TikTok is one of the most popular apps in America, boasting more than 150 million active users. It is generally used as a social media forum, centering on short-form video content, typically between 15-60 seconds. Tiktok’s popularity led to the explosion of similar types of content on other social media platforms like Instagram and Youtube (CNN 2023).
On Thursday, March 20, 2023, Congress had a hearing about Chinese influence over TikTok and its effect on childrens’ mental health. This issue has surfaced because TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is China-based. The current CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, gave testimony during the hearing in response to questions asked by bi-partisan representatives from Congress (Reuters 2023).
Many Congress members were concerned about American security threats due to concerns regarding the Chinese government spying through TikTok (CNN 2023).
Republican Neal Dunn asked about U.S. media reports that a China-based team at ByteDance planned to use TikTok to monitor the locations of specific U.S. citizens and repeated his question about whether ByteDance was spying (Reuters 2023).
Chew replied that TikTok has no relationship with the communist Chinese government, stating “It is our commitment to this committee and all our users that we will keep [TikTok] free from any manipulation by any government (Reuters 2023).”
After this, Congress relayed that the Biden administration demands that all Chinese stakeholders in the company sell their stakes to US investors to help with security issues (Reuters 2023).
Chew, however, insisted that this is not an issue as information can be moved to storage centers in the US. The Chinese government also claimed that selling TikTok “will seriously damage the confidence of investors from all over the world, including China, to invest in the United States,” and that China would oppose any sale (Reuters 2023).
Some lawmakers cited these comments as evidence to reject TikTok’s claim that the Chinese government does not influence TikTok (Reuters 2023).
Chew continued to emphasize that TikTok is “committed to be very transparent with our users about what we collect. I don’t believe what we collect is more than most players in the industry.” This is indeed true, as confirmed by an independent study done by the Washington Post which revealed TikTok doesn’t collect more data than other mainstream social networking platforms (CNN 2023).
Still, some might say that it’s a lot of data, as it includes: what content you consume, your comments, messages, your location, and contacts. However, Chew adds that, unlike competitors, TikTok does not collect precise GPS information from users (CNN 2023 and Security 2022).
The truth is that TikTok does not collect data to spy on the American people, nor does it contain any sort of malware. However, everyone should always exercise caution when using any social media in the case of creators who are trying to take advantage of unsuspecting users (security 2022).
Many people also feel that messages sent through TikTok harm children’s mental health due to themes of encouraging suicide, eating disorders, illegal drug use, and sexual exploitation (CNN 2023 and Reuters 2023).
In response to many of these claims, Chew said that these themes are not unique to TikTok. Stating that the company is earnest about mental health and employs content moderation and artificial intelligence to monitor the spread of misinformation on the platform (Reuters 2023).
“TikTok could be designed to minimize the harm to kids, but a decision was made to aggressively addict kids in the name of profits,” said Democratic Representative Kathy Castor at the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce committee hearing (Reuters 2023).
Yet, the most prevalenet danger of using TikTok is not its addictive nature, but the scams that can be found on the platform. This includes types of scams such as romance scams, scam apps, more likes and followers, phishing, and cryptocurrency investment scams. However, such scams and tactics do not come from the company, but from the users themselves. Furthermore, they exist on all social media platforms. The Federal Trade Commission acknowledges that social media is a gold mine for scammers (Security 2022).
TikTok is like any other social media platform, plagued by the same problems. ByteDance is not using TikTok to take advantage of the American people, and the real danger comes from users and creators posting negative comments or running scans. Thus, to avoid such dangers, caution should always be used when using TikTok, and any other social media platform.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/tiktok-ceo-face-tough-questions-support-us-ban-grows-2023-03-23/
https://www.security.org/digital-safety/is-tiktok-safe/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/tech/tiktok-ceo-hearing/index.html