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If only it were that easy.

TikTok is this generation’s Instagram, which was that gen’s facebook, which was that gen’s facebook, which was that gen’s MySpace, which was that gen’s internet 1.0 chat rooms/forums, which was that gen’s weekend night meetups? Sleepovers? The roller rink? (I don’t know, pick your internet-less fun social activity.)

Social Media has hooked society good, and it would take a massive asteroid or solar flare to shut down electronics for society to stop using TikTok (or whatever the next hip social media app is).

Call me a conspiracist on this, but I believe TikTok was created to collect social behavior information and manipulate behavior/thought. ☹️

So glad Friendster didn't spy on me. They'd know how much of a Hanson fan I was 🤣
 
It’s ok everyone. As soon as Apple hears about this they’ll remove it from the App Store. What’s everyone worried about????? /s
Do remember how many of privacy focused actions can be deemed anti competitive by people and governments. Take the App Store, and Apple’s requirement for iOS browsers. Apparently that’s not enough to inhibit shenanigans like this, yet people want more holes on the walled garden.
 
Delete Twitter Facebook, Instagram. None of it makes us happier and that’s a scientific fact.

Social media per se is not bad, it's actually great when you use it as a tool. For instance I even made an account for Twitter as it was the easiest and fastest wayto get real time notifications about Raspberry Pi 4 stock (it's almost out of stock everywhere) and I could get one thanks to that. Instagram/Reddit? Great to follow artists/hobbies you are into to check 2-3 times a day.

The problem is when people indulge into it because they can't be bored for a single second. Or when they become a pawn of the social media themselves (getting addicted to attention, likes, comments, interations and feeling the need of exposing themselves). In that case indeed deleting them will make you happier mid and long term, no doubt.
 
Most people don't seem to care about privacy or they wouldn't be using Tik Tok ... or Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.

They should all be shut down!
 
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It's owned by a Chinese company with alleged ties to the CCP. If you're concerned about it, don't use it. It's quite simple.
Problem is, kids don’t know any better and once they get hooked, they’ll use it into adulthood. Just look at FB and Instagram. Both are toxic even without CCPs involvement. Besides, authoritarianism and propaganda isn’t relegated to the CCP. America has a “misinformation” dept (straight out of Orwell’s novel) and 87,000 IRS agents who will be trained to go after its own citizens “with deadly force” according to the job description before that part was taken down.
 
Do remember how many of privacy focused actions can be deemed anti competitive by people and governments. Take the App Store, and Apple’s requirement for iOS browsers. Apparently that’s not enough to inhibit shenanigans like this, yet people want more holes on the walled garden.
It does appear that TikTok is particularly problematic, doesn’t it?
 
Tik Tok has been on the iPhone and iPad App Store as an "essential" app for months. Why, why, why? What is so "essential" about an app that is purpose-built to track the user? Essential to who?

View attachment 2044627
"whom". "Essential to whom?"

"Who" is a noun in a subject, "whom" is the noun in a prepositional phrase or object of a verb.

Yeah, English is weird.
 
The frustrating thing here is that despite Apple's PR about being best at privacy, it's their own SDK elements that continue to offer up all these work arounds and hacks to apps to gain more privacy...the in app browser is still provided by iOS, just DONT ALLOW THE HOOKS!!
As a developer I see the need to inject code in certain scenarios. We do this in our own app (for our own website though) such that in case the site runs within the app-frame it has access to some functionality the app itself provides.

Now a technical solution to this could be that the app needs to register domains when signing the app which need to belong to them. Something apple could easily verify when the app is handed over for review. And then the apple SDK would only allow modifications in the code in case the website loaded in the in-app browser is from one of these domains.

This will still allow the typical proper use where you want to bind your website to some code of the app (focus on "your own"). But as soon as somebody clicks a link outside of these domains, there is no more way to inject anything. That would seem to be a restriction that allows useful scenarios, while completely removing tracking possibilities on 3rd party sites.

As I frankly do not see a convincing reason to inject code in 3rd party sites a user browses do other than tracking.
 
Do remember how many of privacy focused actions can be deemed anti competitive by people and governments. Take the App Store, and Apple’s requirement for iOS browsers. Apparently that’s not enough to inhibit shenanigans like this, yet people want more holes on the walled garden.
It may only be a matter of time before Apple is forced to open their walled garden.

I don't know how feasible it would be, but could see some utility in a sandboxed version of iOS that is used to corral non-App Store apps. Zero or minimal access to the main system, no device ID or one that's randomly assigned each time the sandboxed iOS environment is launched, all network communication routed through Private Relay, no access to PII like nearby wifi networks or the main contacts list, location info assigned system-wide for it rather than app-by-app. A notification upon launching noting that while Apple has done its best to offer what security it can, the apps here may be inherently insecure and expose personal information.

Certainly there'd be screeches of "anti-competitive," but those are never going away. Something like that would at least make some effort toward protecting people who don't know what they're doing by downloading stuff that's not from the App Store, while still giving the option and keeping the rest of the device fairly secure.
 
“Like other platforms, we use an in-app browser to provide an optimal user experience…”

In my user experience in-app browsers can be a nuisance standing between a weblink and my normal browser, so I usually default to the regular browser anyway. Sure enough, I can lose a microsecond in the process, but then get a link opened in a full screen browser with all familiar functions and controls.
 
It does appear that TikTok is particularly problematic, doesn’t it?
TikTok is problematic because the Chinese link was upfront. But look at how many here supported Epic Games and Sweeney, despite Tencent behind the scene. 🤷‍♂️
 
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