U.S. government declared Tik Tok a security threat.

Government has declared tiktok a threat

Beyond initial paranoia, let’s be realistic about what apps collect. Even Google collects IP (and therefore geographic location), and other pieces of personal data:Google records every search you perform and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210505211252/https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-is-sharing-youtube-horror-stories-to-prod-google-for-more-transparency/">every YouTube video you watch </a>. Whether you have an iPhone or an Android, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210505211341/https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-slow-google-sensorvault-from-tracking-your-location-on-ios-android/">Google Maps logs everywhere you go </a>, the route you use to get there and how long you stay — even if you never open the app.So then what are we looking for? How is this different? For one thing, Google, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter apps don’t collect anywhere near the same amount of data that TikTok does.

Is tiktok any different from Google 

<ul><li>Location (once Every 30 seconds for some variants of the app…)</li><li>Phone Calls</li><li>Screenshots</li><li>Network Information (Wifi Networks’ SSID, MAC address, Carrier, Network Type, IMSI (possible), IMEI, local IPs, other devices on the network…)</li><li>Facial Data</li><li>Address</li><li>Clipboard</li><li>Phone Data (cpu, hardware ids, screen dimensions, dpi, memory usage, disk space, etc)</li><li>Installed Apps</li><li>Rooted/Jailbroken Status</li></ul>

Things tiktok collects

TikTok requires you to provide a phone number upon signup on most occasions to function normally within the app, so they can link your identity to your phone number. They also collect your call log (people you’ve called) and have the permission to make calls from your device, although I’ve never heard of a case of this happening. Phone numbers are generally very unique, so this combined with location and name would already be enough to identify virtually anyone using this app in the U.S.

Phone Calls/Call Log/Phone Number

So, social media or spyware? Why not both? I’m probably going to continue to use the app, but I’ll be sure not to say <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210506015317/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi">Xi Jinping looks like Winnie the Pooh </a>or mention the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China">Falun Gong genocide </a>. At least, not while TikTok is watching.

🤔 

Informs users about the amount of data tiktok collects 

tips

TikTok: Social Media, or Spyware?

In 2014, three young men with the neurodegenerative disease ALS initiated the challenge by dousing their heads with buckets of ice water. They took it to social media and challenged others to do the same. More than 17 million ALS Ice Bucket Challenge videos were posted on Facebook in just one month, accumulating 10 billion views from over 440 million people. Celebrities like Lady Gaga, Jimmy Fallon, and Oprah Winfrey participated.The ALS Association raised $115 million from this campaign which they invested in more research and raising awareness of the disease.

BONUS: The iconic ALS ice bucket challenge

The Australian nonprofit was founded by two friends to raise awareness on problems affecting men's health, such as testicular cancer, prostate cancer, and mental health. Every November, they call on men to grow their moustaches for the entire month. Initially, 30 people joined. But soon after, 480 people participated resulting to a funding worth $40,851. To date, over 5.5 million people joined <a href="https://us.movember.com/">Movember's</a> events in 20 different countries, raising over $700 million to support their cause.

1. Movember

Fiona Cunningham's "No Make Up Selfie For Cancer Awareness" was inspired by Laura Lippman's bare-faced photo tweet to show support for actress Kim Novak who received flak after going to the Oscars without makeup.The then 18-year-old Cunningham created a Facebook group under the same title where she encouraged people to post their selfies and donate to Cancer Research UK.The campaign raised £1 million in a day, and soon after, the actual nonprofit joined in on the trend represented by Dr. Kat Arney, a Science Information Officer. The nonprofit managed to raise <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/25/no-makeup-selfies-cancer-charity">£8 million in donations</a>.

2. No makeup selfie

“The no-makeup selfie craze really captured my imagination and I was amazed at the response from people around the world and just thought how great it would be if it could be done for charity,” she said. “After seeing nothing similar on Facebook or Twitter, I thought there was something in it that it could raise awareness of cancer.”

HRC is a nonprofit organization advocating for LGBTQ equality. Its iconic logo was produced in 1995 and was led by then Executive Director Elizabeth Birch. It was not until 2013 that HRC's red logo variation became viral when they chose to change their FB display photo for their planned rally in Washington D.C. regarding two marriage equality cases. They along with other groups chose red to symbolize love. After encouraging others to do the same, many joined the campaign--3 million shares, 800 logo variations, and a 120% increase in profile photo changes.

3. Human Rights Campaign

“I was really interested in this organization that had an iconic logo, and I immediately set out to try to give ourselves an even firmer identity.”

The mission was clear and simple: make 5-year-old Miles Scott's, who was battling Leukemia, wish come true and be Batman for a day. <a href="https://wish.org/">Make-a-Wish Foundation</a> was set to grant Scott's wish. The word spread like wildfire when Clever Girls Collective, a content agency, used its network of 6,000 influencers and live Twitter chat to make this all happen. Soon after, the @SFWish Twitter page was born along with the hashtag #SFBatkid. People and celebrities from everywhere showed their support online.The event was a huge success! 600,000 tweets were made, while 20,000 people came on-ground for support.

4. Batkid

"Every member of the Clever Girls team was empowered to engage. A successful social campaign requires authentic, in-the-moment interactions to resonate with people and bring the story to life.”

<a href="https://www.adcouncil.org/">Ad Council</a> launched <a href="https://lovehasnolabels.com/">Love Has No Labels campaign</a> back in 2015. The campaign used a publicity stunt to exercise its message of "celebrating diversity and fighting bias". Partnering up with <a href="https://www.rga.com/">R/GA</a>, on Feb. 14, they put together two people inside a giant X-ray machine revealing only their skeletons. Once out, people got to see all kinds of love, regardless of age, gender, sexuality, race, or religion.The campaign won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial and got viral with over 164 million views online.

5. Love has no labels

“[It] challenges us to open our eyes to our bias and prejudice and work to stop it in ourselves, our friends, our families, and our colleagues.”

<ol><li>Make campaigns multi-platform</li></ol>Start simple and work your way towards a more elaborate approach. Try using <a href="https://www.canva.com/video-editor/">Video Marketing </a>to increase engagement and connect more to the people you are targeting.  2. Keep an eye on your audienceIt's possible for real people and not marketing agencies to initiate campaigns online, all you have to do is to stay alert, and if lucky, you might just encounter one. 3. Give supporters a templateIn preserving the key message and linking it back to the campaign, create templates for people to use and give their own flare to.

Takeaways from the 5 campaigns

4. Embrace influencer marketingInfluencers have strong networks and a following. Banking on them could take your campaign to the next level. Just be sure to provide them with a clear brief on your campaign goals and directions for them to best cater to your needs. 5. Reinvent an established content formatTraditional formats are there to be reinvented. Take something people already are familiar with and offer a new way of looking at it. This diminishes learning curves and provides new insights into old thinkings and habits.

Takeaways from the 5 campaigns (con't)

Nonprofit organizations could also take center stage and have viral campaigns. Here are 5 of the most successful and memorable nonprofit campaigns that hit the internet by storm all the while accomplishing their intended mission of raising funds, imparting awareness, or making a wish come true.

5 viral nonprofit campaigns and what you can learn from them

Wi-Fi became a ubiquitous technology in laptops more than a decade ago and the phrase is in daily use. Now the wireless networking technology can be found in our watches, phones, televisions and smart speakers. We know what it means, but what does Wi-Fi stand for?

What does Wi-Fi stand for?

For many people the term Wi-Fi is now synonymous with “Internet”. But to be accurate it’s just a wireless connection standard. If you’re using a wireless device then Wi-Fi may be bringing you your internet connection, but it is not the internet.Wi-Fi is essentially a very advanced digital radio using frequencies between 2 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz in the electromagnetic spectrum, which is around the same area as microwave ovens.

What is Wi-Fi?

You may have read, or made an educated guess, that Wi-Fi stands for “wireless fidelity” just as Hi-Fi stands for “high fidelity”. It would make sense but you’d be wrong.

Wrong Answer

Wi-Fi doesn’t stand for anything. It is not an acronym. There is no meaning.

Correct Answer

A wireless network called ALOHAnet was created in 1971 that connected the Hawaiin islands. Ethernet and Wi-Fi can trace some of their history back to that.But it was in 1991 that NCR Corporation (which began as a cash register company) and AT&T (which began as a phone company) created the precursor to Wi-Fi as a way of linking cash registers called WaveLAN.It became so popular that eventually the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) created the 802.11 standard that we now know as Wi-Fi. In 1999, the Wi-Fi Alliance formed as a trade association to trademark Wi-Fi.

Who invented Wi-Fi?

The simple truth is that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) needed a name for their standard that would be easier to remember than “IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence”. So they hired the marketing agency Interbrand to name it and were given the choice of 10 options.The organization did, in the early days of Wi-Fi, include the tag line “The Standard for Wireless Fidelity”. Because board members found it hard to imagine having a name that didn’t mean anything and wanted to subsequently explain the name that had been invented for them, but the line was quickly dropped.

So How Did "Wi-Fi" Come About?

“Pay attention… How a person handles poor cell service, traffic, and spotty wifi is a good indicator of how they’ll behave during relationship challenges.”-Steve Maraboli

Wi-Fi Quote

The wireless networking technology can be found in our watches, phones, televisions and smart speakers, but what does Wi-Fi mean?

<ul><li>The language we use is determined by "weak tie" relationships, that is, with strangers and interlocutors. For the first time in history, the internet provides an entire world of weak ties. </li><li>The result is that internet language has evolved in different stages. If you remember MUDs, AIM, or Habbo Hotel, you might remember internet language differently. </li><li>"Lol" has a huge variety of linguistic uses, and it is a fascinating example of how internet vocabulary serves IRL (in real life) needs.</li></ul>

The Web And How We Talk: Key Takeaways

<ul><li>Naughty,” in Shakespeare’s England, was to be a “naught person” — a soulless, wicked, half-man. </li><li> “Awful” and “awesome” once meant the same. (They both meant “awesome.”) </li><li>To be “generous” once meant to be of noble and pure blood. (Only they could be magnanimous, you see.) </li><li>If you were “disappointed” you were quite literally removed from office — you were fired.</li></ul>

Language: Then and Now

Language has always changed, but it does so as a slow trawl and rarely ventures far. Semantic shift operates like a tree, growing slowly but resolutely, and it’s only with the time-lapse of retrospection that we can see how far it has come.But then, at the end of the 20th century, something peculiar happened to the world. Suddenly the tiny, isolated communities and regional variations were thrown together. We had the internet.

When Tankers Become a Speedboat

The internet makes language change faster because it leads to more weak ties, and you can get to know people who you never would have met otherwise. With hashtags, viral videos, and “following” strangers, we are constantly rubbing up against people of different linguistic communities. Whereas before we would only occasionally meet or form these “weak ties,” now we’re swimming in a sea of linguistic foreigners and interlocutors.

Strong and Weak Ties

They were the early adopters of the internet. Because few of their IRL (in real life) friends were online, these people needed to use “topic-based tools like Usenet, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes), Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs), listservs, and forums” to reach out to strangers. Usenet was the most common, serving as an ancestor to Reddit and Google Groups

The Generations of Internet Users: The Old Internet People

The main difference between this generation and the previous is in seeing the internet as a social medium. The Old Internet People mainly kept their social lives offline, but the second wave turned to MSN, AOL/AIM, MySpace, and WeBlog to connect with friends as well as strangers. Slowly, MySpace gave way to Facebook and Twitter, via social gaming sites like NeoPets and Habbo Hotel.

Social Internet

If you can remember joining social networks when they were still unpopulated, niche, fledgling things, then you likely belong to the above generation. If, though, you joined an already bustling online world of social networks, this is your generation. In this group, there are two noticeable clusters: the first is the “Facebook cluster” (which includes Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube), and the second is the “Instant Messaging” cluster (which includes Snapchat, Instagram, iMessage, and WhatsApp).

Post-Internet

The internet mainstay, 'lol' serves a fascinating variety of functions.Of course, it still acts as an expression of laughter and enjoyment. You can reply to a joke with “lol” and capitalize or give it an exclamation mark if you really liked it. But “lol” also has other uses. It is a way to soften a potentially misread or offensive message, as in, “You were so drunk last night lol.” It can be a way to flirt: “You look good in red lol.” It can express or underline sarcasm, “This lecture is so fun lol.” It can even be passive-aggressive, “You better buy me a present lol.”

The depth to lol

Internet language evolved in stages. If you remember MUDs, AIM, or Habbo Hotel, you might remember it all differently... lol.

Stashed ideas

How the internet changed our language

A major change is coming to the internet. While today’s dominant platforms have guarded their troves of user data and maintained an advantage through network effects, new companies — working in what they’re calling a “Web3” model — are proposing a new value proposition to users. In Web3, instead of platforms having full control of the underlying data, users own whatever content they have created (such as posts or videos), as well as digital objects they have purchased, and these digital assets are typically portable.

Enter Web 3.0

This new paradigm has a few important advantages: it’s easier for new companies to compete with established ones if they offer better user experience; the system is less zero-sum, because user lock-in isn’t the primary goal; and it can be easier to win users’ trust, as key operations can be encoded on the blockchain in “smart contracts” that are auditable and immutable.

Advantages Of Web 3.0

Users’ ability to take their data from one platform to another introduces new sources of <a href="https://www.competitionpolicyinternational.com/can-web3-bring-back-competition-to-digital-platforms/">competitive pressure</a>, and likely requires firms to update their business strategies. If a platform isn’t creating enough value for its users, they might simply leave. And indeed, in Web3, new entrants can explicitly incentivize power users to move to them — for instance, the <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/11/how-nfts-create-value">NFT (for “non-fungible token”)</a> trading platform <a href="https://looksrare.org/">LooksRare</a> recently launched through what’s called a “<a href="https://blog.coinbase.com/vampire-attack-looksrare-vs-opensea-c3b4107cd4db">vampire attack</a>,” rewarding people for switching over from the dominant platform <a href="https://opensea.io/">OpenSea</a>.

Data Interportability

The costs associated with creating user trust are much lower in Web3. Managing digital assets on public ledgers makes it clearer which assets exist and who owns what, which was previously a struggle on the web.If a digital artist, for example, claims that a new artwork is limited to 489 editions, then prospective owners can verify that on the blockchain directly — without needing to trust the artist themself, or having a gallery or other intermediary provide such an assurance.

Creating Trust

Of course, given the early financial use cases of Web3 and the high volume of transactions, a number of bad actors have leveraged the hype to orchestrate <a href="https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?theme=hack">scams</a>. Many of the Web3 experiences today were designed for tech-savvy power users, whereas ordinary users might have only a limited understanding of what an app or platform can actually do, much less be able to vet source code to verify that it functions as described. There’s a long way to go before Web3 technology is safe and accessible to the average consumer.

A Scammy Start

Making platform backends open and interoperable enables compounding innovation and incentivizes direct investment in building the infrastructure layers.Sharing infrastructure means that apps can focus on building great experiences, driving towards a greater emphasis on platform design as a source of competitive advantage. What an app has understood about its market manifests in its user experience and interface — and so even in Web3, user insight will continue to differentiate consumer apps.

Open And Interoperable Platform

Web3 platforms also have the potential to unlock a novel and especially powerful form of network effect through community engagement and social cohesion. Ownership of digital assets fosters a sense of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022242920957007">psychological ownership</a> that can make consumers feel so invested in a product that it becomes almost an extension of themselves. A platform’s users literally become “fans” who form a bond through the shared platform experience — similar to how fans of a sports team or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs2RzWFCRCxCn-0UpKEdabg">obscure</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zTbVRPh5EI">band</a> see themselves as a community.

Unlocking A New Kind Of Network Effect

Web3 has the potential to unlock a more valuable internet for everyone. New companies can build on Web3 infrastructure to create communities around their brands and product concepts much more easily than in previous iterations of the web. And even established platforms can leverage these forces by plugging into blockchain-based content networks and giving their users some ownership over their data.All of this means that the next era of the web will likely look a lot different — and more open — than the one we’re living with today.

The Bottom Line

A major change is coming to the internet. While today’s dominant platforms have guarded their troves of user data and maintained an advantage through network effects, new companies — working in what they’re calling a “Web3” model — are proposing a new value proposition to users. In Web3, instead of platforms having full control of the underlying data, users own whatever content they have created (such as posts or videos), as well as digital objects they have purchased, and these digital assets are typically portable. This new paradigm has a few important advantages: it’s easier for new companies to compete with established ones if they offer better user experience; the system is less zero-sum, because user lock-in isn’t the primary goal; and it can be easier to win users’ trust, as key operations can be encoded on the blockchain in “smart contracts” that are auditable and immutable. All of this means that it can be much easier to launch a product in Web3.

TikTok: Social Media, or Spyware?

5 viral nonprofit campaigns and what you can learn from them

What does Wi-Fi stand for?

How the internet changed our language

Why Build in Web3

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