TikTok’s Parent Company, ByteDance Monitors American’s Locations
TikTok has been identified multiple times as a threat to national security, and it has been recommended by the FCC that Apple and Google remove the app from their stores. Why then, are millions of Americans still using the app to this day?
Breitbart recently reported that Chinese-owned technology developer, ByteDance, which is also TikTok’s parent company, planned to collect and “use location information to surveil individual American citizens, not to send them targeted ads.”
Because China is a communist country, private companies don’t truly exist apart from the powerful central government — ultimately, all user data belongs to the CCP. The popular video app monitors users, even if they are underage, and harvests their data for the direct benefit of the Chinese government. TikTok may even be able to access other apps, which could include banking data or worse.
Even though Americans know the risks, they aren’t willing to give up the wealth of entertainment for one simple reason — the algorithm is created to be unbelievably addictive, and targets younger audiences more than most other social platforms.
“At the very least, [TikTok’s algorithm] may manipulate a younger individuals perception of what is to be socially acceptable behavior and what are well formed beliefs.”
Medium
There is also a massive concern about the content being promoted to the young and very impressionable audiences. It has been determined that the content Chinese citizens receive sends a fundamentally different message via that predetermined algorithm than American citizens are given.
“The TikTok that Chinese residents, children in China, get to see is very different than the ones your kids are looking at here.”
“There’s also a huge genre on American TikTok of videos convincing your kids to get a sex change. None of this stuff comes up randomly, it’s curated, determined by an algorithm. Now on a Chinese TikTok, there are lots of videos of college graduations for example . . . so in China, TikTok is wholesome, affirming — in the United States, well, it’s a driver of social chaos.”
Tucker Carlson
In 2021, the Daily Mail reported that TikTok used its algorithm to promote transgender influencer’s content. This includes self-diagnosis information geared towards children struggling with identity — a completely normal feeling for young individuals that gets distorted by predators and profited off of by medical institutions.
For adults, the affect is slightly different. While China promotes math, science, education, nationalism, and other productive ideas, the version of the app that America receives is a waste of time, meant to numb the user and slow their attention span. Any idea or narrative can be sold to users, and the highest bidder typically gets the say in what narrative is pushed.
“In fact, TikTok influencers have become so important in the US now that at the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war, US President Joe Biden invited TikTok influencers to the White House and sought their support to push the US agenda online.”
Opindia
Adults, however, find the content so temporarily gratifying that they refuse to disconnect themselves from the app. Children are too impressionable to understand the underlying consequences of their addiction-driven consumption, which is why parents need to be aware and able to set boundaries that will protect their kids from harmful information.
