Seems to me it’s only guilty of the same data scraping for marketing purposes that Meta is… maybe even less so as I always found TikToks advertising less gross than Instagrams.
Both suck but TikTok is slightly less suck.
Is it really a security thing or is it a “We are getting pressure from US companies to remove competition” thing?
The “threat” is they can’t purge dissent and promote divide and conquer manufactured consent, and use the platform as a giant warantless secret dragnet, which the government holds leverage over.
I think this is a good time to remind people of Qwest Communications refusal to play along with unwarrented wiretapping of American citizens. It is important Orwellian context along with the pre-post history of 9/11 and inevitable PATRIOT ACT which shredded the constiution to bits. The founder is a rich fuck land oil media yadda. Another exeutive took the fall and eventually the company was bought out / merged wit Citylink. An example had to be made.
But a good write-up on NATOpedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest
** Refusal of NSA surveillance requests**
In May 2006, USA Today reported that millions of telephone calling records had been handed over to the United States National Security Agency by AT&T Corp., Verizon, and BellSouth since September 11, 2001. This data has been used to create a database of all international and domestic calls. Qwest was allegedly the lone holdout, despite threats from the NSA that their refusal to cooperate may jeopardize future government contracts,[11] a decision which has earned them praise from those who oppose the NSA program.[12]
In the case of ACLU v. NSA, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor on August 17, 2006 ruled that the government’s domestic eavesdropping program is unconstitutional and ordered it ended immediately.[13] The Bush Administration filed an appeal in the case, and Judge Taylor’s decision was overturned by the appeals court on the basis of a lack of standing.
Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio alleged in appeal documents that the NSA requested that Qwest participate in its wiretapping program more than six months before September 11, 2001. Nacchio recalled the meeting as occurring on February 27, 2001. Nacchio further claimed that the NSA cancelled a lucrative contract with Qwest as a result of Qwest’s refusal to participate in the wiretapping program.[14] On April 14, 2009, Nacchio surrendered to a federal prison camp in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, to begin serving a six-year sentence for an insider trading conviction. The United States Supreme Court denied bail pending appeal the same day.[15][16]
A social media experiment and website covering the Qwest holdout, “Thank you Qwest dot Org”[17] built by Netherlands-based webmaster Richard Kastelein and American expatriate journalist Chris Floyd, was covered by the CNN Situation Room,[18] USA Today,[19] New York Times,[20][21] International Herald Tribune,[22] Denver Post,[23][24] News.com,[25] and the Salt Lake Tribune.[26]
** Merger with CenturyLink** On April 22, 2010, CenturyLink announced it would acquire Qwest in a transaction of 0.1664 shares of CenturyLink common stock for each share of Qwest common stock. CenturyLink shareholders would hold a 50.5% share of ownership in the combined company, while Qwest shareholders would own the remaining 49.5%. The valuation of CenturyLink’s purchase as of April 21, 2010, was $22.4 billion, including the assumption of $11.8 billion of outstanding debt held by Qwest as of December 31, 2009.[27][28] Qwest started to do business as CenturyLink from August 8, 2011