Temu—the Chinese shopping app that has rapidly grown so popular in the US that even Amazon is reportedly trying to copy it—is "dangerous malware" that's secretly monetizing a broad swath of unauthorized user data, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Griffin cited research and media reports exposing Temu's allegedly nefarious design, which "purposely" allows Temu to "gain unrestricted access to a user's phone operating system, including, but not limited to, a user's camera, specific location, contacts, text messages, documents, and other applications."

"Temu is designed to make this expansive access undetected, even by sophisticated users," Griffin's complaint said. "Once installed, Temu can recompile itself and change properties, including overriding the data privacy settings users believe they have in place."

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[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (27 children)

So just like the majority of USAian apps out there? I think Temu fits right in. Why are people so concerned about what China is doing with their data, but not the very countries they live in or (more importantly) the dominant online surveillance presence: the USA?

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[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 10 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

One thing that's obvious here on Lemmy is that whataboutism works only in one direction. If an article is critical of China, Russia, Iran, or other dictatorships, you'd read, "But about U.S./EU/the West". But there are tons of articles here critical of Western countries, and it's accepted. Why is this? Just wumaos?

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Lemmy was designed to be a place where communists would have a community. Some instances weren't, but a lot of the original ones were.

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, these are the 'tankies' who got banned on Reddit, right? I guess it takes time until they get a minority, but it's good that the community grows steadily.

[–] sunzu@kbin.run 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Because people live there and that's what they care about.

Also this article is shiti propaganda. Is temu shite.... Ya, you ain't got to use.

Good luck trying to have a normal life without use big tech lol

Which is a lot more dangerous than temu or tiktok from personal privacy and security perspective.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev 0 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It's funny that every time someone points out the pot calling the kettle black the training kicks in to shout "whataboutism" and it must be "wumao". It's almost a meme. You don't think an article about Xi Ping's government warning about USAian surveillance would be mocked and ridiculed due to their Great Firewall? That wouldn't be "whataboutism" though, right? It would be a "critical opinion"?

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[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 6 points 2 weeks ago

an article about Xi Ping's government warning about USAian surveillance

Not possible. The CCP doest "warn", it orders to block the app/site/word/photo, and it never existed. Anyone daring to say that it did, or to warn of stuff the CCP didn't say, gets imprisoned or worse (see: the doctor who dared to warn abot COVID, instead of following CCP's truth).

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 6 points 2 weeks ago

And the next whataboutism! What a waste of time.

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