TikTok: How the app got caught in the clash between the United States and China

With its eclectic mix of viral dance craziness and lip-syncing comedy sketches, TikTok has become a phenomenon among young people.

But with strong ties to China, it is the latest company to come under attack as tensions rise between President Xi’s China and President Trump.

The United States and Australia are considering banning the app, and India has already withdrawn it from app stores.

What is the TikTok?

TikTok is a free application as a shortened version of YouTube. Users can post videos of up to one minute in length and choose from a large database of songs and filters.

Comedy clips and movie quotes are also offered so users can sync their lips.

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Once a user has more than 1,000 followers, they can also stream live to their fans and accept digital gifts that can be exchanged for money.

The application displays the videos of the people a user follows and, more prominently, the content that the application chooses based on what they have seen before.

Private messaging is also available between users.

How big is it?

Since the beginning of 2019, the app has regularly appeared near the top of the download lists.

Pandemic blockades have also been credited for sparking increased interest, propelling Tiktok and its sister app Douyin, which is available in mainland China, to an estimated two billion downloads worldwide, with approximately 800 millions of active users.

The app has been downloaded by far the most frequently in India, but the Delhi ban means China is currently its main market, followed by the United States.

What are the TikTok links in China?

TikTok started life as three different apps.

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fake pictures

The first was an American app called Musical.ly, which was launched in 2014. In 2016, Chinese tech giant Bytedance launched a similar service in China called Douyin.

ByteDance expanded globally under a different name: TikTok.

In 2018 Bytedance bought Musical.ly and dubbed it on their TikTok trade.

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Bytedance

ByteDance has tried to distance its app from its Chinese property, naming former Disney senior executive Kevin Mayer as CEO of TikTok.

How much data does TikTok collect?

TikTok collects a large amount of data about its users, including:

• what videos are watched and commented
• location data
• phone model and operating system used
• the keystroke rhythms that people exhibit when they type.

Some of the app’s data collection has been awe-inspiring, including the recent revelation that it was regularly reading users’ copy-and-paste clipboards.

But this was also found to be the case for dozens of other apps, including Reddit, LinkedIn, the New York Times, and the BBC News app, and nothing dire seems to be happening.

Much of the general TikTok collection is comparable to other data-hungry social networks like Facebook. However, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, a privacy watchdog, is investigating the app.

Could China use TikTok to spy on people?

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that TikTok users are at risk of having their data end up “in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”

TikTok has repeatedly insisted that the data is collected and stored outside of China.

“The suggestion that we are somehow under the control of the Chinese government is totally and completely false,” Theo Bertram, head of public policy for TikTok for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told the BBC.

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However, as with Huawei, the arguments against TikTok appear to be based on the theoretical possibility that the Chinese government will force ByteDance under local law to release data on foreign users.

The 2017 National Security Law in China obliges any organization or citizen to “support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work” in accordance with the law.

Bertram said that if the Chinese government approached TikTok, “we would definitely say no to any request for data.”

But ByteDance will take into account the consequences of displeasing the Communist Party.

The company’s own very popular news app called Toutiao went offline for 24 hours in 2017, according to the South China Morning Post, after the Beijing Internet Information Office said it had been spreading “pornographic and vulgar content.”

Rejecting a direct order from the country’s spies could also have consequences for the company as a whole and its leadership.

Could TikTok be used for Chinese propaganda?

Another concern is censorship.

China has one of the world’s most restricted internet spaces, with its infamous Great Firewall that blocks parts of the web for its citizens.

Last year, The Guardian reported that TikTok staff and automated systems had enforced restraint rules that censored material deemed politically sensitive. Images of the Tiananmen Square protests and demands for Tibetan independence were among the material said to be prohibited or restricted.

Other reports from the Washington Post, which spoke to six former TikTok employees, said moderators in China had the final say on whether the marked videos were approved.

ByteDance said the referenced guidelines had been phased out.

But some argue that their culture of moderation may still be biased in favor of the Chinese state.