Once again, TikTok has been accused of taking the personal data of its users around the world to help China. This time, TikTok is being defended.
The latest accusation comes from the Head of Canada's Center for Cybersecurity, Sami Khoury. He asked netizens to be careful with the applications they use.
Reported by News.com Australia, Tuesday (31/1/2023) TikTok parent, ByteDance, is facing accusations from the European Union that it steals the personal data of its users. TikTok is accused of sharing user data with the Chinese government, starting from content, location, IP address and browsing traces.
Even so, TikTok denied. They say the Chinese government cannot ask for data without a valid legal request. The Chinese Communist Party does not control ByteDance or request user data from Canada. If so, ByteDance will reject it.
The defense for TikTok comes from veteran American podcaster Adam Curry. Adam said, the attack on TikTok was not a matter of personal data, but a matter of money and business from its rivals.
Curry said Google, Facebook and Instagram also collect user data just like TikTok. But the problem is that American companies are in a drag, hit by an economic recession and forced to lay off workers. This economic condition triggered an attack on TikTok, which is considered a smoother business.
"TikTok is eating Silicon Valley's money, they're taking all the advertising money from Facebook, Google, Instagram," said Curry.
Curry explained that all social media tracks the position of its users. However, it seems as if only TikTok is the source of the problem.
"This is because Silicon Valley cannot compete with them (TikTok). If there are companies like Facebook and Google that are tied to the government, they will try to use their influence," he explained.
Curry said, if it continues to control the market, TikTok will undoubtedly be banned in America. The TikTok situation has the upper hand compared to American technology companies.
Google just laid off 12 thousand employees. Amazon wants to lay off 18 thousand employees. Meta has just laid off 11,000 people, including those working on Instagram and WhatsApp. On January 18, 2023, Microsoft also announced the layoffs of 10,000 employees.
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