1 minute video on how TikTok collects information about you even if you don’t have a TikTok account.

(xTend, used in this video, is a free Mac app available from the App Store).

Transcript

On the day the US House of Representatives voted to ban TikTok, I looked over at my xTend dashboard and saw my computer connecting to TikTok.

I only had browser windows open to Hulu and ChatGPT. Suspecting the TikTok connection was associated with Hulu, I thought I’d check.

In the back window I have xTend’s traffic tab selected and TikTok entered in the search field.

In the front window I have a browser window.

I enter Hulu, and immediately see my computer connecting to TikTok.

It is important to note that Hulu isn’t sending my information to TikTok. Hulu’s web page gets my own computer to send information directly to TikTok.

This is a critical element of the surveillance economy - web sites getting your computer to self-report to these data collection sites.

Clearing TikTok from the search field, we can see my web browser… while only viewing the Hulu site… was connecting to many different sites and sending information about me to them.

You may never use TikTok, but they almost certainly know a great deal of information about you.

Update 2024-03-18: Changed “extend” to “xTend” in two places.