In the sights of European and American authorities because of its aggressive collection of personal data, TikTok could be banned in the United States.
At least that is the recommendation of Brendan Carr, commissioner at the FCC, the federal telecommunications commission. He is worried about the amount of data collected by the company, whose parent company is based in China, and their potential use. A concern still heightened currently in the United States, in an electoral context.
Social networks have become a national defense issue
2016 showed those who might have doubted the powerful role that different social networks can have during an election. It was in fact during this year that, thanks to the data collected in what will be called the Cambridge Analytica affair, major opinion campaigns were developed in favor of Brexit and then the election of Donald Trump. Facebook, often singled out when talking about the security of personal information, is not the only one concerned: the economic model of these platforms is based on the collection of data, and they can therefore potentially all be used, in their unknowingly or not, for the benefit of political actors.
The case of TikTok is particular. The meteoric growth of the video editing and sharing platform places it among the most important in the world, especially among young people. But if its data collection does not really differ in the type or quantity of information collected, it has a particularity: Bytedance, its parent company, is based in China.
Can we really ban TikTok?
While Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and other behemoths in the sector are based in the United States, Americans are discovering the vulnerability of the data collected by the platforms and the ease with which it can be stored outside the country. And in the case of TikTok, in a country which is certainly not an enemy but which remains a rival, in disagreement on many international subjects.
In front of members of the House of Representatives, Brendan Carr thus declared at the beginning of the year: TikTok is a sophisticated surveillance tool that collects large amounts of sensitive data “. Carr is not the only one shouting it in the desert, but the feasibility of such a ban remains to be estimated: with 94 million American registrants on the platform, such a decision could not be made without raising strong protests. country users. The example of India, however, still unique in the world for the moment, proves that it is possible to ban the Chinese platform and could give ideas to many countries.
Sources: CNBC, Reuters, CNet
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