that is, which, who even fucking knows anymore. And I'm not even sure we needed tiktok to be pissed at wrongdoings everywhere, including Chinese government wrongdoings. Honestly, tiktok's algorithm is better than basically any other algorithmic app right now, save for the fact that it obviously is getting very up to date information through my phone somehow.

Never used TikTok, but I’m not going to pretend that China (and pretty much every other government if it wants it) doesn’t have access to my data, there isn’t much I can do about it at this point.
EDIT: they do* have it, I’m just sleep deprived

If you even have a phone then Google, the phone's manufacturer, your ISP, the NSA and their respective governments already know everything about you.
- You can very well fragment what each one knows, and keep certain ones from knowing more.
  Google knows I use Android, but the phone I'm holding is running a custom rom without gapps on a private dns server I run over a private vpn that I host on the other side of the Earth.
  But, I admit, I'm not as thorough as I should be, one login and a few comments without paying absolute attention to a VPN connection and the veil is pierced.
  I could start over, only come here over layers upon layers of obfuscation, but I'm no serial killer, so, meh. At least they don't know what I'm doing all the time, 24/7, 365...
  
  It's not just gapps, though. Search, gtags/adsense, youtube, maps, etc are all so pervasive that google effectively controls the internet. You can try run ublock and a plethora of privacy addons, but those are only effective as long as Google is playing nice. Others, like Yandex, are not, and they defeat all those with ease.
  Though I'd say running custom rom is an exception from the rule, along with people running with dumb or even no phone, but those are not but a blip on a big picture.
- My ISP doesn't even know I'm downloading communism 🏴‍☠️
  Only one of those entities could realistically deduce I'm making this post, and there's no reason for them to care. Not that I'm particularly relevant to Western governments anyway. ¡Hola!
- But if China has your data, then it is bad. If the U.S government has your data then it's fine, right?
  /s

No wörries I still had a Huawei for several years and still use the Huawei health app.
So I'm pretty sure China could — if they had any interest in — know literally my very heartbeat.
- Health apps scare me. Idfc where it's from.
  
  Like on a meta level maybe, but why do you think China or anyone else cares about something like your heart rate or workout habits?
  
  I'm ideologically against, but personally, I'm not bothered. Like I do not believe in the bullshit "nothing to hide nothing to fear" rhetoric, I'm very much against it.
  But like personally, I'm not really bothered if they know when I have a wank, tbh.
  I am worried with what they do with all the data they have, I just don't think anyone is interested in me personally and if they were, I'd kinda take it as a compliment tbh.
- 🤢

Can I just brag for a moment? I feel like I am among my people, and there is a little lesson at the end.
to calibrate: White dude in my 40s, nerdy by nature but non-technical in my education/employment
Twitter - signed up in the early 2000s when it first came out, pretty much stopped using by 2011
Facebook - signed up in the early 2000s when it first got big, pretty much stopped using by 2011, deleted my abandoned account last year
Google +, I'm sure I never signed up, but I had an account that I never used. Google being google negated me ever having to contemplate whether or not I would ever use it
Snapchat - never used
TikTok - never used
Instagram - never used
Are there others? I don't know.
Reddit was the only "social media" I ever used for a sustained period of time and the only one where I felt part of any sort of community. I left reddit in June of 2023 when I made this account and I've never been back.
So, in many ways, I am successfully resisting/avoiding "the algorithm" and I am a good example of high media literacy with good resistance to manipulation by social media.
But, just to emphasize why community itself is so valuable and worthy of exploitation by techbros, here are life changes I've made since joining Lemmy, even without any algorithms or dark patterns. Not that Lemmy is strictly causal in all of these, but the relationship is there:
I am now making my way through TNG, and am generally more Trek-literate
Linux, natch
Cancelled all streaming services (honestly most 'subscription services') in favor of a NAS running Plex (for now, will probably move to Jellyfin), Calibre, AudioBookshelf, Immich, Joplin, NextCloud, etc, etc, etc
Now using Steam Deck as my daily driver for gaming
In other words, though I prize my independent thinking and avoidance of Big Cloud, and though I think all of these are positive changes representing a positive influence, I am clearly impressionable. And so are you.
- I was once working for a company that wanted to post pictures online. They had the option to opt out, so there is no picture or a blurr or whatever. I was the only one who had no picture and they didn't like that, they didn't ecpect that anyone would check that mark. They pressured me to have that picture there. I didn't even really care tbh, i just checked it because i could. They told me that i have puctures online anyway and it doesn't matter. I told them that if they find a single picture of me online, they could use that. I have no social media, no pictures online and nothing. They were quite disappointed
  
  "Now, you know it's up to you whether or not you want to just do the bare minimum. Or... well, like Brian, for example, has thirty seven pieces of flair, okay. And a terrific smile."
- It seems like you got your taste of social media, decided you were essentially done with it and moved on.
  I am just about in the same boat, I feel social media doesn't offer me much that I value, and so I have been looking elsewhere.
  
  My only use for social media is finding a $30 push mower or used TVs on marketplace.
  Other than that, the content around most social media sites is mostly a slurry of bullshit mixed with Ai, so... waste of time, mostly.
- I never even signed up for Twitter.
  The modern internet makes me want to live in a cave and grow moss.
  
  That isn't an accident.
  There is this insight that I remember reading about internet scams, that they are poor quality with lots of misspelling by design. According to what I've read, this acts as a useful filter: If you're smart enough to pick up on things like misspellings, we don't want to waste our time scamming you.
  That is now essentially the entire ethos of the modern internet.
- Wow, I just read my own use bio. Exactly down to the T. Except still on OSX and I am using infuse instead of plex jelly fin. But all other use patterns are identical.
  I’d say. I never posted on reddit though. Just a lurker. On lemmy, I post :)
- Got you beat. 40's dude who's never used any social media except for reddit (if that counts). I also have never used a smart phone.
  
  Many props to you. I feel like reddit doesn't count as social media, but I couldn't energetically defend that position. They are certainly engaging in social media tech bro behavior, so the distinction probably doesn't matter at this point, but it felt different than social media before it went to shit. Now, obviously when it "went to shit" is a point in time that is highly relative to the observer, but always sometime after the observer joined. That's just the nature of enshittification.
- Steam has an algorithm feeding you game suggestions
  
  yeah and I gobble that shit up like candy.
  I am not immune, and I don't find all algorithms predatory - for example, I log on knowing that steam is selling me a product, but I am not the product. I just said in many ways I am successfully avoiding "the algorithm", though the scare quotes immediately following a run down of social media networks was meant to indicate a specific type of algorithm that is meant to induce engagement or enragement (both are profitable) and change my behavior because I am the product.
  I still have plenty of time for algorithms that serve me up games for that crucial 15% of my library that I bought but haven't played yet.
  One thing at a time Maxxie.
- twitter early 2000s
  2006 counts as early 2000s and not mid 2000s?
  
  There is a lot of heated debate about this. They're saying due to COVID, that "early" can mean anything from 0-8 now, which obviously I don't understand but what can you do? They are saying it.
  I must assume from your helpful correction that 2006 is the actual year twitter came out but even then I literally cannot be arsed to look that up on purpose because, I cannot stress this enough, I very much do not care about social media, as per my comment. So if you say 2006, that is what we're going with.

I have a Xiaomi phone. They already know everything about me.
- I mean I'd rather China know everything about me than America, since as an American citizen, America is a much bigger threat.
  But lets be honest, whether I get an iphone, samsung, or huawei, both countries are going to have all my data.
  
  Facts
- My gf had xiaomi once. Had to visit the doctors a lot before it cleared up.
  
  Haha this joke is funny because foreigners have funny words and sound stupid
  Edit apparently need the /s
- You could change ROM. Then the software wouldn't spy on you anymore
  
  I could, but how phones work with respect to PCs has always seemed very complicated to me and I don't want to screw up my phone.
- Tell me, did I have a fever dream about this or does Xiaomi actually have ads in their settings and system apps?
  
  It isn't a dream, more like a nightmare.
  I mean, they can be disabled, but it is pain in the ass to do so.
  
  Not that I've seen. The only annoying thing is this weird Wallpaper Carousel they keep wanting me to use

More like Buys the same data from Meta but okay.
- And if I don't use facebook?
  
  Then they still have a profile on you.

I already get the same thing from the YouTube app which won't shut the fuck up about Shorts
- Uninstalling that app was a game changer....so much better on browser with unblock origin running.
  
  Fr if something works in browser I will never use the app.
  Some exceptions for things which require better encryption.
  
  Uuuuuse a foss youtube frontend wooooooo like freetube or pipepipe woooooooooo...
  (Insert other ghostly noises)
- Check out revanced.app. You're welcome.
  
  Neato
- YouTube shorts are fantastic. You have to be into misogyny though.
  
  Interesting. All it shows me are cats, hair cut/dying, coffee, animals being silly, and comedic videos.
  
  My shorts are just cats and dogs acting silly and the rare REPO clip...
  
  I sign out to view shorts, clear site data, then manually search a couple of "seed" videos I like to get the algorithm picking out new stuff.
  It won't even show you anything unless you have some viewing history. It's just straight up broken for people who have had accounts for many years.
- I don’t get Shorts. I can’t watch them on my PlayStation, if I click on one on the phone app it’ll disconnect the PlayStation and force me to watch it on my phone.
  If you try to upload a video that is less than a minute long, it forces you to do Shorts.
  I also don’t get why opening up a community thread or something pauses the video I’m watching on the PlayStation.
  I’ve also noticed lately that when I connect the phone app with the PlayStation, about 30% of the time, the video will play extremely slow without sound. I have to close and reboot the YouTube app on the PlayStation to watch anything afterwards.
  
  Sounds like a bunch of shit if you ask me!

haha yeah that’s stopping them

tankies devestated

China is a perfect communist motherland that doesn't need anyones secrets!
- Yes, I also love China and their all-seeing government.

~~TikTok~~ ~~China~~
TeleMessage Israel or anyone really

I mean, I have it installed, but I have it installed in a "sandbox" (Co-opting androids work profile feature) I use Insular
But looking now, it seems it hasn't been updated in a year so I might have to look for an alternative soon if it has issues when I upgrade to Android 16 lol
- Look into Shelter, it works on latest Android though it's been several months since the last update.
  https://f-droid.org/packages/net.typeblog.shelter
- What is the point of these apps besides duplicating the app space? Does it actually provide any additional sandboxing that the android OS doesn't do already?

Big brain move, let's make them buy our data from someone else. 🙌

They still know your name, phone number, relationships, and every piece of info ever supplied to or from you in a text message going back as far as it is recorded on every phone which has ever downloaded the app. Your mother, your brother, your sister, your ex.
It's a cruel and terrible world for those who aren't ignorant.
- They still know your name, phone number, relationships, and every piece of info ever supplied to or from you in a text message going back as far as it is recorded on every phone which has ever downloaded the app.
  Only because they bought the info off Microsoft, Facebook, and Google.
  It’s a cruel and terrible world for those who aren’t ignorant.
  At some point, being terminally anxious over the idea that a Chinese bureaucrat has access to a stack of high school yearbooks does nothing of benefit. There's a long term material benefit to simply staying off social media (particularly the bigger instances) in a few rare but critical circumstances (getting a high security job, avoiding being hassled by the police). But for virtually everyone else, none of this shit matters.

US tiktok data has been hosted by Oracle on their own servers on US soil for several years now, China doesn't have access to it. Also they can and do just buy your user data from US companies. If you don't like Tiktok then you don't have to use it, but fear of Chinese surveillance is a stupid reason to avoid the app.
- China most likely has access.
  https://mashable.com/article/tiktok-china-access-data-in-us
  
  Nothing in this article or anywhere else presents any actual evidence that the Chinese government ever had direct access to US user data, and the claims presented here all predate the transition to Oracle servers, which were conducted in cooperation with the US government specifically to ensure that US user data wouldn't be available to the Chinese government. The easiest route to our data has been and continues to be buying it from US companies, which is still completely legal.

Better to get your data spied on by China than by the USA who might share it with your home country 👀
- To quote a famous Chinese saying, "same-same"
- See this implies that your home country is more likely to rob and kill you than China, which simply isn't true in 9/10 cases.
  
  What? How is china likely to rob or kill me, or you?
  
  I believe you are far more likely to be killed by your home country than china in just about every case, simply by the fact that you live there and they have permanent access to you. By no means is it a great place, but china is not exactly out there sending hit men to take out some random Joe because of the videos they were watching.
  
  Except in this timeline

I like some of the content, but will not download the app either. I mostly just want to talk to other people anyway. The funny pictures and videos are just a bonus. That's why I am here and not much else; this site is setup better for actually engaging with the users.

I wonder what the proportional value is of all the actionable data that’s ever been extracted from date lakes versus the cost of gathering it all. Probably not even as good as people think given the difficulty of evaluating that as a metric.
- Value enough for billions and billions of dollars industries to develope apparently

More like "keep your nazis". The place is fucking infested and every report comes back with "no violation" for literal double lightning bolts and posting that one anti-semetic wojak.

Teleporno: Tell me where is Godric? For I much desire to know his secrets.

Unpopular Opinion: You folks are missing out.
TikTok is home to some of the most hardcore leftists you’ve ever seen and has content about how to fix our current fascism problem that’ll get you banned on Meta instantly.
It’s also a great to see what real people are taking about since they’re walking down the street or in their cars speaking as a genuine human.
- No thanks. Lemmy isn't great by any means but social media is poison and a direct cause of the current state of affairs
- Lol, yeah no thanks. Tiktok isn't reality.
- I already have Mastodon for that which is almost entirely made up of transfem devs
- Diamonds in a sea of diarrhea.