One of the most controversial aspects of TikTok, especially to United States audiences, is its ownership by Chinese technology company ByteDance. 

 

ByteDance, which released the original version of TikTok in late 2016, has had tremendous success with the application; so much so that the company is currently valued at more than $80 billion. 

 

United States lawmakers, however, are beginning to see this success as a “national security threat.” The worry is that not only does the Beijing-based company have access to American’s private information, but it could also easily censor what content is being displayed to them. 

 

After all, a similar situation is played out in China under the “Great Firewall,” a practice which censors most of the Western world’s internet presence from the Chinese population. Although there is a separate app created by ByteDance specifically for Chinese users called “Douyin”, it is unclear whether censoring could occur on TikTok as well. 

 

Not only is censoring an issue, but it seems there are also some major security flaws within the app itself.

 

In January of 2020, a cybersecurity firm called Check Point revealed that it had found multiple vulnerabilities in TikTok’s code. One of these vulnerabilities allowed hackers to take control of user’s accounts, manipulating uploads and revealing private user information. Another flaw allowed hackers to send malicious links via fake text messages appearing to be from TikTok. 

 

With such extreme success and a primary audience that is very young, it is easy to see why both of these issues pose great concern.

 

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Learn more: 

• https://digiday.com/media/everything-you-need-to-know-about-bytedance-the-company-behind-tiktok/

• https://www.howtogeek.com/536434/what-exactly-is-tiktok-and-why-are-teens-obsessed-with-it/

• https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/09/tiktok-security-flaw-found-that-allowed-hackers-to-access-accounts.html