TikTok is the next Chinese product the U.S. could shoot down
From Market Watch:
…But there’s one point on which many Democrats and Republicans agree: TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, can theoretically scoop up vast amounts of user data on Americans and share it with the communist government in Beijing. This scooping can include more than user data, but also personal activity tracked both on and off the app.
This is seen as both a privacy and security issue, says Brandon Pugh, policy director of the cybersecurity and emerging threats team at the R Street Institute. He tells media outlet The Hill, which covers Congress, that TikTok’s vast data collection can be curated and leveraged in certain ways, and used to exploit Americans, particularly those “in sensitive positions or our most vulnerable populations like children…”