We’ve noted a few times how the political push to ban TikTok is a dumb performance largely designed to distract people from our failure to pass even a basic internet privacy law or regula…

We’ve noted a few times how the political push to ban TikTok is a dumb performance largely designed to distract people from our failure to pass even a basic internet privacy law or regulate data brokers. We’ve also noted how college bans of TikTok are a dumb extension of that dumb performance, and don’t accomplish anything of meaningful significance.

When the college bans first emerged we noted they’d be trivial to bypass, given the bans only apply to the actual college network. They obviously don’t apply to personal student use over cellular networks. And, not surprisingly, students are finding it extremely easy to bypass the bans, either by simply turning off Wi-Fi when they want to access the social network, or using a VPN:

“The student body, quietly, in unison, added Wi-Fi toggling to their daily routine. “Everyone was so nonchalant about it,” Pablo says. “They really just did not care.”

“There wasn’t a whole lot of pushback, aside from a lot of grumbling and groans,” says Ana Renfroe, a sophomore at Texas A&M. Some of her professors are still showing TikToks in class. They’ll just ask students to download the videos at home she explains, or will upload them to another platform like Instagram Reels.”

The folks who spent several years hyperventilating about how TikTok was some unique threat to the public (on an internet where countless international companies, ISPs, app makers, and data brokers over-collect and fail to secure consumer data) are, of course, nowhere to be found.

  • @BURNEnglish
    34•1 year ago

    There is genuine security concerns, notably from most major cybersecurity experts. It was an overreaction, but it definitely was founded in reality.

    • geosocoOP
      -13•1 year ago

      Was it? Which specific security concerns would this have addressed?

        • geosocoOP
          -4•1 year ago

          Neither of those are about network security, but are about the ability to collect data on individuals or to influence campaigns.

          THe bans on university networks do not stop any of that, as this article points out.

          Additionally, the app can still collect data on the university networks. It just has to wait to send it until they connect to a different network (eg. cellular)

          If this was such a security concern, top-tier universities would be blocking it. Not 3rd and 4th tier universities with nothing to steal. If the Chinese government wanted data from a US university, they’d send someone over as a student to join the research labs it cared about.

          Additionally, from the same article you linked about why your response and the bans themselves don’t make sense:

          TikTok is hardly the only company swallowing a lot of data on Americans, from car makers to smart doorbell firms. Consumers’ credit card purchases, contact lists and recent GPS locations are hawked by hundreds, if not thousands, of companies in the so-called data broker industry, Germain noted.

          “If the Chinese government wanted it, they could just go out and buy it because it’s for sale,” he said. “…I think people, when they’re worried about TikTok doing something, they should ask themselves whether they should be worried about American companies doing the same thing.”