TikTok: No Risk You Think?
June 28, 2021
I snipped a segment from my most recent lecture about the new Dark Web as this week’s DarkCyber video. More information about the program will appear on Tuesday, June 28, 2021. For now, I want to highlight the “real” news outfit CNBC and its take on TikTok. Remember that TikTok is harmless at least according to one Silicon Valley pundit and aspiring CIA professional.
“TikTok Insiders Say Social Media Company Is Tightly Controlled by Chinese Parent ByteDance” reports as actual factual information instantly doubted by Silicon Valley pundits:
This recruiter, along with four other former employees, told CNBC they’re concerned about the popular social media app’s Chinese parent company, which they say has access to American user data and is actively involved in the Los Angeles company’s decision-making and product development. These people asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from the company.
Hey, how about a quote from Jack Ma about the wonderfulness of the Chinese business methodology?
The write up adds:
Most notably, one employee said that ByteDance employees are able to access U.S. user data. This was highlighted in a situation where an American employee working on TikTok needed to get a list of global users, including Americans, who searched for or interacted with a specific type of content — that means users who searched for a specific term or hashtag or liked a particular category of videos. This employee had to reach out to a data team in China in order to access that information. The data the employee received included users’ specific IDs, and they could pull up whatever information TikTok had about those users. This type of situation was confirmed as a common occurrence by a second employee.
If you are interested in the value of data from a mere app, check out the DarkCyber program for June 28, 2021.
Stephen E Arnold, June 28, 2021
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
