TikTok is loved by over 1 billion users around the world and is at the center of youth culture.
The app of the 21st century, features everything from viral dances to comedy skits, trying to clean hacks, BookTok, music, and the Gen Z maudlin of the core-core trend.
However, the Chinese-owned company is losing allies in the Western political sphere, where it is located because of the geopolitical standoff between China’s rise as a powerhouse and mistrust of Beijing.
Consequently, TikTok is in grave danger of being taken down, and the United States is at the forefront of this movement.
The technology editors at The Guardian break down how TikTok went viral and why politicians and medical experts are now targeting the app.
On June 30th, 2018 in Dandong, Liaoning Province, China, fans gathered at Andong Old Street to watch a live webcast of the boy band Modern Brothers perform. TikTok is a popular short-video social platform in China; Modern Bros has over 20 million fans there.
The Success Of TikTok
On both sides of the Atlantic, TikTok has seen tremendous success. Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of the company, claims that the app has more than 150 million monthly active users in the US alone. According to Ofcom, the typical TikTok user (those over the age of 15) in the United Kingdom spends 29 minutes per day on the app, which is only slightly less than the time spent on Facebook and Messenger combined. According to data.ai, TikTok had 18 million monthly active users in the United Kingdom in the previous year.
TikTok’s average user in the UK is a young adult, and they spend nearly an hour per day on the app, which is the company’s target demographic. TikTok may not yet have as many users as Instagram or YouTube, but it is rapidly gaining ground.
Seventy-three percent of British teenagers and young adults used the app in the first three months of 2022, crushing the competition from social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat. Although comparable statistics for 2023 are not yet available, all signs point to a continuation of the trend of increasing usage. Industry estimates put 2017 advertising spending on the app at over $10 billion (£8.1 billion), thanks to its unique blend of demographics and attention span.
TikTok’s recommendation algorithm powers its primary feed, the “For You” page, and contributes to the app’s immense popularity. The app seems to have a knack for figuring out your tastes and drawing you in, as evidenced by your average daily viewing time.
AI Forensics On TikTok
AI Forensics director Marc Faddoul claims that one of TikTok’s greatest strengths is that it can create a detailed psychological and subject interest profile of users by tracking their behavior as they scroll through endless videos, leaving a trail of revealing data.
TikTok is unique among similar apps because of how quickly it gathers information about its users. TikTok users can watch hundreds, if not thousands, of videos in an hour, and the platform uses data from each view, such as how long a video was viewed, to improve its targeting.
He continues by saying that because each video is displayed individually on a mobile device’s screen, the user’s scrolling behavior provides “precise and rapid feedback” for each clip.
That creepy algorithm, however, is also what’s fueling the skepticism of what could ultimately do in the app.
After Chew testified before Congress last week, suspicions about him increased. Users all over the world reported seeing an influx of “pro-Chew” videos on their For You sections the following morning, leading some to speculate that TikTok was unnaturally trying to promote content that endorsed its stance against the bans. TikTok claims it had nothing to do with promoting the Chew videos and has denied any interference.
The algorithm was merely reflecting the TikTok audience’s positive feelings, others argued. However, lawmakers are concerned that China’s authoritarian government could use the same ambiguity that gives rise to suspicion in order to bully businesses into submission.
Concerns for Safety
As per Bryan Cunningham, a former White House lawyer and advisor to the US data security firm Theon Technology, there are three main reasons to be concerned about the safety of using TikTok. The Chinese Communist Party could use the app’s persuasive algorithm to deceive the For You feed and, by extension, public opinion. Personal information gleaned from the app could be misused to profile users who, for example, work for foreign governments.
Many of Cunningham and the other critics of TikTok cite the 2017 Chinese national security law, which mandates that businesses and individuals “support, assist, and cooperate with both the state intelligence work.”
Despite Cunningham’s admission that no conclusive proof of Chinese state interference in TikTok has been produced, he still believes that action should be taken against the app because of privacy and ownership concerns.
Neither the sabotage nor the data exfiltration has been confirmed, he says. But in my opinion, everything is possible in theory. As a national security attorney, I believe this is sufficient cause for us to act.
TikTok has been banned on government-issued phones in several countries due to security concerns, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Commission, the governing body of the European Union.
TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, has been ordered to divest itself of the app or face a ban by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a government organization that reviews foreign investment on national security grounds.
A day could come when ByteDance’s refusal or attempts to spin off a diminished version of TikTok leave Americans with no access to their favorite app.
What TikTok Claims
TikTok claims it is moving forward with a data defense plan that appears to have been rebuffed by the United States government. The plan involves storing user data on third-party servers owned by the United States technology firm Oracle, and having Oracle vet app updates before they are submitted to the Apple and Android app stores. It has also revealed a similar strategy for European data storage.
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