add tiktok

[mhmmd10]

Hi Add tik tok + Download video all quality +download without watermark

[gardenappl]

I might work on this, just for fun. Though this doesn't seem worth it, since Tiktok locks a lot of features (like reading comments) behind a login.

[TheAssassin]

I don't think that this is a very useful feature. TikTok has had a history of algorithms discriminating e.g., queer or political topics, massive issues with youth protection (with lawsuits in the UK and EU being brought to court), non-transparent political advertisement, generally issues with covert advertising, data protection issues (also because it is a Chinese product, and we all know that no company there can promise any data protection on par with EU legislation). There's been that weird "deal vs. no deal" story in the US. Their apps have had severe security and data protection issues in the past (e.g., reading clipboard information).

There is generally a lot of doubt with regards to them not blocking children under the age of 13 (which I think is pretty arbitrary) who, as a German blog put it, "grow up in front of an audience of millions".

German data protection agencies criticized last year that there is no effective data protection oversight within the EU. Like any company, they tried to set up their EU company in Ireland. The Irish DPA however tried to prevent them from doing so, as they are already busy with tons of other cases for big tech companies. Note that they had the chance to go anywhere. Running for Ireland is not a good move...

Some articles on netzpolitik.org have been released in English as well, e.g., https://netzpolitik.org/2019/cheerfulness-and-censorship/. Very worthwhile reading.

Please stop adding new proprietary services like these. TikTok seems a way worse idea than e.g., YouTube or SoundCloud. Instead, we should focus on providing good clients for free, open-source solutions.

[gardenappl]

I'm not a fan of TikTok either, but a bunch of my friends (and generally a lot of people my age) are into it. I was thinking this could help influence them to use NewPipe, and at the very least avoid proprietary clients, if not proprietary services.

[TheAssassin]

That's not a very convincing argument. First, I have doubts that any of these friends would be willing to use NewPipe (only) for accessing TikTok. Most users of TikTok likely want to participate in the system, as far as I can see. Using NewPipe would not increase their privacy significantly. Also, I have doubts that such users would be very interested in installing F-Droid and using NewPipe. And even if all of this was true, someone would have to write this code, and the team would ultimately have to maintain such code. Services with issues comparable to all the ones I listed have been rejected also because the team has zero interest in maintaining such code, same goes for features some users demand regularly, but the team has concerns with.

Experience in free software development shows that such big additions are often one-off contributions, i.e., it is unlikely that such contributors would be willing to send patches in the future when things break (which is very likely the way NewPipe fetches data, especially from proprietary services, which usually requires web scraping and thus depends on undocumented and unstable interfaces such as HTML web frontends).

You cannot expect maintainers who completely reject such a platform to maintain such a feature, in my opinion.

By the way, looking at the original post, the "download without watermark" part sounds very fishy to me. I don't want to deal with their ToS, but I'm sure that's a violation in some way. We can't even guarantee that, copyright wise, "removing" such a watermark would be allowed in all jurisdictions... and it might not even be possible, as it highly depends on whether there's a "clean" original stream available for download...

P.S.: Even for YouTube, NewPipe is a niche solution. I can see adblocker-free browsers in the videos published by journalists or even lawyers who discuss privacy solutions. By far most people use Google and are constantly logged in. GMail is by far the most popular solution. I don't get why, but that's the world we live in. I'm pretty sure TikTok's target audience which is generally much younger than on other platforms doesn't care about privacy. I'd love to be proven wrong...

[gardenappl]

I think you're be right.

Also, I did spend a couple of hours writing a TikTok extractor, but having to test it with real data and watch actual content, I'm now convinced that TikTok is just stupid. NewPipe does not need it at all.

In case anybody still wants to look at the code: https://github.com/gardenappl/NewPipeExtractor/tree/tiktok-sucks (there really isn't much of it)

[opusforlife2]

Closing as rejected.

[theScrabi]

@TheAssassin I need TikTok. And the generation that uses it just started to study IT. So in other words it's just a matter of time when there will be the first opensource app available that allows tik tok to be watched. I guess saying "No one will use it and also its bad content, and no one will maintain it" will ultimatively leed to a situation where u design ur own future. ... If u where open for inovation and let people try u will see if there might be people who maintain it and be willing to use it. But if u say "no" from the get go. U will never find out.

@opusforlife2 @TheAssassin I'm not part of the project anymore. U are better to descide. But if I was still in i would not have rejected @gardenappl to worl on this. I mean he already offered to work on it, why would u stop him? Support him!

[selurvedu]

FYI there's an alternative frontend for TikTok here https://github.com/pablouser1/ProxiTok

[rugk]

It has been some time since the issue had been closed and people keep sending me tiktok links. It seems to stay a popular platform especially for younger (Gen Z) people, so yeah… So I'd ask to reconsider this.

While I would not support the platform I agree I would love NewPipe integration, so I do not have to use that pesky website. Its like YouTube, you also don't want to use YouTube that is why you use NewPipe, you just cannot or only partially can influence what websites other people use.

Just playing videos would be enough for me/initially IMHO.

[opusforlife2]

so I do not have to use that pesky website

There's Proxitok for that use case.

[rugk]

Well an Android app would be more convenient on your phone, but I agree on desktops that is likely a good thing.

[opusforlife2]

UntrackMe on F-Droid automates the process. Tapping on Tiktok links directly opens them in Proxitok in the browser.