Privacy concerns continue for China-based social media platform TikTok. According to the FBI’s latest statement, the company poses an extremely critical national security threat. The data on TikTok is thought to be shared with the Chinese government.
FBI: We are extremely worried about TikTok
Recent statements by FBI Director Christopher Wray have revealed the institution’s point of view towards TikTok. He accused the China-based company of endangering the safety of US and European users. Wray argued that this danger had widened to affect political voting results.
“We have national security concerns on TikTok on the FBI side,” the FBI Director told the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee. “It includes the possibility of the Chinese government using it to control data collection on millions of users,” he said.
Drawing attention to the recommendation algorithm offered by TikTok to users, the FBI stated that controlling the software on millions of devices is equivalent to controlling the thoughts of millions of people. This also brought up a new restriction to the platform.
TikTok is known to have more than 140 million users in the US. However, since Generation Z constitutes a large part of this number, it is thought to pose a comprehensive threat to national security. It also surpassed Google to become the world’s most popular website last year.
TikTok has also become a topic of discussion with a new security policy a while ago. The platform, which radically changed the privacy policy regarding data accessibility, allowed Chinese employees to access EU and UK data.
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