(1/5) I’m not sure if any other #infosec folks have tackled explaining the security issues around TikTok so it’s approachable by someone who doesn’t do this for a living so I thought I’d take a stab at it. The question I see most folks ask is “Is TikTok any worse than any other social media platform out there?” That’s a very easy “Yes” and I’ll go into why. There’s two pieces to data privacy - 1. What information is gathered? 2. What is the company legally allowed to do with that data?
OK. So now they have my contacts. What then? Are they gonna spam all of my friends with communist Chinese propaganda? Are they going to try to get me to buy cheap Chinese crap I don’t need in the first place? I still haven’t really gotten a good explanation of what having my information is going to do to national security. Am I missing something?
@SpinozasHeresy They then use that information to build a connection map - who you know, who you interact with online, etc.
And this is a national security risk, how?
@SpinozasHeresy That's a great question. It makes it easier for anyone who has your contact info to find you but it goes deeper than that. When users share a link from TikTok, it contains identifiable information in the link URL so even if someone were to share it on Mastodon even, if someone clicks it, they'll now have the person who originally shared the link as a suggested contact. If they have a TikTok account you'll get a notification they watched it and be prompted to follow them.