[jarjar2_]

This is a good thing. What nations and governments, along with individuals have been to do with OSINT is pretty stunning.

https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-military-bases-f...

That was just data Strava was releasing publicly.

The raw data collection from TikTok contains much more than that. Think in terms of all branches of military and government messaging each other perfectly blackmailable things and then automating analysis of that.

Byte Dance says that China doesn't have access to the data and that it hasn't been accessed, but from what I've read they have a party office at the company in China. I simply don't trust a foreign adversary with the amount of data that one of these social platforms generates. Neither does China which is why a large number of services operated in China are hosted on Chinese servers run by local subsidiaries, with vastly different and far more permissive laws when it comes to government/intelligence/law enforcement (all one and the same there) accessing that data.

Hopefully that critical thinking can transfer to what's being done by American companies and intelligence agencies with user data and we can get some actual data privacy legislation at some point and enshrine a law preventing from inserting backdoors in everything that moves.