I don't have any strong hatred of TikTok myself but usually HN are a privacy concerned skeptical bunch and this is very weird.
What is there to spy on — which videos I like or watch again? Doesn’t seem like particularly secretive data. Plus, who am I?
Besides which, something can be a good experience or nice to use even if it has other concerns. That does happen.
Nobody who is posting things like this is coming out and saying what they believe the actual problem to be. It’s all innuendo and implications, shady intimations about bots and privacy. Feel free to spit out what the actual problem is, guys!!