O TikTok is at risk of being banned in the United States later this month, which could leave more than 170 million Americans without access to the social network.
vote to maintain or suspend the American in April that foresees the ban of the application in the country due to concerns about the social network’s ties with China. The text by its parent company, China’s ByteDance, to an American company, or face a ban in the US.
The law will come into force from January 19, unless the Supreme Court judges veto the text.
The justification given by the US government for this is concern that the Chinese government could use its national security laws to demand access to the data collected by TikTok from its users – which could help China discover predilections or weaknesses of a potential recruit. spy or target of blackmail in the USA.
The US government has no proof that this has ever occurred. TikTok’s CEO, , has publicly said that the Chinese government has never asked TikTok for data and that the company would refuse any such request.
This is not the first time that the social network has faced problems with the laws of other countries or been threatened. Remember other controversies involving TikTok:
User data collection
In 2020, we worked with a privacy researcher to understand what data was being collected from TikTok users: the conclusion was that the ByteDance app collects a similar amount of data to other social networks widely used by Americans, such as Facebook or X, formerly Twitter.
The following year, Pellaeon Lin, a Taiwan-based researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, performed a technique that reached similar conclusions. The research, however, did not have access to what happened to the data after it was collected.
The personal data we provide TikTok with access to includes: information about the videos you watch, comments you write, private messages you send, and — if you agree to grant this level of access — your exact geolocation and contact lists. of TikTok also says the company collects your email address, phone number, age, search and browsing history, information about what’s in the photos and videos you upload, and, if you consent, the contents of your viewing area. transfer from your device so you can copy and paste information into the app.
Other companies that own digital platforms, however, often ask for similar access – but, as they are American, they do not pose a threat to the US government.
User activity tracking
Some have also pointed out that TikTok is tracking its users’ activities across the internet, even when they are not using the app. By embedding tracking pixels on third-party websites, TikTok may collect information about a website’s visitors.
TikTok responded to this accusation by explaining that it uses the data to bolster its advertising business. And in this respect, the Chinese app is not unique: The same tool is used by US tech giants, including Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, and Google on a much larger scale, according to , a leading cybersecurity company.
Espionage of journalists
A 2022 report found that TikTok was spying on journalists at the American publication Forbes, snooping on their user data and IP addresses to find out when or if certain reporters were sharing the same location as ByteDance employees.
TikTok confirmed the incident, and ByteDance subsequently fired several employees who improperly accessed the two journalists’ TikTok data. The circumstances of this case suggest that it was not a large-scale intelligence effort driven by the Chinese government – as the US fears – but rather an internal initiative by some ByteDance employees to hunt down leaks to the press.
Escaped US ban in 2020
In 2020, the ByteDance app came close to being banned by then-President Donald Trump, who ordered a ban on the social network in the United States citing national security concerns.
The country’s courts, however, did not carry out the order given by Trump, and in 2021 the new president Joe Biden ended up revoking the proposal.
Video censorship accusations
Between 2020 and 2021, TikTok was also the target of criticism and accusations that it was boycotting certain content from people outside the aesthetic standard established as beautiful by society.
In one case, the social network was accused by models and a plus size fashion brand of . TikTok had expressed itself saying that, in some cases, it ends up censoring content to, according to the brand, avoid bullying, which did not go down well with users.
Prohibition in India
In June 2020, the country – which until then was TikTok’s largest market in the world – following a border conflict with China that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead.
The ban happened overnight, without prior warning, and also affected other popular Chinese apps in the country.
