Joe Rogan and MrBeast accuse TikTok of spying on them
MrBeast: YOutube Joe Rogan: YoutubeJoe Rogan and Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donaldson have gone off on TikTok in a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience (JRE). Calling the app “invasive, addicting, sketchy” and accusing the app of spying on users throughout their daily lives.
MrBeast is a giant in the YouTube community. The prolific 23-year-old content wizard has conquered the platform, sitting with a comfortable 91.5 million subscribers and billions of views across his network of videos and programs. He’s easily one of the largest YouTube channels around, so he knows his fair share about social media success.
During the March 7 episode of the Spotify-hosted JRE, Joe Rogan and MrBeast get stuck into discussions on just that. Breaking down his immense popularity and whether success on YouTube leads into success on other platforms.
During this discussion, MrBeast went on to say that his focus is pretty defined: “90% of my work goes into YouTube, 1-2% is TikTok,” he explained.
Unsplash: Mourizal ZativaJoe Rogan responded saying he doesn’t have a deliberate presence on TikTok, but that it’s something he may look at doing. “I guess at a certain point in time I should step in and do something on Tik Tok. But TikTok is such a sketchy f***ing application.”
Letting loose on the topic, Rogan and Jimmy went back and forth on stories of how they felt about the app’s alleged open door into the backend of your phone.
Rogan asked “You ever seen the breakdown these software engineers have done on TikTok? Of how intrusive it is?”
Clarifying this statement, he said that engineers declared it to be “the single most disturbing piece of software they’ve ever had to engineer, the amount of cross-platform spying it does.”
(Topic begins at 42:16)
Adding anecdotal evidence of his experience on TikTok, MrBeast said that he’s noticed the app listening to his conversations throughout the day.
“I have had instances where I would say certain things in conversations and then later that night I would get in my feed something similar,” he explained. “Like if I talk about dogs a lot and then weirdly start getting TikToks about dogs. I have noticed that kind of stuff. “
MrBeast went on to state that as he travels, TikTok will always know where he is “If you travel to a different state, like even now in Texas, like my TikTok feed will be a lot more Texas content, it’s definitely location-based.”
Closing out his thoughts on the app, Jimmy did say that he had recently deleted the app from his phone, but not for security purposes.
“TikTok can be pretty addicting, I actually recently uninstalled it just cause… Even though my TikTok is mostly like gym and, actually, finance stuff. I found I was spending two hours a day on TikTok, that’s when I uninstalled it.”