Remember, Kor Kor Is Watching
TikTok has had a pretty insane 2019. The app rose to prominence thanks to how easy it made it for people to make funny, meme worthy videos and while we’ve dubbed it a trash app in the past, there’s no denying that TikTok has become a must download app, and understandably so. The app has become so popular that even US military personnel are using it to document their adventures. And it’s that last sentence that has US government officials so worried that they’ve resorted to banning the app on government issued phones.
While TikTok may seem like a stupid, mindless, harmless app made for people with an IQ cap of 16 or something, to US Senators, it’s a national security threat. You see, TikTok is actually owned by Chinese company ByteDance, and while that may not be an issue to the average country, the US is no average country. It’s America the great and powerful, and with that title, comes… enemies.. and stuff.
Anyway, the argument is that ByteDance, by nature of being a Chinese company is required to adhere to China’s laws and could be pressured to cooperate with intelligence work by the Chinese Communist Party. Just to be clear, there hasn’t actually been any evidence of suspicious activity. In theory however, ByteDance could actually be compelled to give up US soldiers sensitive information to the Chinese government, and while the company have dismissed such claims (to the point where there have been reports that it’s considering selling control of TikTok just to reassure US officials), it’s done little to quell fears.
With words such as “cyber threat” and “counterintelligence threat” being thrown around by US senators, the fear mongering continues. With the US Navy having already banned the app late last year, the US army is following suit and already started warning soldiers in mid-December.
It’s worth noting that while they have the power to ban the app from government issued phones, they cannot enforce that ban on personal phones, so military personnel can still technically use TikTok. I suppose Uncle Sam is going to have to trust that US soldiers aren’t dumb enough to expose any sensitive data on TikTok.
Who would’ve thought that a harmless app like TikTok would get a whole government riled up eh? That’s 2020 for you, I guess.
