Is TikTok Safe? A Deep Dive into Cybersecurity Concerns
Concerns regarding TikTok, a Chinese company, have been exaggerated in terms of national security. The US has ordered government agencies to remove the Chinese app from all staff devices within 30 days amid cybersecurity concerns.
Canada and the European Union have adopted comparable measures, while there are advocates among political figures who support the implementation of a nationwide prohibition. However, let’s also consider the perspective of TikTok executives.
While in 2020, he narrowly avoided a ban on the most successful and popular app in the US by then-President Donald Trump, he faced a daily barrage of questions about TikTok’s cybersecurity risks.
Thanks to several legal complications, the debate largely died down and was eventually shelved in 2021 after President Joe Biden rejected former President Trump’s proposal. And you may have heard the sigh of relief from TikTok and the millions of influencers who make their living through social media.
But look at the irony of the times, like this app’s video looping feature, we’re back where it all started. According to Sensor, an app analytics company, when it was banned three years ago under President Trump, it had been downloaded by 800 million people worldwide, but now that number is 3.5 billion downloads.
Not only will this increase geopolitical tensions between China and the West, but it is clear that the future of TikTok globally is more at risk than ever.What are three cybersecurity concerns about TikTok that keep coming up, and how does the Chinese company respond to them?
TikTok Collects the ‘Bulk’ of Your Data
A representative from TikTok informed that the app’s data collection adhered to industry norms. Detractors frequently allege that TikTok gathers significant quantities of user data. A cybersecurity report published in July 2022 by researchers at the Australian cyber company Internet 2.0 is often cited as evidence of this.
The researchers examined the app’s source code and discovered that it extensively gathers data. Analysts said TikTok collects details such as users’ location, what specific device they are using, and what other apps are on the device. However, a similar study by Citizen Lab concluded that ‘TikTok collects similar data to understand user behavior compared to other popular social media platforms.’
Similarly, a recent report from the Georgia Institute of Technology in January stated that the important fact here is that most other social media and mobile apps do the same thing.
The Chinese Government can Spy on Users Using TikTok
A TikTok spokeswoman told that the company is completely independent and ‘has not provided user data to the Chinese government and we would not if we were asked to.’ While this worries privacy experts, most of us accept that handing over a large chunk of private data is part of the contract we make with social networks.
Social media platforms collect information about us in exchange for providing their services to us for free and use it to sell advertising on their platforms.
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The problem critics have with TikTok is that it is owned by Beijing-based tech company Byte Dance, which makes it unique as a non-US mainstream app. While Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube, among others, gather comparable data quantities, they are all American companies.
For years, US legislators, as well as the international community, have harbored trust in the safeguarding of this data by these platforms, believing it will not be misused to jeopardize national security.
Donald Trump’s order in 2020 claimed that TikTok’s data gathering could enable China to monitor the whereabouts of American government workers and contractors, compile personal information for possible blackmail, and potentially engage in ‘corporate espionage’.
However, the facts so far indicate that this is only a theoretical threat, but concerns have been heightened by an ambiguous Chinese law passed in 2017. China’s National Intelligence Law, as stated in Article Seven, requires all Chinese organizations and citizens to actively support and cooperate with Chinese intelligence efforts.
This provision has raised suspicions about not just TikTok but all Chinese companies. Despite the prevailing notion, the Georgia Institute of Technology’s researchers contends that the phrase has suffered from misconceptions, emphasizing that the legislation encompasses protective measures aimed at safeguarding the interests of both consumers and private enterprises.
Starting in 2020, TikTok’s leaders made multiple attempts to calm concerns by assuring the public that Chinese personnel lacked access to the information of non-Chinese users. However, in December, Byte Dance acknowledged that a number of its employees based in Beijing had indeed accessed the data of at least two American journalists and a small group of others.
Their objective was to monitor their whereabouts and verify whether they were engaging with TikTok employees suspected of leaking information. A spokesperson from TikTok confirmed that the employees who accessed the data were terminated in December.
The company insists that user data is kept in the US and Singapore and is never stored in China. The company says it is also in the process of building data stores elsewhere, for example in Ireland, where it plans to move all UK and EU customer data by 2024.
TikTok can be Used as a ‘Brain-Washing’ Weapon
A TikTok spokesperson says, ‘Our community guidelines prohibit misinformation that could harm our community or people at large, including engaging in unethical behavior.’
In November 2022, US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray told US lawmakers that “the Chinese government Algorithms can be controlled, and this can be used for influence operations.”
These concerns were reinforced when another app from the TikTok company, Duain, which is only available in China, has been heavily censored and allegedly used to encourage educational and similar content to go viral.
All social media networks in China are heavily censored, with an army of internet police deleting content that criticizes the government or incites political unrest. At the very beginning of TikTok’s rise, there were high-level cases of censorship on the app.
Like in the US when a user’s account was suspended for discussing the treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, China. Later, after a strong public backlash, TikTok apologized and reinstated the account.
There have been a few other cases of censorship on TikTok since then, and these are in addition to the controversial moderation that all platforms have to deal with. Citizen Lab researchers have compared TikTok and Duane. They concluded that TikTok does not implement the same political censorship.
Analysts at the Georgia Institute of Technology also explored topics such as Taiwan’s independence or Chinese Premier Xi Jinping’s jokes, concluding that many videos on all these topics can easily be found on TikTok which have been widely shared.
Theoretical Risk
So the overall picture that emerges from all this is one of ideological danger and fear. Critics say that TikTok is a ‘Trojan horse’. Despite its benign appearance, it possesses significant potential as a formidable weapon during periods of strife.
The app is already banned in India, which cracked down on dozens of other Chinese social media platforms, including TikTok, in 2020.However, given that US allies typically support such moves, the US ban on TikTok might have a significant impact on the social media network.
This was proven when the US successfully led a campaign to stop Chinese telecom giant Huawei from deploying 5G infrastructure. Although it was also based on ideological risk. Notably, the risks mentioned are unidirectional. China is unconcerned about US apps as its citizens have been prohibited from accessing them for several years.