By Juan Rios-Perez
TikTok is popular with kids in PHS as well as around the country. The extremely popular short form video app is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has come under increased pressure from lawmakers in the US, Europe, and Canada in recent months due to security concerns. What kinds of concerns are there? Should you get it off your phone and is the government going to just do that for you?
The White House directed all federal agencies to remove the app from government-owned devices. It has become a well known fact that the Chinese government is using this app (among others) to spy on Americans.
A growing number of other nations and government bodies have also recently prohibited the app from being used on official devices, including Canada, the executive branch of the European Union, and the Parliament of New Zealand.
The western countries are getting rid of this app, but this is America and so it is still legal for Americans to use this program even if it is not good for individuals or all of us.
Congress is also taking action to stop the influence of this app and the Chinese Communist Government. A House committee approved legislation that would have given President Biden the power to outlaw TikTok across the country from all devices, which was an even more drastic measure than what was actually taken.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee questioned TikTok’s CEO, Shou Chew, about the app’s connection to its parent company and China’s potential influence over the platform. Chew’s answers gave Americans a lot to chew on; his answers did not excuse China’s influence but raised even more questions.
The question remains, what is China learning about us from this app? TikTok, which claims that more than 100 million Americans use it, is now under increased pressure.
The app gives the Chinese government access to private user data, such as location data. They have quoted laws specifically that permit the Chinese government to covertly request information from Chinese businesses and individuals for intelligence gathering purposes.
Unlike the United States where your private data cannot be turned over to the government, in China, this protection would be laughed at.
ByteDance (maker of TikTok) lost one of its biggest markets when India banned the platform in the middle of 2020 after cracking down on 59 Chinese-owned apps for allegedly sending user data covertly to servers outside of India.
There is little evidence to show that this app is not harmful. Seeing the difference between what we get for TikTok videos here versus what they get in China is shocking. So, even if this was not a security concern for Americans and other western nations, it would be a bad influence on the youth of this county. Adding that this is just bad for kids, and then there are security concerns on top of that, the real question is, why would you use it?
