In addition to security concerns, it is most likely a hand-wringing between China and the United States for technological and economic leadership.
The relationship between Tiktok and the USA has escalated. Stella Pictures
The US administration has demanded that China’s Bytedance give up its ownership of the social media service Tiktok.
If the application is not sold, the United States threatens to completely ban the application in the country. CEO of Tiktok Shou Zi Chew will visit Washington to discuss the matter.
– A change of ownership would not make matters easier in terms of data security or change the use of data, Tiktok’s representative Maureen Shanahan stated in the company’s press release.
The Washington Post according to what is likely to be the barbeque of all time, where lawmakers argue on Capitol Hill about the reliability of an app used by 150 million Americans.
Also a former president Donald Trump stated during his administration that he intended to ban the use of the application in the United States unless the Chinese ownership was given up. However, this did not happen in the end.
China amid espionage charges
The US has recently accused China of espionage. Last month, the US shot down a Chinese spy ball.
Suspicious eyes have now shifted to Tiktok. Several experts have said that Tiktok collects a massive amount of data from its users, which the Chinese government could get its hands on if it wanted to.
The company has said that it is investing 1.5 billion dollars to improve data security in the United States. However, this does not seem to be enough for the Americans.
of the New York Times according to, in addition to data security concerns, it is the president Joe Biden a hand-wringing between the administration and the Chinese government for technological and economic leadership.
A threat to democracy
Professor Emeritus of Information Network Technology at Aalto University Raimo Kantola says that a massive amount of data could create a threat to democracy.
– The risk of misuse of a large amount of data is real, says Kantola.
Kantola reminds us of the case of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, where voters’ behavior was controlled on social media. With the help of the data collected by social media, users are profiled and content can be targeted to them.
In Tiktok’s case, the data is stored on Chinese servers, which also creates political value for the data.
Use of the application is prohibited on US landlines. The application is also prohibited on the phones of the EU, Great Britain, Denmark and Belgium administrations. The Finnish Government does not recommend using the application.
Tiktok is a social media application especially popular with young people, which has around 800 million users.