Yes, you read the heading correctly, TikTok might be a threatening app.
For those of you who don’t know, TikTok is an app that consists of videos ranging fro 15-60 seconds of random funny, artistic, and aesthetic videos. TikTok can be compared to Vine, which was a similar app that ended in 2017. There were rumors that Vine ended due to content creators taking it too far and harming themselves during stunts they would do. Could TikTok be in a frenzy as well now?
TikTok is a Chinese-owned app that is super popular in the United States. Senators, Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton, requested for U.S. intelligence officials to investigate for any threats to American national security. In order to start their investigation, they turn to TikTok’s data practices to decide if the Chinese government has any evidence or control on what specific content U.S. citizens can see on TikTok.
Overtime there was concern over companies that had relations with China. In the article it states: “China hawks like Cotton and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) launched attacks against telecom companies like Huawei and ZTE regarding their allegiance to the Chinese government” (Kelly, M). There has been similarity of criticism with the issue mentioned, on TikTok. This can be an issue because TikTok is used active worldwide and over 120 million times in America.
Quote from the article: “These Chinese-owned apps are increasingly being used to censor content and silence open discussion on topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese Government and Community Party,” Rubio said at the time (Kelly, M). This quote is very interesting to me, I feel like the Chinese-app is mostly ran by American citizens. The U.S. is more open-minded and open for discussion which is interesting that these Chinese-owned apps are being used to censor.
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