Internet users spend more time on TikTok today than they do on any other app, and in order for the app to force its users to spend longer periods, TikTok collects information about how users consume its content, from the device you use, to how long you watch the post and what topics you like, and uses This information is to adjust the algorithm;
To show you customized and suitable videos on the main page of the application.
For anyone with a passing knowledge of how platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google work, this data collection process is not a new phenomenon, and it is common to all communication platforms that have turned into whales that feed on data. ByteDance), which means that it has less control over the use of data compared to Western applications, while the Americans specifically fear that the huge amount of data collected by the application will eventually fall into the hands of the Chinese government, and it is using it to serve its geopolitical ambitions.
These growing American concerns about TikTok go back to the era of former President Donald Trump, who had previously issued an executive order banning the use of TikTok in the United States, which is driven by fears that the company might hand over user data to the Chinese authorities (1).
Now that the app has recently emerged as a decisive player in electoral and civic discourses, the struggle over TikTok has become one of the biggest confrontations in the modern internet, two global superpowers stalemate over multibillion-dollar soft power that could determine the future of culture and entertainment for a generation.
Truth be told, no program has ever aroused so much concern in Washington.
TikTok has come under attack as a “sophisticated surveillance tool” that spies on children and is crazy about data, something Senator Ted Cruz once called “a Trojan horse that the Chinese Communist Party can use to influence what Americans ultimately see, hear and think” (2).
TikTok then became the most active Chinese spy, as Trump predicted one day.
The state of spies
In order for TikTok to save itself from being completely blocked by the United States, the company told US lawmakers that access to some user data in the United States would be "limited only to authorized individuals, according to protocols being developed with the United States" (Reuters)
At first glance, it might seem absurd that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States of the US Treasury would investigate a Chinese app mainly used by teenagers to post silly dance videos, although it sometimes hosts serious political and social content, but in small proportions compared to entertainment content.
Yes, TikTok has been accused of suppressing human rights videos in China, but many American companies have been accused of doing much worse.
Privacy concerns and politically biased algorithms may be annoying, but they do not rise to the level of national security threats.
Those interested in American affairs often stumble over finding reasons for banning TikTok. They always seem to feel that there is a problem, but they fail to put their finger on it, but after collecting and connecting the dots to each other, the lines can become somewhat clear.
Earlier, a minor discovery on LinkedIn disturbed the general mood of the privacy-conscious, and even the US intelligence community itself.
The discovery was that 300 current TikTok employees previously worked for Chinese state media, according to the employees' public LinkedIn accounts, and 23 of those profiles were created by current ByteDance managers, who run departments that oversee content partnerships. Public Affairs, Corporate Social Responsibility and Media Collaboration.
The biggest surprise is that 15 of ByteDance's current employees are still working for some Chinese state media, including Xinhua News Agency and China Radio International and China Television.
All of the above indicates important links between TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, and the propaganda arm of the Chinese government, which has invested heavily in using social media to promote information serving the Chinese Communist Party (3).
US reports also indicated that ByteDance was planning to use the information it collects to monitor individual US citizens, not to target ads or any of these other purported purposes.
In the face of all this, TikTok tried to distance itself from its Chinese origins, hire a former Disney executive as a new CEO, and involve lobbyists associated with the Trump campaign, and pledged to add 10,000 jobs in the United States from Americans (4).
In order to save TikTok itself from being completely blocked by the United States, the company told US lawmakers that access to some user data in the United States would be "limited only to authorized individuals, according to protocols being developed with the United States," but there is a history of mistrust that prevents it. The United States of confidence in the undertakings of the Chinese company.
TikTok previously promised to dispel all doubts about its independence, and pledged in early 2020 to open physical "transparency centers" where experts could monitor the company's management decisions in real time and examine the code of its algorithms, but the company shelved the plan indefinitely shortly after. , citing the epidemic, and instead provided guided virtual tours to journalists and political staff (5).
The most famous Chinese spy
Significant skepticism has been generated by China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, which states that all organizations and citizens must "support, assist and cooperate" with national intelligence efforts (Shutterstock)
So far, TikTok has insisted that the app is standalone, with its own leadership team, including a CEO in Singapore, COO in the US, and a global head of trust and safety based in Ireland," says a spokeswoman for the app. But even if we assume good Intention, and if there is no evidence that TikTok does anything with user data other than what other major social media platforms do, China's presence in the background will remain difficult for skeptics, especially in light of the Chinese government's implementation of surveillance programs among the most stringent in the world.
More than that, China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, which stipulates that all organizations and citizens must "support, assist and cooperate" with national intelligence efforts, generates great skepticism;
This means that companies can find themselves obligated to provide their data to the Chinese state. The law is absolute and the government is not shy about punishing those who fail to comply.
In this regard, James Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American think tank, says: “Social media pages are a great source of personal details for spy agencies,” adding that intelligence has now become a “big data game” (3). ).
At this point, it's not clear that ByteDance and TikTok will follow through on their pledges to limit China-based employees' access to US users' data.
One of the main points in this regard is the storage of data on servers outside the control of China (6). This effort is known as the "Texas Project", which aims to store Americans' data on servers inside the United States. While this project could succeed in addressing concerns about access to The Chinese government accesses personal information, but does not address other ways China could weaponize the platform, such as modifying TikTok's algorithms to increase exposure to divisive content, or modifying the platform to seed or encourage disinformation campaigns (7).
Moreover, a leaked audio conversation from January 2022 shows that TikTok leaders in Beijing were gathering additional information about Project Texas, specifically about the location and details of an Oracle server, a key part of the project designed to limit foreigners' access to personal user data in the US(5 ), which raises more dust about Beijing's intentions in this regard.
Many US companies, such as Facebook, have already tried to misuse data, but TikTok remains more aggressive in collecting data than its competitors.
The app continually requests a user's full contact list, even after a refusal, the US-Australian "Internet 2.0" research team found in July.
Another researcher, Felix Krause, has discovered code that can record everything a user types into an app's internal web browser, including passwords (8).
In January, a team of security researchers announced that they had discovered several vulnerabilities in TikTok that allow attackers to take control of accounts, change privacy settings on videos, download videos without permission, and obtain user data such as email addresses(9).
US authorities are concerned that the Chinese government is taking a "mosaic" approach to data collection, continuing to collect small, seemingly insignificant but powerful data collections, an approach that has long characterized the way Chinese intelligence operates even before the age of the Internet. .
The biggest question in this confrontation remains whether Washington can control a widely used platform that is run from the lands of its most prominent opponents, or will it eventually have to try the method that China itself uses with Western communication sites, and impose more restrictions that may reach TikTok ban completely. in the end.
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Sources:
1- Trump Signs Executive Order That Will Effectively Ban Use Of TikTok In the US
2- TikTok is a Trojan horse
3- LinkedIn Profiles Indicate 300 Current TikTok And ByteDance Employees Used To Work For Chinese State Media—And Some Still Do
4- TikTok Parent ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens
5- Leaked Audio From 80 Internal TikTok Meetings Shows That US User Data Has Been Repeatedly Accessed From China
6- Inside Project Texas, TikTok's Big Answer To US Lawmakers' China Fears
7- TikTok May Be More Dangerous Than It Looks
8- Penetrum Security Analysis of TikTok versions 10.0.8 –
9-TikTok is a national security threat, US politicians say.
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