Let's investigate why a company worth about $ 30 billion is being accused of possibly transferring user data to the Chinese Communist Party.
Key development dates for TikTok
March 2012: Founding of Bytedance in China and launching Neihan Duanzi, an app to help Chinese users share memes.
September -2016: Bytedance launches Douyin short video app in China
August -2017: International version of Douyin launches under the TikTok brand in some countries around the world, but not in the United States
Nov-2017: Bytedance buys music app syncing with Musical.ly
May-2018: According to research firm Sensor Tower, TikTok becomes the world's most downloaded non-gaming iOS app in the first three months of the year
August - 2018: Bytedance announces the complete closure of Musical.ly and the transfer of users to TikTok
February 2019: TikTok fined in the US for processing Musical.ly users' data up to 13 years without parental agreement
October 2019: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg publicly criticizes TikTok for censorship
November 2019: Cfius (US Foreign Investment Committee) begins investigation TikTok on National Security
May 2020: TikTok Hires Former Disney Chief Kevin Meyer as Unit COO and COO of Bytedance
July 2020: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Trump Announce Potential TikTok Ban
Aug - 2020: Microsoft confirms it is in talks to buy and operate TikTok in the US and three other markets, adding information on US investors' participation in the stock purchase
What data does TikTok collect?
The well-known TikTok collection of user data includes the following items:
- what videos are watched and commented on
- location data
- used phone model and operating system
- keystroke rhythms (people see when they write)
This data correlates with dozens of other applications that also have access to the operations of their millions of users. For example, Facebook and its subsidiaries, Reddit, LinkedIn, and others report collecting similar data. But some of the data collection positions on TikTok still surprise specialists, to put it mildly. Among them - the recent revelation that the application regularly reads users' clipboard - "copy and paste". Therefore, the UK Information Regulatory Authority does not hide that it continues to research the open and hidden capabilities of the application.
TikTok responds to the attacks of security enthusiasts like this:
"One hundred million Americans use TikTok for entertainment and communication."
“This year alone, we have recruited about 1,000 people from the US to our team and are proud to be hiring 10,000 more employees soon.”
“US TikTok user data is stored in the US under strict employee access controls. TikTok's largest investors may be from the US. "
“We are committed to protecting the privacy and safety of our users as we continue to work to bring joy to families and help build careers for ordinary people on our platform.”
Judging by the continuing interest, we will more than once witness "new discoveries" (if a number of circumstances do not happen) in the collection of user information from US and English authorized persons, because the increase in attention to TikTok will be directly proportional to its value. And despite the app's sanctions in some countries, the Chinese giant is doing well.
Microsoft and TikTok talks
The acquisition of TikTok by Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, will give the American tech giant a much larger social media presence and, by extension, a competitive edge.
According to the Financial Times, some executives at TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, believe Trump's intervention is simply a negotiating ploy to help Microsoft strike a better deal.
TikTok declines to comment on a possible deal with Microsoft, but is confident about TikTok's long-term success. But in Trump's homeland there are technical specialists, public figures who disagree with the president's policy and ask complications between the United States and Katai, based on trade differences and the coronavirus pandemic, not to be transferred to the state security sector.
For example, the former director of Facebook security, Alex Stamos, in his Twitter asks if Trump's move was caused by national security issues, and he himself replies: “This is strange. Selling 100% TikTok to an American company is considered a radical solution and removes all data protection problems. If the White House even gets it, we know it isn't. "
Mr Trump has also been criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union. “Banning an app that millions of Americans use to communicate with each other is a threat to freedom of expression and is not technologically feasible,” said Jennifer Grenick, ACLU Oversight and Cyber Security Consultant. “Closing one platform, even if it were legally possible, is detrimental to free speech on the Internet and does nothing to address the issue of undue government oversight.”
Microsoft has confirmed that it is in talks with Bytedance to acquire the popular app in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and intends to complete them by September 15 this year. Some internet visionaries have already suggested that the application might be called Microsoft Teens.
(Source megatrends.su)