>As far as I can tell, TikTok scares like these are 30% standard social media moral panic, 70% jingoism. Everyone knows that they are paying for TikTok with their data and a few hundred million people (myself included) are okay with that calculus and making a rational, informed decision to continue using the product.
This is just silly.
The overwhelming majority of people have no idea of what any of that means thus have not made any such calculus.
The overwhelming majority of people probably know just as much as you and I do about the uses to which TikTok puts the data they gather. Which is why conversations about TikTok immediately move into attacks on the Chinese government and Chinese people rather than discussing a single material effect that their data gathering or use has or could have on anyone's life.
The difficulty with discussing material objections to TikTok is that people would immediately enter areas that they personally have a hand in working on and/or investing in, and would lobby to preserve. They want American data to go to American oligarchs.
> The overwhelming majority of people probably know just as much as you and I do about the uses to which TikTok puts the data they gather.
As a very technical person in this industry, do you really think you don't have a better understanding of the data TikTok collects and what it will be used for than Average TikTok User?
Absolutely. Not only do I think that the general public has a good, though vague idea of what their social media data is used for, but I also think they're rationally alarmed about it (aside from the anti-China, anti-Russia, anti-Republican, anti-Democrat talking points they're taught to repeat by people who should be trustworthy.)
We like to call users stupid or confused for using something that is bad, then we only give them one choice. People aren't using Facebook because they don't care about what's happening to them, the use it because it's the only/easiest way to get certain things done and they have other problems in their lives to worry about.
This is just silly.
The overwhelming majority of people have no idea of what any of that means thus have not made any such calculus.