I had an impassioned defense that relied heavily on the company’s own disclosures about how it handles user data: privately, in the United States, apart from ByteDance’s Chinese possession and the Chinese administration, which keeps a watchful eye on nearly every Chinese industry.
Working With Biden
Initially, I thought this would prevent a nation that openly engages in cyberwarfare against the United States and other nations from gaining access to sensitive data, which includes essential information about all our actions and hobbies. TikTok’s recent attempts to tidy up its data management strategy, though, have made me rethink my previous assessment. TikTok said that it was collaborating with the Biden Government to transfer all TikTok information to Oracle, a very well-recognized third-party server and cloud services provider. The theory is that TikTok’s Chinese workers won’t have privy to user data if it isn’t stored on TikTok-owned systems, even if they are located in the United States.
It’s possible that this wasn’t a state-sponsored campaign, however, since the loss of whatever credibility that TikTok has earned in the United States would be catastrophic if evidence of this were to emerge. The expansion of TikTok in the United States seems to be of equal importance to the Chinese government as the slowdown or destruction of Apple’s profitable Foxconn production factories in Shenzhen. Even yet, I no longer believe TikTok has been totally forthright with us, therefore I welcome the company’s new emphasis on data sharing.
Brendan Carter Says-
Meanwhile, FCC chairman Brendan Carter spoke out over the course of last month, saying that TikTok violated the rules of both the App Store as well as the Google Play store. Apple and Google have until Friday night to answer. Perhaps they haven’t, but that’s not really evident. Carter bases his case on his suspicion that TikTok is really a Chinese government data collection operation. While I believe that TikTok has more to communicate, I disagree that it is opening the way for our generation’s dances, issues, and fads. However, I still do not think that TikTok stores any information as critical as, for example, your private or business texts or email messages.
It would be terrible if the Chinese government were able to see everything, but I’d like to inform everyone that TikTok is largely a public platform, so anyone in China who wished to could easily find your embarrassing imprints, hilarious doodles, and all the private specifics you communicate within your TikToks.
