Many in the United States see TikTok, the hugely popular video-sharing app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, as a threat to national security.
Here’s a look at the following five reasons:
data sharing
TikTok – like its rivals Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube – thrives on data and there seems to be no limit to how much young users are willing to share about themselves on the super addictive app.
Critics of TikTok worry that all this information is being processed by a Chinese company in China, where the Communist Party reigns supreme.
But some experts believe the threat is much greater and that nefarious actors can make their way into a wealth of data, regardless of who owns the platform and where it is based.
“If we’re talking about US citizen data, it’s the Wild West,” said Justin Sherman, a senior fellow at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
“There’s very little regulation, companies collect tons of data all the time, whether they’re foreign companies or American companies.”
Tiktok says it has undertaken the task of completely moving US users’ data to US-only servers in a project called “Project Texas”.
espionage
TikTok, like all apps, potentially opens up access to a user’s entire phone.
“Anytime you have an app on a phone, there’s the ability to use that app to bridge access to other things on the phone,” said Michael Daniels, CEO of the Cyber Threat Alliance.
This can include “secretly turning on the microphone or camera of a device without the user being aware,” said Daniel, a former cybersecurity coordinator for the US National Security Council.
Ate Ma’or, senior director of security strategy at Cato Networks, pointed to Pegasus, software created by an Israeli tech firm that was used by governments around the world to spy on critics and opponents.
Maoer said, “Maybe with TikTok we’re clicking and installing the Chinese version of Pegasus on our devices… I think that’s a concern of the US government.”
censorship
Another potential threat cited by cyber security experts is the ability of the Chinese government to censor content on TikTok to protect the priorities of the Communist Party.
“The idea is that the Chinese government will eventually tell TikTok outside of China that you don’t show anything that supports Tibet or Taiwan and thus shapes the information environment,” Daniels said.
TikTok insists it has never interfered with content in ways to satisfy the Chinese government, but given the level of censorship prevalent in China, analysts warn the danger exists for Beijing to lean on TikTok. .
“If you look at how the Chinese government has censored information, suppressed journalism and things of that nature at home, it is not at all far-fetched to say that the same things happening on TikTok elsewhere There’s a risk associated with it,” said Sherman.
fake news
Another fear is that the Chinese government could use TikTok as a means to disrupt American society, in a repeat of online campaigns waged by Russia in 2016 ahead of the US presidential election.
Research already published by Global Witness and the Cybersecurity for Democracy team at New York University suggested that TikTok failed to filter out large amounts of election disinformation ahead of the US midterm elections last month.
In the experiment, TikTok “performed the worst out of all the platforms tested,” the researchers found.
In response, TikTok has introduced security measures related to election content and required government and politician accounts to be verified.
Just… China?
Some experts wonder whether TikTok can do anything to allay concerns given its origins in China, especially with Republicans taking back the US House of Representatives in January.
Much of the argument against TikTok is coming from the Republican Party, which has a history of being tougher on Beijing than the Democrats.
Republicans are also mounting pressure on Democrats as US President Joe Biden negotiates a long-term security arrangement for apps operating in the United States under Chinese ownership.
According to Politico, the Biden administration is divided over whether to force TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest itself of its US operations, casting doubt on the proposed deal.
read all Latest Tech News Here
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)