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?

  • Baku@aussie.zoneOPEnglish
    102·
    9 months ago

    these discussions tend to spiral off into bad faith arguments and whataboutism

    Yeah, that’s a large part of the reason I haven’t asked before. But I’m asking in good faith, and I hope I’ll receive answers made in good faith

    Both are bad and privacy invading

    This is my sentiment too, and why I get annoyed when people claim one is worse than the other

    Because TikTok is newer, it’s also easier to restrict it. I think if Facebook tried to enter today, we’d push it away much harder

    This is a really good point - thank you!