this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2025

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164

TikTok allegedly monitoring users’ Grindr activity, digital rights group claims (www.thepinknews.com)

submitted 7 hours ago by TRAHR@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] apples4anna@lemmy.world 61 points 7 hours ago

I'll never forgive TikTok for successfully pushing (and radicalizing) more Romanians to the far right in 1 month (Nov-Dec 2024) than all the other media sources combined have been able to in years. Nastiest platform by far.

[–] FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi 29 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

People should stop using these ad and tracking apps disguised as some useful app.

[–] m33@lemmy.zip 17 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

TT is not a useful application, it’s a mental sickness virus. It leads to hate and self harm.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

So is grindr. Most dehumanizing app ever, so manipulative and full of ads.

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

It does give you sex in return for data, which compared to most apps, is a better return ratio.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

It's not sex in return for data, more like “you get sex, you lose confidence and any sense of self-worth, we will also show you ads every 3 seconds.”

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 minutes ago

9 times out of 10 that tap or message you just got came from a fucking bot. Grindr is such a shithole app.

[+] SlimePirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com -18 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

To be more honest:

Tiktok is actually very useful to find

very specific recipes
rare places to visit
specific tutorials
content in rare languages
insight from countries and cultures not found in regular media
some manifestation footage from the pov of the people
even some war/violent event footage before moderation and is better than Youtube, Reddit or a regular search engine for those.

However, it also has huge amounts of

misinformation
political propaganda
dumb people
pseudoscience
mass surveillance

and it's usage has negative effects on brain such as:

reduced attention span
distorted time perception
boredom intolerance

[–] kami@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

To be objectively honest, all the useful things you listed are and always have been available elsewhere in the internet.

[+] SlimePirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com -7 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Give me a search engine with as much easy to find specific content then ?

[–] NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net 9 points 2 hours ago

I'd trust Askjeeves to give me more reliable information than TT

[–] Nugscree@lemmy.world 7 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Google? Query, then click on the video's tab. Don't want to use Google? You can also use Duck duck go, startpage.com, or anything similar using the same steps.

[–] dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Oh, the horror. DDG is only better because it's not the big G, otherwise it returns the same nonesense search optimized slop. If your data is not important, russian site yandex gives different hits (def better for the high seas). There's also a paid websearch (forgot the name) that seems legit.

Internet is dead.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 hour ago

The paid one is Kagi and search results are pretty good.

[–] SlimePirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Stupid comment. Search "rare places to visit" on google and get ready for 10 pages of AI slop articles and those that are not AI are always the same copy pasted from each other. On tiktok locals will make their own list of prefered places and show them and how to go there.

[–] NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 hours ago

Use before:yyyy/mm/dd and/or after:yyyy/mm/dd in the search box to specify date ranges, and search for results before 2020 to remove all the AI slop.

Much easier than giving away your data to a company known for spreading misinformation, pushing AI content and genuinely worsening social interactions online and in real life.

[–] MareOfNights@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

This is cope. TT feeds you the information you don't need or search for it. If you search you will find better sources for everything. It's just a big advertisement platform.

Also tf is manifestation footage?

[–] HailSeitan@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

A manifestation (or “manif” for short) is the word for a (political) protest in some languages

[–] SlimePirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 minutes ago

Ahh I thought it was in English too

[–] SlimePirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

How tf is this cope I don't even use this shit. Just give me the better sources for everything then ? Because I know people who use it and they find things hard to find otherwise. Just because it's a shit social media doesn't mean you should lie about what it can do.

Manifestation footage is footage of a manifestation. Quite often people I know who use tiktok talk to me about things going on in other countries that are not talked about in public media

[–] MareOfNights@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 27 minutes ago (1 children)

I don't think its a good source for any of these, because its short videos. You don't actually look for information there, because searching for specific these specific videos is hard. If you want specific information you gotta read, because text-based info is searchable.

Recipes are on recipe websites, interesting places in local forums, same with rare languages. Tutorials are all over the internet.

Protest are definetly not on the Chinese run social media, unless China wants it to be amplified.

It's maybe good for memes.

[–] SlimePirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 minutes ago

Videos come with hashtags which are text and thus searchable, then the algorithm recommends similar videos or other with the same keywords that are related.

A lot of information is better in a visual format than text: tourism guides and art for example.

Sure but you must know the forums and they have way less user base than TT where you have all content with a single search engine.

Yes there are a lot, note that they have a different feed for chinese citizens where there are probably way less.

[–] itsathursday@lemmy.world 9 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

I wish I could packet sniff or monitor what apps are doing what on my phone. If I install a calculator, I only want it to math some numbers, not harvest data from me.

Apple is supposed to mention this in the App Store but even then it’s just a tag on an app and there’s no more details.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

Doesn't DuckDuckGo offer a subscription service that monitors/blocks those requests?

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Anytime you download an app, by default ir has permission to use your Cellular Data and WiFi and indexed by Siri. Best you can do is void all those and not give it any unnecessary permissions

If you have enough data (like 50+GB), try to keep WiFi off and use only cellular and disable the apps celllular oermission in the Cellular section in Settings

[–] bklyn@piefed.social 4 points 5 hours ago

Yikes! Glad I never used TikTok

[–] WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

The Internet is bad.

[–] bizzle@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Careful now, these people LOVE their digital heroin