tiktok and a cyberpunk story idea

I don't know how many of you have ever been on tiktok, but it's one of those apps that causes me dismay. At one point, I decided never to install it and I kind of wish that I'd stuck with that decision. But then back in February I was having a conversation about how "the youths" had no idea how to use AO3 and that everything available to help them learn is aimed at an audience more familiar with web 1.0 than with apps. 

So I downloaded tiktok and started making video tutorials. And because of the nature of the app (it starts showing you random things as soon as you open it and again after you post), I started seeing what was there. 

Tiktok is like other social media but faster. I see all the usual things: undisclosed sponsorships, people wearing their own merch, "link in bio", "shadow banning", the same memes I've seen on tumblr and twitter and facebook and even LJ. I see the same rise and fall and the same paths that creators take when their videos are monetized - whatever blew up becomes a "series". In a lot of ways, it just makes me tired. When I'm not overthinking it and how it could be used for research because it all happens at 5 times the speed of elsewhere.

But the part that's currently giving me all of the thinky thoughts is the filters. Tiktok has really great filters. I was on instagram for literally 10 minutes or less so I don't know if their filters do the same thing, but on tiktok there's a filter that can give a person a full face of makeup. From nothing to blush, highlight, bronzer, eyeshadow, lashes - and it moves with the person's face. There's another filter that will give you a beard. Another one that flashes you from male to female when you change the lighting. 

All of that requires some pretty intricate mapping of faces. Tiktok probably has millions of them stored away somewhere. I can't imagine what that database full of incredibly detailed information about a racially diverse, statistically significant number of humans could be used for - but my brain keeps thinking it's something terrible. 

So, to that end, here are some ideas for a cyberpunk dystopia based on the nightmarish thoughts that tiktok filters have dropped into my brain:

• in a world where political unrest leads to protests in the streets, the government has built its greatest asset to protect law an order - the Dataset
• at the start of the novel, protestors are being arrested at their jobs/homes etc and they have no idea how they're being identified
• a low level coder who works on the Dataset realizes what it is and has to convince the protest leadership that they're legit
• everyone starts wearing masks over their faces to hide their features - the masks are built out in caricatures or with other features that can hide the bone structure of the person underneath
• coder needs to keep working on the Dataset while now being an undercover protestor - will they get caught? several close calls occur
• eventually, coder finds other like-minded individuals also working on the Dataset. They band together to figure out a way to take it down.
• the story culminates in a massive, world-wide protest against the powers-that-be. Coder and friends use that moment to implement the solution they've figured out. The Dataset is deleted. All backups are erased. 
• Most people don't know what happened, but those who do still wear masks.