22 replies

1. Zach Leatherman moments later

   and with this post I am happy to announce that I am running for Congress (not really)

   1. Jordan 2 hr later

      @zachleat I dare you

   2. tripleman, a 🇨🇦 in 🇩🇪 3 days later

      @zachleat Zach2024.dev

      1. Zach Leatherman 3 days later

         @tripleman haha I love that .dev TLD, next up: .dev.gov

2. elle mundy 4 min later

   @zachleat but we all know why they’re only targeting tiktok

   1. Zach Leatherman 11 min later

      @exchgr I mean, data privacy is only one piece. Any social network can manipulate your algorithm to influence you with very little to no consequences—it’s a long-con that has been typically in service of advertising (though facebook has a history of nefarious meddling).

      1. elle mundy 19 min later

         @zachleat right, of course. i was hinting at the fact that tiktok comes from [trump voice] chi-na

         1. Zach Leatherman 20 min later

            @exchgr “but senator I’m from singapore!” 😅

            1. elle mundy 25 min later

               @zachleat best line of the whole testimony

         2. yoasif 1 hr later

            @exchgr @zachleat They aren't making a secret about it - no hinting needed.

3. Braw ☕🏳️‍🌈 12 min later

   @zachleat from the outsider's perspective, with the current fascists tendencies in US and stuff going in states like Texas, I think asking US to write any data privacy policies is not the best idea :blobcatnervous:

   1. Zach Leatherman 18 min later

      @brawaru I have to remind myself daily that cynicism isn’t productive

4. Reese Armstrong 19 min later

   @zachleat This was my take as well - ban TikTok because it has terrible user privacy, not because it's Chinese

5. keirFox 20 min later

   @zachleat "China can't have this data -- that's ours!"

   1. Zach Leatherman 22 min later

      @keirFox “they can have this data but they need to pay for it” 😬

6. Josh “Yoshi” Vickerson 1 hr later

   @zachleat we should take it one step further and amend the Constitution. Constitutional right to privacy.

   1. Zach Leatherman 1 hr later

      @josh hell yeah

7. okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin 2 hr later

   @zachleat
   Absolutely, and if forcing TikTok to sell to a domestic company moves us to that goal, let's start there.

8. Darwin Woodka 3 hr later

   @zachleat the answer is we all need to own our own data, but sadly we instead support a system that replicates the same data thousands of times over and is taking up far too much storage and compute space and energy. Sigh.

9. Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ 18 hr later

   @zachleat@fediverse.zachleat.com … I think they already know that, they just don't want to give up the advantage* of exploiting ad tech companies' datasets for intelligence mining.
   
   *That advantage itself is gradually diminishing, too. If those data brokers can sell data to NSA they can also sell data to China/Iran/DPRK/etc. because why not ​:blobcatshrug2:​

10. grabe 2 days later

    @zachleat my thinking on TikTok has shifted. I did not understand that China blocks US social media and more significantly TikTok. The potential of the World Wide Web has turned into a fantasy. Until the present situation changes I support the ban.

    1. Zach Leatherman 2 days later

       @grabe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall might be news to you—not sure the WWW has ever been a reality in china