Colombia

I am a US citizen, so that does set the context in this case. If my data stays in-house, that is something that is a little more tolerable, but not by much. (Once data out of your hands, it's basically in everyone else's at that point. Data doesn't respect imaginary lines on maps, after all.)

The case with TikTok has been brewing for a while though as that app was a little more cavalier about data collection methods.

Honestly, I believe the meme is mostly a false idea that would only apply to general purpose racists than anyone else. For US citizens, the actual issue is a national security problem. (That logic is applicable to any wide spread app used by any person in any country.) The meme under-cuts that point by classifying the problem as user idiocy wrapped up in a hint of whataboutism while ignoring that TikTok is just another puppet company for the CCP.

There are many countries that have massive privacy issues, but China is probably at the top of that list. They are extremely open about the systems they have in place to track each one of their citizens so it isn't much of a stretch to assume they would extend that system to people outside of their borders.

All of that mess is still fairly benign until you start weaponizing data that is collected and I could talk for hours about that, actually.

You missed my point. How you were able to extrapolate all of those assumptions from my comment was amazing. Totally S-Tier work.

The CCP is horrid though. China, in general, is fine. You don't need propaganda machines to tell you that.

so imperialist (pro-gringo) and Zionist propaganda from YouTube should be so dangerous too.

Honestly, it's not so much about your data specifically.

One of the core problems/benefits with massive datasets is that you, in particular, wouldn't stand out from the millions of other people. If someone does something stupid, like being pulled over for a DUI, that persons name can than be used to index their stockpile of history. Something bad can immediately get exponentially worse. Quickly. (That is an issue for a Chinese citizen, but I wanted to explain a big nuance of large datasets.)

The most valuable targets would be military, government and high level company executives. Having a wedge into their phone is a great start for some good 'ol fashioned blackmail and/or coercion.

For regular people like us, travel in China would be the biggest problem but at a higher level, occasional location tracking could give out some interesting data. Google for "strava app military base", as a good example. You could probably brainstorm some scenarios about how that could apply to civilians as well.

Probably the worst bit, and given the rapid advancements in AI, your data can be used to target your own unique mental vulnerabilities. Propaganda becomes much easier if you have bots instantly curating your feeds to show you just the right amount of crap that is tuned to your specific interests.

Early in the history of TikTok, you would see random pro-China (soft propaganda) videos inserted between the hundreds of Overwatch song renditions. It's probably much more aggressive and subtle these days, actually. (The videos were usually projecting the skill and prowess of their athletes, military or industry. Now, it's probably custom per user.)

In some of the worst cases, Chinese living outside of China are tracked and threatened if they show the slightest bit of dissent from the motherland. (That is some creepy shit, actually.)

I'll stop now, but you get the idea and I haven't even scratched the surface yet.

Wouldn't be the first time. Also, let it be known that I hate all of those companies equally.