"TikTok is a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network"

[Jordan Miller]

TikTok users, beware. A Redditor reverse-engineered the TikTok app and claims they figured out how the app works.

They write:

TikTok is a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network. If there is an API to get information on you, your contacts, or your device... well, they're using it.

• Phone hardware (cpu type, number of course, hardware ids, screen dimensions, dpi, memory usage, disk space, etc)
• Other apps you have installed (I've even seen some I've deleted show up in their analytics payload - maybe using as cached value?)
• Everything network-related (ip, local ip, router mac, your mac, wifi access point name)
• Whether or not you're rooted/jailbroken
• Some variants of the app had GPS pinging enabled at the time, roughly once every 30 seconds - this is enabled by default if you ever location-tag a post IIRC
• They set up a local proxy server on your device for "transcoding media", but that can be abused very easily as it has zero authentication

They add: " They have several different protections in place to prevent you from reversing or debugging the app as well. App behavior changes slightly if they know you're trying to figure out what they're doing. There's also a few snippets of code on the Android version that allows for the downloading of a remote zip file, unzipping it, and executing said binary. There is zero reason a mobile app would need this functionality legitimately."

You can read their thread in-full on Reddit.

It's worth mentioning India just banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese-produced apps because of issues with data mining.

Social media giants stealing your information we been knew.

[Roxxy]

This is what @PokemonSpears was talking about.

[Gayseus911]

There's nothing but Britney vocals, remixes pictures, demos  and pawrn in my storage. They can enjoy my catalog

[OnlyFacts]

Glad I’m too old to be into tik tok. The only tik tok I know is from k$

[PokemonSpears]

33 minutes ago, Roxxy said:

This is what @PokemonSpears was talking about.

[ColdAsFire88]

I don’t have this app and I have been highly skeptical of it. So many young people have it and now my friends (my age or older) are getting it. I get the appeal and the hype but its based out of China. I don’t trust China under the current Communist Party. At the end of the day everyone is responsible for themselves and responsible for what they share from their smart phones. 

[PokemonSpears]

28 minutes ago, Gayseus911 said:

There's nothing but Britney vocals, remixes pictures, demos  and pawrn in my storage. They can enjoy my catalog

it's not JUST the information they have access to, but that they also have the ability to download and install stuff on your phone, for no particular reason

[PokemonSpears]

34 minutes ago, Roxxy said:

This is what @PokemonSpears was talking about.

I just woke up and kept reading the title of the thread, even from the notification as Tik Tik Boom

I was like, did they create a new app based on the BJ song?

[Gayseus911]

3 minutes ago, PokemonSpears said:

it's not JUST the information they have access to, but that they also have the ability to download and install stuff on your phone, for no particular reason

I have nothing important on this phone, not even my bank account, I literally just surf the web on this, they're for sure gonna find out how many times I log onto breathe heavy everyday, admins better compensate for that free promo ............

[Towelney]

I guess I need to delete my account + the app then. 

[jms910]

** Pretends to be shocked ** 

[Towelney]

26 minutes ago, Gayseus911 said:

I have nothing important on this phone, not even my bank account, I literally just surf the web on this, they're for sure gonna find out how many times I log onto breathe heavy everyday, admins better compensate for that free promo ............

You log out of Breatheheavy? I just keep it on a separate tab. 

[bitbitboi]

It doesn't surprise me at all.

And don't even get me started on filters, which SCAN YOUR FACE............................ Gurl, this is real life Big Brother, stage 1.

[OnlyBeyonce]

tiktok is trash 

[Shadow.]

i'm not defending the app but if you have any sort of device especially apple or android then it already tracks this info 

[redacted statement]

This can be said about every app ever (anything Google being the worst offender). 

[autumngoodbye91]

Doesn't surprise me at all, but the same is true for almost any social media platform. This is exactly why I deleted my Facebook a few years ago, after the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. It's really scary, the power these companies have. We probably don't even know the half of it.

[Urbanney]

1 hour ago, ColdAsFire88 said:

I don’t have this app and I have been highly skeptical of it. So many young people have it and now my friends (my age or older) are getting it. I get the appeal and the hype but its based out of China. I don’t trust China under the current Communist Party. At the end of the day everyone is responsible for themselves and responsible for what they share from their smart phones. 

This is the mentality I've had but then I caved in because my friends and bf were showing me so much good, funny content on there I've fallen out of it in the past couple weeks just bc that's not how I feel like spending my time, so I kinda want to delete it, but I know I'll just end up redownloading

[hleeeee]

I posted like 30 videos on there 

[BONO Productions]

This is alarming because there's this filter where it makes you "invisible" and ***** people are doing the naked challenge thing where they use the invisible filter, get naked, and dance.

Ohh gawd, imagine all the naked videos tiktok has collected.