TikTok Is China’s Trojan Horse

As Human Rights Watch has warned in the past, the Chinese government has been collecting highly personal data for years, all in an effort to bolster its biometric database. As the CCP exerts more influence internationally, could the CCP be using one of the most popular apps in the world to bolster its levels of mass surveillance and data harvesting? Is TikTok actually a Trojan horse? There is every reason to think so.

The Chinese government has called on its biggest tech companies, including ByteDance, to “open up the data they collect from social media, e-commerce and other businesses,” according to journalist Lingling Wei.

And, with 100 million monthly TikTok users across the U.S, ByteDance would provide the CCP with an inconceivable amount of highly personal information. This, of course, is worrying on many levels. Of all the 195 countries in the world, when it comes to use of invasive and abusive technologies, China is by far the worst offender. With more than 200 million CCTV cameras across the country — four times more than in the United States — the CCP monitors its citizens’ every move, punishing them for the most innocuous of offenses. With ByteDance, the apple doesn’t fall far from the all-seeing tree. The company recently released a “smart homework lamp,” with two built-in cameras, that monitors children as they study. How comforting.

Read more at National Review.