[commandlinefan]

What real harm can they do with this data though? You do have to opt in if you consume their service, so if you're really worried about what influence it has on you, you can opt out. I mean, I know that you and I and everybody else would rather be entertained by companies that aren't tracking us, like TV used to do, but that ship has sailed... they're going to track us, so we just have to figure out what the real potential harm is and protect against that.

[adampk]

The purpose of the algorithm is to provide content "for you". If you have not used tik tok I understand why you would not see the issue. Tik tok users quickly are lead into a "reality" based on what content is shown. You can sow division or push narratives quite easily if you control these algorithms in ways you cannot on facebook/twitter/etc.

[nomel]

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I would assume that it could help tremendously with PSYOPs.

If you could identifying some target group, like those easily influenced about a particular topic, then videos could be recommended to try to push them towards some perspective about that topic. I would even claim that the user generated content varies enough that the need for planted/sponsored videos would be rare.

I don't think it's remotely controversial to claim that they have the majority of the eyes of the US youth under their control [1]. I doubt there's ever been another time in history where a foreign, not-so-good-relation, government has had anything close to this level of direct, push, access to another countries population.

Lets flip it. If the most viewed media company in China were US based, partly owned by the US government (as ByteDance is by the CCP), I think we can all assume that a three letter agency would be using it to their advantage. They use our own companies to their advantage. China is demonstrably similar, in this way. But, China would never allow that scenario to happen.

1. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/new-report-on-teen-soc...