TikTok tracked users who watched gay content and put them on List

[editor]

Something of real concern right here

TikTok reportedly tracked users who watched gay content on the platform and put them on a secret list.

According to a new report by The Wall Street Journal, TikTok kept tabs on users who watched clips that were tagged under topics such as “LGBT,” short for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and monitored them for at least a year.

A group of ex-TikTok employees told the publication that this information about users’ viewing habits was compiled and stored on a dashboard that could be viewed by some company staff.

The Wall Street Journal notes that what makes this alleged list concerning is that it was not only accessible to an unusual number of employees at the Chinese-owned company, but that there were times when employees in China controlled the permissions of the list as well.

TikTok employees, who were based in the company’s offices in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, became concerned about the alleged list because it could be used to identify LGBTQ users and if leaked or provided to hostile governments, could put those users at risk.

The ex-TikTok employees flagged the issue to top executives in 2020 and 2021. The group expressed their concerns that the information would be shared with outside parties or could be used to blackmail TikTok users.

TikTok Tracked Users Who Watched Gay Content and Put Them on List

The report raises further questions about how TikTok handles user data.

petapixel.com

 

[MickiQ]

I'm willing to bet that there are loads of other categories as well but is anyone really surprised that a Chinese owned internet company has a side business spying on people?

 

[a_chap]

What makes people think that other social media platforms aren't doing exactly the same...?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

What makes people think that other social media platforms aren't doing exactly the same...?

I'd be very surprised if they weren't. They have adverts to sell.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

I'm willing to bet that there are loads of other categories as well but is anyone really surprised that a Chinese owned internet company has a side business spying on people?

Not just Chinese owned companies. I've sometimes been shocked at how much information they have in real time. I've had Youtube, for example, offer to show me clips from the movie I happened to be watching on television (this has happened more than once). I've had pop-up ads for stores that I just I drove past and advertisements for products I bought with a credit card an hour before. It doesn't surprise me that they'd have a good idea of what your extremely personal tastes are as well and keep all kinds of lists.

What worries me is that you can't seem to live in modern society and choose to opt out in any real way. Even the Amish have taken to keeping phones in lockboxes next to their mailbox so they can use it if needed without also becoming worldly.

 

[strung out]

I'd be very surprised if they weren't. They have adverts to sell.

Difference being that if you live in the West, companies want to know if you're gay so they can sell stuff to you, whereas there are countries where viewing LGBT+ content puts you at risk of being put on a list that could get you murdered or sent for 're-education'.

 

[krtek a houby]

Difference being that if you live in the West, companies want to know if you're gay so they can sell stuff to you, whereas there are countries where viewing LGBT+ content puts you at risk of being put on a list that could get you murdered or sent for 're-education'.

Reckon theres plenty in the West who would like to LGBT people erased, re-educated, tbf.

No lists... yet.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Difference being that if you live in the West, companies want to know if you're gay so they can sell stuff to you, whereas there are countries where viewing LGBT+ content puts you at risk of being put on a list that could get you murdered or sent for 're-education'.

Sme of the deeply homophobic African countries along with places like Russia that cosy up to China would love to get hold of this data.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Reckon theres plenty in the West who would like to LGBT people erased, re-educated, tbf.

No lists... yet.

Some states are trying to compile lists of people seeking gender affirming care. Florida, Missouri, and Montana come to mind. So far, there's been so much backlash or sabotage that it hasn't really worked out for them yet. I suspect they could have a list from Amazon or Google by just buying it like the Feds do for a lot of their data.

 

[krtek a houby]

Some states are trying to compile lists of people seeking gender affirming care. Florida, Missouri, and Montana come to mind. So far, there's been so much backlash or sabotage that it hasn't really worked out for them yet.

Hopefully it won't come to pass.

We're living in very dangerous times.

For all that's shit about Japan and its very slowly move towards some kind of equality, we are tolerated here. Which is better than the other options.

The biggest adversaries to LGBT rights here are right wing nationalists, and their American and Russian fellow travelers. And , thankfully, their brand of hate remains, for the most part, online.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Sme of the deeply homophobic African countries along with places like Russia that cosy up to China would love to get hold of this data.

One of the things that annoys me about American Evangelicals is that they've literally written some of these laws. If we aren't careful, this will be coming anywhere there are Evangelical converts.

Opinion | Uganda's new anti-LGBTQ bill is the fruit from an American seed

The same political movement that campaigned against gay marriage here has spent decades pushing an anti-LGBTQ agenda throughout African countries.

www.msnbc.com

 

[farmerbarleymow]

One of the things that annoys me about American Evangelicals is that they've literally written some of these laws. If we aren't careful, this will be coming anywhere there are Evangelical converts.

Opinion | Uganda's new anti-LGBTQ bill is the fruit from an American seed

The same political movement that campaigned against gay marriage here has spent decades pushing an anti-LGBTQ agenda throughout African countries.

www.msnbc.com

Religious nutjobs should be banned from interfering in the affairs of other countries, regardless of which country they are from.

We get some crap from them, especially on the abortion front. Thankfully public opinion seems to be squarely in favour of abortion so the risk of them succeeding is relatively low.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Corrected that for you:

Religious nutjobs should be banned from interfering in the affairs of others...

There's no reason why anyone not of a specific religion should be held to the precepts of that religion.

 

[emanymton]

Difference being that if you live in the West, companies want to know if you're gay so they can sell stuff to you, whereas there are countries where viewing LGBT+ content puts you at risk of being put on a list that could get you murdered or sent for 're-education'.

I'm sure all these companies will happily do both as long as someone pays them.

 

[tim]

What makes people think that other social media platforms aren't doing exactly the same...?

Gullibility

 

[krtek a houby]

Often wonder about monitoring of urban.

What must they think of us?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Often wonder about monitoring of urban.

What must they think of us?

Probably not worth that many resources I'd have thought.

 

[krtek a houby]

Probably not worth that many resources I'd have thought.

Unless... that's what they want us to think

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Often wonder about monitoring of urban.

What must they think of us?

We're all too old to get up to too much.

 

[strung out]

I'm sure all these companies will happily do both as long as someone pays them.

Doing that would be bad for business for virtually every publicly listed social media company in the west. Not so important when you're effectively owned by an authoritarian regime with a track record for genocide, disappearing undesirables and conversion therapy.

 

[pbsmooth]

this is a nasty-sounding angle on it for sure, but this is essentially how all tech companies make money. logging who you are, building a profile and selling it to advertisers. Google's version was literally called Dashboard.

 

[smmudge]

Yeah I watch LGBT stuff on tiktok, being LGBT. Not that bothered to be honest. Yeah there's algorithms out there that know all about me but there are a lot of people out there.

 

[steeplejack]

Yeah I watch LGBT stuff on tiktok, being LGBT. Not that bothered to be honest. Yeah there's algorithms out there that know all about me but there are a lot of people out there.

"I'm fine with this so I don't care if others aren't".

2023 in a nutshell.

 

[savoloysam]

Probably not worth that many resources I'd have thought.

Maybe not as a whole but if you are a subject interest (like I appear to be) they will follow whatever forum they find you posting on.

I've convinced I have one on here and they know who they are too but your know what? I aye fooking bothered

 

[smmudge]

"I'm fine with this so I don't care if others aren't".

2023 in a nutshell.

"This doesn't directly affect me but I'm going to tell the people that are how they should feel about it"

2013 in a nutshell.

 

[savoloysam]

As for tiktok. Never before since the crazy fog ringtone as something so full of guff been so popular. I don't get the fuss as all.

 

[strung out]

"I'm fine with this so I don't care if others aren't".

2023 in a nutshell.

I find it amazing how western-centric a lot of thinking on stuff like this is - always through a prism of 'yeah, but Western companies also do bad things, and hey, it doesn't really affect me much anyway, so happy for them to crack on'.

It reminds me of those who excuse Russia and China for their brutal genocides because USA has also done some bad things.

Some of us care about LGBT+ people in oppressive regimes, even though we're not LGBT+ ourselves, it's not really that complicated is it?

 

[editor]

Often wonder about monitoring of urban.

What must they think of us?

Well the good thing is you can rest assured that we will never, ever, ever sell user data to anyone, ever. It's one of the reasons why I'm so particular about people never addressing people with their real names without permission.

 

[NoXion]

I wouldn't personally be too worried about the Chinese government collecting information on me, at least not as an individual. Not unless they start trying to kidnap random foreigners with no connections to China on the basis of that data, or something like that. Although in the case of TikTok it's a bit moot for me since I never use it.

Could well be cause for concern on a population level, since all that data could well be used by the CPC to feed into whatever nightmare algorithms and AI models they're using as intelligence assets.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

As for tiktok. Never before since the crazy fog ringtone as something so full of guff been so popular. I don't get the fuss as all.

The app is aimed at the young, so us lot are automatically not the target audience. I have no idea how it works beyond it seems to involve short videos.