- The United States, Denmark and Canada have banned TikTok in certain facilities in their countries for fear of personal data exploitation.
- The Chinese social network, which is hugely popular among young people around the world, has come under fire from critics. He admitted a few weeks ago that employees used data to stalk journalists.
- Today, the risk of a population-wide blackout seems remote, but tensions are a testament to a technological battle between China and the West.
The list starts to grow. A few hours later Washingtonwhich on Tuesday ordered its federal authorities to ban it Tick tock of their devices within thirty days, Denmark has emulated the American giants. Parliamentarians and all parliament staff had to remove the Chinese social network from their devices, highlighting “a risk of espionage”. Canada And The European Commission had also outsourced the mobile application for sharing videos, which is very popular among teenagers around the world.
Should these bans, which currently only affect institutions, worry the platform’s billions of active users? Not really, loud Stéphanie Laporte, director of the social media agency OTTA and Director of Masters in Digital Communication at Inseec. “It would be complicated to ban TikTok, it’s really come into use. It would also be tantamount to reproducing what we ourselves accuse the Chinese of banning Western social networks in their country. On the other hand, institutional bans could persist, particularly in sensitive sectors such as nuclear energy. »
The current tensions against the Chinese social network versus Westerners were linked around a central issue: data leak. “When you install TikTok, you grant access to many rights. This is a major potential information leak that could be exploited by the Chinese authorities,” says Corinne Hénin, independent cybersecurity specialist.
Espionage, tracking, etc. Cyber risks are “highly identified”. “TikTok was pinned in October 2022 because it integrated a tracking pixel that makes it possible to locate internet users, even those who do not have the application installed. These pixels are present on websites (.org, .gouv, .educ) and sometimes on sensitive issues such as family planning, religious issues, etc., stresses Stéphanie Laporte, before noting a certain Western inconsistency. These practices have been in place at Gafam, and Facebook in particular, for fifteen years. »
TikTok admits to stalking journalists
For our expert, the tensions surrounding TikTok are just another episode in the “technological cold war” that the West and China find themselves in over the issue of “control of data and cyberspace.” In 2020, Donald Trump had already tried to ban the Chinese network before Joe Biden initially backed down when he took power.
Westerners’ fears are partially justified. TikTok admitted in November that some employees in China could access European user data, and admitted in December that employees used the data to track journalists. At the time, ByteDance, the group’s parent company, denied any collusion with the Chinese authorities.
“What also worries Westerners is the development of an ideological perspective on TikTok’s use of the application,” notes Corinne Hénin. In China, the government strictly regulates the use of the platform by limiting the screen time of the youngest; In the west, the algorithm developed by TikTok will tend to attract public attention.
Personal data, cybersecurity, battle of influences, etc. In order to shorten the debate, in 2020 India opted for a radical decision: to ban the launch of TikTok Joschown social network, financed in particular by… Google and Microsoft.
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