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TikTok just gave itself permission to collect biometric data on US users (techcrunch.com)
104 points by Jonanin on June 4, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 12 comments


Facebook has been doing this for years. It's invasive, dystopian and anti privacy - but it's nothing new in world of tech. Why is it such big news when a Chinese company does it, but when FB has been doing it for years nobody bats an eyelid?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-12/facebook-...


How can you say nobody bats an eyelid and then link to a Bloomberg story about a lawsuit against Facebook over collecting biometrics without notifying users? People obviously care and it made the news. And you say it’s been happening for years but the article claims it’s a change made in 2020.


Everyone is batting an eyelid at Facebook. Your entire premise is false and I wish these attempts to deflect any time criticism of China comes up would stop.

It’s big news the same way that it’s big news that other tech giants are doing it. Pointing out when a Chinese company is doing something shady or problematic is not sinophobic.


I'd say an FTC fine of $5 billion is batting an eyelid. A raised eyebrow, even.


Pretty sure tons of eyelids were batted very heavily at FB when that happened. They got fined, there was lots of news articles that you can still find now.

I don't know why you're trying to create a false narrative here. Collecting biometric data for a social media website is concerning regardless of which specific company it is. I'm not sure why you're trying to bring racism into this topic, when it's not involved.

What's even stranger, is that your position is that no one complained about Facebook. If anything, that's a globally shared activity.


Facebook is likely handing all that biometric data over to the US Government, but at least American's have some say in what the US government does.

We don't have to speculate that TikTok is handing all data over to the CCP, it's a certainty.

American's have zero say in how the CCP conducts itself, even Chinese citizens have effectively zero say in how the CCP conducts itself. So there is a perfectly logical reason why people would be more concerned about the CCP having the data instead of the US Government.


[flagged]


>HAHAHAHAHA

Elucidate for fuck sake


The difference is that it’s a foreign company, based in a country with a government the U.S. doesn’t trust. People certainly do bat some eyelids at Facebook, also.


To a majority of the Facebook users it is a "foreign company" and trust in the U.S. government is not exactly high.


Probably because Chinese companies have been shown to give user data over to a regime that gives people social credit scores dictating where you can live or whether you can travel, disappears political dissidents, etc.


China is the adversary of the free world.


I opt out. These apps are not on my phone.




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