WEEKLY WHEATIES #2412
Spying Apps, TikTok, Cloudhiker
In this newsletter:
Post: Are Facebook and Other Social Media Apps Listening to You?
ICYMI: TikTok at the Capital
POTW: Cloudhiker
Are Facebook and Other Social Media Apps Listening to You?
Yes and No. It’s not that easy of an answer. The first question I would have for you is - are you giving them permission to listen to you via your microphone? If so, then yes, maybe they are. Technically, it’s not the social media apps listening IF someone is listening though, it’s third-party advertisers. None of the social media platforms are ‘looking behind the curtain’ to see what user is getting fed what advertisement. Okay, I’m taking some liberties here, but in general, I don’t believe that’s what is happening. And if you aren’t giving a specific app access to your microphone, you may be inadvertently giving it access through some other app or setting.
We have to be careful not to misconstrue correlation with causation. Coincidences happen. Plain and simple. Marketing is a concept that has been proven to work over the last century, and that’s with no immediate feedback. Think how much more effective Don Draper would have been with the types of ads and A/B testing he could run on Facebook.
Believe it or not, the 21st century marketing technique — called an algorithm — is really good at serving up the right video or post for users. They can pinpoint exactly what you want before you know you want it. And they’re only getting better with the help of AI. That “coincidence” of you seeing an ad for an internet company you just mentioned is much more calculated than you think.
I joked about it on Facebook earlier this week, but I would like to dive a bit deeper in an article shared from the Wall Street Journal. Part of the article reads, “a 27-year-old stopped using the app last year, after TikTok’s algorithm began showing her things that matched her private thoughts. “It’s one thing to know about you and another to know you,” she says.”
I joked that alternate headlines could be:
27-year-old finds out she’s just like every other 27-year-old
27-year-old finally understands algorithms
27-year-old realizes she spends way too much time on TikTok
While I just said this in jest, all three have some level of truth to them. If you combine them, the power is shown even more. Meaning, the more time someone spends on a specific social media platform, the more it learns about that person. The more time collectively spent on a specific social media platform, the more it learns about a specific group of people. In this case, a group of 27-year-old females. However, the algorithms can get much, much more nuanced than just that.
I’m about to share a very controversial opinion I can’t prove: TikTok and other social media apps don’t listen to you through your microphone for one simple reason - they don’t need to. Their algorithm is so good, they know what you want before you know what you want. Simply saying something out loud to your phone wouldn’t help them much. Nor do they want to spend the money for the time and computing processing power to take all of that into account. Sure, they could just listen all the time as Alexa, Google, and Siri do - but again, they don’t need to.
The next controversial statement I’ll make is this: Everything the algorithm knows about you is because you (or your friends/contacts) offered the information. This isn’t as much of an opinion as I can prove it using TikTok as an example. When you created a TikTok account, let’s hope you used your email as a login. Hopefully. Hopefully you didn’t create an account by using your Facebook or Google account because that would be bad. That would mean anything Facebook or Google has on you, TikTok now has. Which is A LOT.
When giving one app access to another - in this case, let’s say you created a TikTok account with your Facebook account - you give both apps access to the same information. Meaning, if you have the microphone toggled off on TikTok, but on for Facebook - TikTok also has access to the microphone. At least theoretically. Let’s say you don’t, but your friend does. And you talk about something with them at the coffee shop. Based on location data and the app seeing you two are friends, your app ‘had access to the microphone’ for the time you were together. Location data is very powerful. Especially when these apps potentially have your MAC address (a unique identifier for your specific device - which is required to gain access to the internet).
Then, if you used your phone number to create an account, they could technically conduct a reverse phone number lookup and access a bunch of information. Much of which is freely available online to anyone. The amount of in-depth information accessible through paying for this information is a bit scary, too. Even if not, your location from antennas and IP addresses can tell where you are physically.
Even if you were careful with your sign-up, you still have to be very careful when the apps ask for permissions. You should also double-check these settings frequently as updates may toggle them back on without you noticing. These include: contacts, photos, microphone, camera, live activities, tracking data, and more.
“Yeah, Garrett. I know all that. They don’t get any of my information.” Sure. I get it. You’re careful with what you give access to, use a VPN, and have multiple email account aliases. Except, if you interact with any of the apps - by means of liking, sharing, or commenting, they can figure out who you are pretty easily. Oh, you don’t do that, either? That’s okay, these algorithms only need to see what content you look at - or skip - to start figuring you out anyway. Yes, by not watching, reading, or looking at something you are giving the algorithm just as much to go off of as if you stopped to watch or read. In the video above by the Wall Street Journal, they found TikTok learned the interest of their bots in less than two hours of watch time. And this was solely watching and skipping.
There are other ways they can find out what type of content to serve you. I mentioned it already, but any and all data you give the app through another app will generally get the algorithm say 80% of the way there. When it has something to go off of, it can start to pinpoint other context clues. A lot of this may be done based on location, too. Since there is always popular content making a way around the app, the algorithm can predict what else you may want (or need) based on your response with these popular posts. Not to mention, it can also see what your friends and contacts are doing, combined with all other factors, and piece together the last 20%. Then, combine all of those with advertisers wanting to get in front of a very particular audience - boom! There’s your internet ad. Without having to listen to you.
And remember, it can do this in less than 2 hours. The more you stay on the platform, the more you use it, the more data points you give it, the more you interact with it, etc., the more tailored it becomes to you. At some point, it knows what you want before you know what you want. To some, that may seem like “it knows your private thoughts.”
These algorithms will find content to give you that you enjoy, then push more extreme content until you ‘fight back’ by skipping. Either way, three steps forward and one step back is still two steps forward for them. They want you to stay on their platform, so they will all flirt with the edge of how much is too much. And if you don’t think this is the case, the number of users and watch time the apps get proves they’re doing something right.
Arguably, I could also ask — if the app is giving you what you want, why would you care if they are listening? If you don’t, well, you probably should. And if you do, see my post last year on the privacy concerns of TikTok.
If you want to read a bit more into this topic, check out a post I made over 5 years ago: Your Facebook testimony recap from our Nation’s capital.
ICYMI: TikTok at the Capital
The US House of Representatives voted to force ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the US. The vote still has to go before the Senate before the President would sign it (as he already agreed to). Here’s a list of people who may be looking to buy. What’s a bit ironic here is the President's campaign has a TikTok account, and TikTok has been banned from government devices for over a year now. This makes sense though, because more and more younger users are turning to TikTok, along with more users in general getting their news from all social apps.
Typically, I am against limiting any internet access for anyone to anything, but do feel like at some point this could be considered more national security as the US user base grows. Moving servers to the US (i.e., selling to a US based company) would help with that, or simply making the app only available to those 18 years or older since they have a little bit more understanding of what information they may be divulging. Even then it gets tricky. In case you didn’t already know, the US as a whole does occasionally block websites. Typically, this is because of copyright reasons. But the precedence is there.
So, what security threats are there? The biggest factor is the fact that the Editor-in-Chief of ByteDance (the company that owns TikTok) also holds a position in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It’s unclear to me exactly what position, but even in the testimony before congress, multiple people in high positions of TikTok and ByteDance are clearly involved with the CCP.
Again, what threats? Well, this is where I would say those conspiracy theorists who say the government controls everything you see or hear would be spot on. The CCP could control exactly what the US users see just as easily as they control what their own country’s users see. This could be anything positive or negative towards any other viewpoint, perhaps even based on who pays more. Or, just simply influencing users to do anything, buy anything, or vote for anything. We’re in uncharted waters, and it doesn’t appear this is a one-size fits all decision.
In other TikTok news, be on the lookout for “a dedicated photo-sharing platform called TikTok Photos” to compete with what the original Instagram was going for.
POTW: Cloudhiker
Many years ago, and upon multiple occasions, I remember spending countless hours on a site called Stumble Upon. Essentially, a user could click through random websites and find something they may otherwise never find out about. From random blogs never receiving traffic to many game-type sites and apps I’ve even shared as a Pick of the Week. They have since shut down and merged with another app - Mix. However, Mix is mainly focused on images (and some video), and doesn’t have as much as a social push as other apps. If you’re looking for something more like the original Stumble Upon, check out CloudHiker.net. It boasts “a collection of anything interesting, weird or astonishing” while letting you kill some time or learn something new.
