Social media in general doesn't have the best track record on misusing user data so I would not think TikTok any better despite its protestations to the contrary. I'll grant that access by the Chinese government is not necessarily a given, but we do know that Chinese companies are very much obliged to accede to any commands by their government. Should the PRC have a desire for it, and should they consider themselves to have even a thin veneer of deniability, I am confident they'd make use of it.
IIRC during the Trump Presidency it was primarily President Trump himself that made this accusation and it was not clear his source of information-- whether he had specific information about it or was making the claim out of suspicion or a simple matter of political posturing as part of his more adversarial approach to Chinese relationships.
The linked story on the other hand details more specific & supported details stemming from more than a year after Trump's presidency & TikTok's assurances that it was not doing exactly this.
In short, what were mostly unsupported claims during <= 2020 have now been significantly substantiated.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 16.9 ms ] threadSocial media in general doesn't have the best track record on misusing user data so I would not think TikTok any better despite its protestations to the contrary. I'll grant that access by the Chinese government is not necessarily a given, but we do know that Chinese companies are very much obliged to accede to any commands by their government. Should the PRC have a desire for it, and should they consider themselves to have even a thin veneer of deniability, I am confident they'd make use of it.
I feel like a Roman reading todays paper
The linked story on the other hand details more specific & supported details stemming from more than a year after Trump's presidency & TikTok's assurances that it was not doing exactly this.
In short, what were mostly unsupported claims during <= 2020 have now been significantly substantiated.
Ya know, like with all the other tech firms they squeeze