Srs Bsns: A Closer Inspection Into Why TikTok Is Now Facing Bans Around The World

In the last couple of weeks, one of the web's fastest-growing platforms in recent years has become the subject of intense scrutiny around the world. The app in question, of course, is the Chinese video-sharing and networking app TikTok.

After being banned in India at the end of June 2020, TikTok is now facing potential bans in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. But why exactly is this happening now? Let’s take a closer look at what exactly initiated the recent TikTok ban movement and some of the other major incidents over the years since TikTok spread outside China’s border.

Although the app initially released in 2016, TikTok didn’t expand worldwide until 2017 and 2018 when it merged with Musical.ly, becoming available in the U.S. for the first time. TikTok quickly became the most downloaded app in the U.S. in October 2018 (the first Chinese app to do so) and continued to rise in popularity around the globe, eventually reaching over one billion downloads in early 2019 (now over 2 billion). Despite this late rise in the 2010s, TikTok was eventually noted as the 7th-most-downloaded app of the decade, so there’s no denying its significance.

Alongside its rise in popularity, TikTok has continually faced scrutiny before the latest ban discussions. As early as November 2019, Reuters reported that the U.S. government was monitoring TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, launching an official national security review into the acquisition of Musical.ly. At the tail end of 2019 and early 2020, TikTok faced some of its first major bans after military branches in the U.S. banned the app across the board, heading the Pentagon’s message that there was “a potential risk associated with using the app.”

For many, one of the most glaring issues stems from the fact that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is based in Bejing, and the company has close ties to the Chinese government … not exactly known for being trustworthy when it comes to personal information, censorship and a slew of other concerns. Speaking of censorship, The Washington Post published an article on September 15th, 2019, noting that TikTok was actively censoring videos of the Hong Kong protests. Just 10 days later, the Guardian then revealed that TikTok instructed moderators to censor videos that even mentioned sensitive topics surrounding the CCP.

Back in April, a viral post from Redditor bangorlol, who stated they reverse-engineered the app, revealed what exactly was going on behind the scenes while TikTok was being used on a smartphone. In the post, bangorlol claimed that “TikTok is a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network,” listing a series of information that the app was allegedly collecting from users:

• Phone hardware (cpu type, number of course, hardware ids, screen dimensions, dpi, memory usage, disk space, etc)
• Other apps you have installed (I've even seen some I've deleted show up in their analytics payload – maybe using as cached value?)
• Everything network-related (ip, local ip, router mac, your mac, wifi access point name)
• Whether or not you're rooted/jailbroken
• Some variants of the app had GPS pinging enabled at the time, roughly once every 30 seconds – this is enabled by default if you ever location-tag a post IIRC
• They set up a local proxy server on your device for "transcoding media", but that can be abused very easily as it has zero authentication

A guy on reddit reversed engineered #TikTokHere’s what he found on the data it collects on youIt’s far worse than just stealing what’s on your clipboard: pic.twitter.com/oqaQyYDXT2

— Dan Okopnyi 🇺🇦 (@d1rtydan) June 28, 2020

The post goes on to explain additional concerns, such as TikTok’s ability to detect when people are looking into its code and changing the app’s behavior, remotely downloading a zip file of Android users’ data, leaking private information of users due to the app not using HTTPS and simulating virality of posts to entice users to stay on the platform. In the end, bangorlol admits that other social media apps, such as Instagram and Reddit, also collect user data, but nowhere near the same amount, as well as “Outright trying to hide exactly what’s being sent like TikTok is.”

In late June 2020, users also discovered after Apple’s iOS 14 update that TikTok was actively grabbing the contents of users’ clipboards even while they were typing outside of the app. TikTok later released a statement and said it would end the practice after this was revealed, and the app no longer scrapes this data.

Okay so TikTok is grabbing the contents of my clipboard every 1-3 keystrokes. iOS 14 is snitching on it with the new paste notification pic.twitter.com/OSXP43t5SZ

— Jeremy Burge (@jeremyburge) June 24, 2020

If anyone questions whether or not the CCP has access to this data TikTok collects, look no further than China’s National Intelligence Law. According to a 2018 analysis by the Canadian government on this law, Article 14 of the document states that Chinese national intelligence institutions may “request relevant organs, organisations, and citizens provide necessary support, assistance, and cooperation.” Article 16 also states that intelligence officials “may enter relevant restricted areas and venues; may learn from and question relevant institutions, organisations, and individuals; and may read or collect relevant files, materials or items.”

All of this scrutiny aside, June 2020 would ultimately prove to be the tipping point for worldwide, sweeping bans of the app around the world, beginning with India’s ban of 59 Chinese apps on June 29th, including TikTok. Following the ban, the U.S. and Australia also said they were considering similar bans. In a Fox News interview with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in early July, he confirmed that “it’s something we’re looking at” when asked about a potential ban.

Sec. Pompeo when asked if the Administration has considered banning TikTok: “We’re certainly looking at it.” pic.twitter.com/N9NmbDOka0

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) July 7, 2020

Some are speculating that the recent push for bans is more so politically motivated. Yesterday, YouTuber SomeOrdinaryGamers released a video about the bans and stated, "The government doesn't give a shit about you. They're literally doing it to push an agenda." Before banning the app in India, news broke that border skirmishes had erupted between it and China, even resulting in the deaths of a number of soldiers. The U.S., especially as of late, has also made it well-known that relations between it and China aren’t exactly on the best of terms, and the same can be said for Australia and much of the West.

Whether or not the recent pressure for banning TikTok stems from national security concerns, protecting the private information of citizens or merely the posturing of political rivals, it seems as though TikTok will continue to face such scrutiny in the days ahead. A total ban is still on the table in a number of countries worldwide, but what the ultimate outcome of this latest debate surrounding one of the biggest apps in the world remains to be seen. Whatever ultimately happens, it will undoubtedly mark an unprecedented shift in the tech world.

Those 4 tiktok girls rnpic.twitter.com/h74COvUqgY

— Alex (@SlayBater2) July 7, 2020