Conspiracy theorists won’t use social media because they believe the government is watching… and they just might be right.
However, it just isn’t the United States government.
According to a new Reuters report, the hottest new platform in social media, TikTok, is now being investigated for possible national security risks.
Possible Data Violations
Beijing Byte Dance Technology Co. acquired the app in a $1 billion deal about two years ago.
Tiktok is very popular in the under 24 demographic and is similar in nature to Snap Chat and Vine.
The platform has been blowing up over the last year, but there are now concerns the Chinese company that owns the app may not be operating on the up and up.
Even though the deal happened two years ago, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) never gave clearance to TikTok when the deal was made, so it still has the authority to investigate.
Two of the major concerns are the storage of personal data as well as the possible censoring of political content.
A TikTok spokesperson stated, “While we cannot comment on ongoing regulatory processes, TikTok has made clear that we have no higher priority than earning the trust of users and regulators in the U.S. Part of that effort includes working with Congress and we are committed to doing so.”
The investigation into TikTok was spurred with a bipartisan letter from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR).
In addition to the concerns mentioned above, they were both worried about the possibility of the platform being used by foreign entities to influence the upcoming election.
Another politician that has voiced concern is Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL).
He noticed there were very few videos of the protests in Honk Kong, which was curious considering how that narrative has “been dominating international headlines for months.”
Rubio added, “Any platform owned by a company in China which collects massive amounts of data on Americans is a potential serious threat to our country.”
So, if your child is one of the millions of children using TikTok, you may want to have them delete the app until this investigation is completed just to be on the safe side.