Partout, the dizzying expansion of TikTok, the opacity of its algorithm and its intrusive practices are sparking controversies which lead to restrictions of use, or even bans. The criticisms leveled at the mobile application for sharing short videos may vary from one state to another, but the controversy mainly crystallizes around the threats it poses to national security. These can be summarized in four points.
First, TikTok is accused of collecting private data – telephone number, location, financial information or even IP address of its users. The company’s management claims that this data is for the sole purpose of facilitating advertising targeting and that it is in no way sent to the Chinese parent company ByteDance. But leaked recordings of more than eighty internal meetings showed that ByteDance employees based in China had access to this data. These revelations invalidate the statements made under oath by TikTok executives.
To allay the fears of the American government, the Chinese company has undertaken to ensure that the data of users based in the United States is stored only in the country, this is the “Texas” project. These efforts are, however, unconvincing to the extent that storing data in the United States cannot completely guarantee that ByteDance employees in China will not have access to it.
But this threat must be put into perspective because China has much more effective means of accessing information with very high added value. This is illustrated by the theft, in 2014, of 21.5 million files from the United States Office of Personnel Management, notably containing the files of national security executives…
Secondly, ByteDance would be under the control of Chinese power, which the CEO of TikTok denied during his hearing before the United States House of Representatives. But the Chinese system does not ensure a clear separation between the party-state and society. In other words, no company is truly independent of power. This observation is confirmed by the establishment, since 2014, of a legislative framework requiring actors in Chinese society to cooperate with the intelligence services.
It is therefore simply unthinkable that a company like ByteDance could refuse to transmit the information in its possession. The founder of this company, Zhang Yiming, already had the bitter experience of this in 2018: he was then forced to close two of his applications, deemed contrary to the values of the regime, and to engage in self-criticism by writing an apology. public.
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