DATA Breach? The impact of TikTok’s development on the U.S. government.

Topic:Privacy concerns Competing Addictive

POSTED BY: Leyao Cen 2023-10-01

Image: Chesnot/Getty Images.

Introduction:

TikTok is a trademark owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and its subsidiaries, and it is in the same class as China’s version of Jitterbug. TikTok comprises of short movies ranging from 3 seconds to 10 minutes in length that users may explore or submit for free, with adjustable settings, live streaming, and additional material. Within a year of its inception, TikTok has gained hundreds of millions of users and is the most downloaded app in Thailand and other countries. and rated first in other countries, such as Thailand, for app downloads. With superstars like Justin Bieber and Jennifer Lopez on board, more young people are opting to utilize TikTok and publish material, which may exceed a billion views in a single day.

How to use the TikTok?

Simple Alpaca(2022)

The development of TikTok is competing with local platforms in the United States

TikTok’s growth has been swift, and it has already surpassed 1.5 billion total downloads, surpassing both Facebook and Instagram. Whereas Instagram, as a local brand in the United States, has not been especially unique owing to its lengthy history of existence, TikTok has appeared out of nowhere in a much more original fashion, enticing a wider spectrum of people to test it out.

1.The way of video posting:
TikTok’s posting method will be more simple, just need to click to shoot and then post. On the other hand, instagram can only publish 15 seconds video, if you want to publish a long video, you need to generate it on IGTV, but this will make users feel too troublesome and cumbersome.
2. Business Methods
TikTok allows company owners to present their items by posting videos, as well as perform live selling activities on the site. You can display the product’s URL during the live broadcast and click on it to participate in the transaction. This advantageous condition might pique the curiosity of buyers who previously had no intention of purchasing the goods, causing them to “order with passion” and enhance the product’s sales.
3. Rejuvenation
The majority of TikTok users are younger than Instagram users and will adopt new stuff more quickly. This makes TikTok videos more popular among young people, and there are many celebrities on TikTok, attracting their admirers to utilize it.

Elise Darma(2019)

The impact of TikTok’s development on the US government.

While TikTok has gained in popularity, the US government has implemented a strategy of cracking down on it. Because TikTok is owned by a Chinese corporation, the regulatory backend is likewise located in China. Since its inception, Tiktok has amassed over 1 billion active users worldwide, including over 100 million in the United States. However, federal officials and security experts are concerned that the Communist Party of China may be gaining access to the data of US individuals and their representatives via the backdoor. This is because the Chinese have not specified how they would protect consumers’ personal information.ByteDance is subject to national security rules as a Chinese corporation, which force it to turn over data to Chinese authorities upon request or surrender its US shares to the US government. TikTok leverages big data to assess each user’s interests and push movies appropriately, because in the age of big data, all information is open and visible. In everyday life, users frequently talk to discuss the same item with friends or family, but after the discussion is through, these platforms will propose the related video, while no platform will acknowledge to listening to this behavior, but it happens to every user.

Project Texas

TikTok has launched the “Project Texas” program as a gesture of goodwill to the U.S. government. The framework has five key pillars.

1.Independent Governance: TikTok has established a specialized U.S. Digital Security Division (USDS), with managers chosen through a rigorous recruiting procedure. Ensure that each management has a solid understanding of US national security. Responsible for overseeing access to all material that the United States government believes requires enhanced safeguards against outside influences.
2.Data Protection and Access Control: Incoming and outgoing information is regulated by the USDS and any access to data information outside of the USDS is monitored to prevent information leakage.
3.Software Assurance: Any platform will be verified to verify that there is no illegal access to TikTok’s systems. Only validated code is allowed to run, and TikTok assures no system access.
4.Content Assurance: Ensures that the content that each TikTok user watches is not censored by the government. Content is reviewed based on user preferences, and algorithms are utilized to propose content to users while adhering to community guidelines.
5.Monitoring and Compliance: TikTok ensures that the security center in the United States is unparalleled, and that any issues that arise are subject to review by the U.S. government.

This project does not address the concerns of the US government, which believes that working US employees may be Chinese nationals, despite the fact that the US government has brought in hundreds of US expatriates in recent years, but the countries of these expatriates have not been made public, and logic suggests that the majority may be from China and India.TikTok has only said that Chinese workers will be denied access to the data, but has not pledged that Chinese nationals in the United States will be denied access as well. To safeguard the country’s information, the government feels it needs to develop another local platform to replace TikTok.

American flag displayed on a laptop screen, TikTok logo displayed on a phone screen and Ban sign displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this multiple exposure illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on March 27, 2023.

Credit: Jakub Porzycki/Nur Photo via Getty Images

US Vice President Joe Biden advised that TikTok be purchased by a US-based corporation to ensure that it may continue to be utilized in the US. When former US President Donald Trump sought a forced sale but was rejected by the Chinese government, the procedure became difficult. Although TikTok requested a delay in the program, it is very difficult to achieve. As a result, the United States government has chosen to create new software to replace TikTok, and Twitter’s CEO has stated that he is contemplating resurrecting vine, a previously defunct short-form video app.

Conclusion and Contradict

The growth of TikTok will jeopardize the information security of several governments. A number of governments have already taken steps to cut connections with the site.2020 India banned numerous Chinese applications, including TikTok and WeChat, due to privacy and security concerns along the India-China border. At least four times, Pakistan has temporarily banned TikTok, and numerous nations, including Canada, the United States, and Taiwan, have sought to restrict access to the app on government-issued smartphones. The United Kingdom has become the latest jurisdiction to prohibit TikTok from being used on government equipment.

But there are two sides to every coin; TikTok’s rise threatens America’s global monopoly, and China’s success may be seen as undermining America’s long-term geopolitical strategy. Gray, Joanne E. (2021) It is unclear whether there is still a selfish motive at work here when the US government questions TikTok on the basis of data security with the intention of forcing an acquisition of the Chinese shares. While the world’s most popular mainstream platforms have now all been founded by US corporations, TikTok has broken the monopoly of US firms, and the US has opted to prohibit it since it is unable to enforce its takeover of TikTok using its domestic platforms. The United States government’s prohibition on TikTok has given TikTok’s rivals additional attention for a short period of time, and JMP analysts believe Meta will profit the most if TikTok is banned in the United States. Facebook has been putting money into TikTok rival Reels in the goal of replacing TikTok’s prominence in the United States. When TikTok was at its peak in 2022, all US platforms saw a significant reduction in income, and to alleviate the problem, these platforms attempted to replicate TikTok but failed. In an interview, Boone stated, “If TikTok disappears, I think the consumption of Instagram Reels will increase dramatically.”It is very typical for the US government to repress TikTok in order to protect localized revenue while also monopolizing the international market.

Reference:

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Chesnot/Getty. (2019). In this photo illustration the logo of Chinese media app for creating… In Getty Images. https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/in-this-photo-illustration-the-logo-of-chinese-media-app-news-photo/1196062798

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TikTok. (2023, January 25). About Project Texas. TikTok. https://usds.tiktok.com/usds-about/