Very recently, Elon Musk appeared to attack TikTok, questioning if the Chinese-owned social media platform was destroying the earth.
He is Fearless
Musk’s statement comes after he revealed his plan to buy Twitter for $54.20 per stake in a deal worth $44 billion in April.
“Is TikTok wreaking havoc on civilization?” Musk sent out a tweet. “Some individuals believe that or possibly social media at large.”
Musk’s post comes after BuzzFeed News published a report late last week, alleging TikTok workers in China were accessing critical U.S. customer data, despite the firm previously stating the data would only be accessible from within the United States.
Because Chinese enterprises are under the authority of the Chinese Communist Party, US officials are concerned that ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, may obtain US customer data.
Elon Musk comes to defense of 'Libs of TikTok' over Twitter death threats https://t.co/MZjHnysXjE pic.twitter.com/ogLBGkKsfw
— New York Post (@nypost) June 14, 2022
“As a type of ‘data espionage,’ the state may force ByteDance to gather and pass over information,” the paper added.
“Another fear is the Chinese government’s soft power may influence how ByteDance execs tell their American colleagues to alter the levers of TikTok’s strong ‘For You’ system, which suggests videos to more than one billion subscribers.
For example, Sen. Ted Cruz described TikTok as “a Trojan the Chinese Communist Party may employ to affect what Americans see, hear, and eventually think.”
“Everything is viewed in China,” one TikTok executive reportedly claimed at an internal business session. A top TikTok official allegedly said at a second meeting that a China-based computer programmer had “access to just about everything.”
According to BuzzFeed’s report, the evidence clearly shows “stored data in the United States was obtained far more commonly and lately than reported earlier.”
It shows the scientific proof “suggests the business may have misled legislators, its users, and the community by trying to downplay that stored data in the United States could still be made accessible by employees in China.”
TikTok is Bad News
A Forbes article from a few years ago revealed a number of issues with the Chinese-owned corporation.
“US military forces have prohibited people from using it, describing it as a cybersecurity danger.”
Check Point, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, researched it and found backdoor, serious flaws, as well as general security concerns. The United States government is also looking into it.
Is TikTok destroying civilization? Some people think so.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2022
However, Steve Huffman, the CEO and co-founder of Reddit, brands it as a “fundamentally parasitic program that is constantly listening” and cautions against installing “malware.”
Several child advocate organizations have said it is an obvious risk to children. According to Forbes, Apple claims to have captured TikTok, utilizing clipboard capture methods to eavesdrop on millions of users.
Matt Pottinger, former senior Asia consultant in the National Security Council, and David Feith, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, alerted of China’s efforts to monopolize the global fight for data in an op-ed.
