International Special Special
The competition between the two major powers of the United States and China has increased, and data security has also been pushed to the front line of the game. China's short video sharing applied to the international version of Tiktok, which is facing layers of pressure from the United States, Europe, and other countries, They are worried that the application may risk network security and data privacy. Tiktok, which has more than 1 billion users worldwide, has recently been announced by Western countries and government agencies to disclose Tiktok on the official equipment on the grounds of security issues. Where does TIKTOK threatened from national security composition?What did TIKTOK make to deal with the concerns of various countries?
U.S. President Biden signed a bill last December to prohibit federal institutional employees from using or downloading Tiktok in government equipment.On February 27 this year, the White House issued a notice based on the legislation, limiting all federal institutions to uninstall the Tiktok applications in the equipment and system within 30 days to protect American data security.
In addition, 12 cross -party senior seniors proposed a bill on March 7 that the president must authorize the president to be threatened based on Guoan and prohibit the use of Tiktok and other foreign technology.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday (March 15) even quoted the news that the US government asked Tiktok's Chinese parent company by Bytedance to sell Tiktok shares, otherwise the United States may ban this application nationwide.
The equipment equipment of many countries such as Europe and the United States and New Zealand use TIKTOK
In addition to the United States, other countries and institutions such as the United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, European Commission and European Parliament have also announced similar measures to prohibit civil servants from using Tiktok provided by the government.New Zealand has joined this ranks from March 31 to prohibit all communication equipment connecting the Congress network using Tiktok.
Not only the Western world, India announced the disable Tiktok as early as June 2020, while some government agencies in Taiwan and Australia were partially disabled Tiktok.
Singapore official stipulates that civil servants can install and use Tiktok only when necessary when necessary.
Tiktok is an overseas version of Chinese video sharing application software.Western officials are worried that the Chinese government may use Tiktok to promote the narrative and false information of pro -Beijing.
Fa Ezel, a researcher at the National Defense and Strategy Research Institute of Nanyang University of Technology Rajele South International Research Institute, pointed out in the Lianhe Morning Post that social media and network applications are like Tiktok.Network and information risk.
"Network risks include personal information and sensitive data in the device maliciously obtaining the equipment, and the information risk includes false information that may affect political views in a subtle way."
Fayizar believes that US officials have adopted a tough position on Tiktok. Some of the reasons may be that they still trapped the previous foreign forces suspected of using Facebook user data to interfere in the election.During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia was accused of using social media such as Facebook and other online platforms to spread false information, affecting voting intention.Russia has repeatedly denied relevant allegations.
Tiktok is often criticized by the outside world, saying that it collects a large amount of user data, such as the location of the user, which device is used, email and mobile phone number, and which applications are used on the device.
In fact, collecting a large number of user data is the disadvantages of most social media applications, which triggered the parent company of TIKTOK in Western countries such as the United States and other Western countries. It must abide by Chinese law.The National Intelligence Law adopted in 2017 stipulates that any Chinese organization or citizen should support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work, which has also become the reason for Western countries to refer to TIKTOK or constitute other national security issues.
The American Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on the global threat facing the United States on March 8.The Federal Investigation Administration Chief Christopher Lei said at the hearing that the Chinese government can control millions of user data through Tiktok, which affects public remarks, including discussions on Taiwan."This is a tool that ultimately within the scope of the Chinese government. For me, it has caused concerns about national security."
Belgian Prime Minister Decro said last week: "We are in a new geopolitical environment. The influence and surveillance between the country have shifted to the digital world. We should not be too naive. TIKTOK is a Chinese company and currently has obligations.Cooperate with the Chinese intelligence department. This is reality. It is logical to prohibit using TIKTOK on mobile phones provided by the federal government. "
However, according to TIKTOK, the parent company's byte beating is not a Chinese state -owned enterprise or controlled by the Chinese government.It is reported that nearly 60%of the equity of bytes of bytes belong to international investors and 20%of the equity of the company are in the hands of the company, and the remaining 20%are held by the company's employees.
Tiktok spokesman replied to the United Morning Post inquiring: "We thank some government for choosing not to implement this ban, because there is no evidence that it is necessary to do so. For other government agencies and institutionsBelow, we are disappointed with the use of Tiktok at the staff of the staff ... We also pay attention to the privacy of users, but these ban have been misleading and it is not helpful to promote privacy or security. "
U.S. officials have adopted a tough position on Tiktok. Some of the reasons may be that they are still trapped in the suspected use of Facebook user data to intervene in the election.During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia was accused of using social media such as Facebook and other online platforms to spread false information, affecting voting intention.Russia has repeatedly denied relevant allegations.
-The regional security architecture project researcher of the National Defense and Strategy Research Institute of Nanda Razelle South International Research Institute
Tiktok takes remedial measures to protect user data security
According to Tiktok, the company stores user data in the United States and Singapore, and has never stored data in mainland China.However, in December 2022, Tiktok announced the internal survey results and acknowledged that after a staff member had improper user data of the two American journalists, TIKTOK's problem of security and concerns was once again floating on the table.
There are more than 100 million TIKTOK users in the United States
Tiktok has more than 100 million users in the United States. It has been trying to guarantee the personal data of American citizens in Washington in the past three years, and the content of the user will not be manipulated by Chinese official or influenced by China.
Tiktok's CEO of Singaporean, Zhou, will be contributed to the hearings held by the US House of Representatives Energy and Business Council next Thursday (March 23) to clarify that Tiktok and the parent company's bytes beating will be done to solve US information security doubts.s hard work.
Tiktok's plan to launch the "Texas Project" in 2022 aims to eliminate the US government's concerns about security issues, including stored US user data on the server of Oracle, and allow Oracle to review the source code of TIKTOK.
Tiktok also announced in March that it will promote a plan called the "Sanya Project" in Europe, which will build a total of three data centers in Ireland and Norway to store data from 150 million European users.Once it is put into operation, Tiktok will invest 1.2 billion euros (about S $ 1.7 billion) at these three data centers each year to protect the security of European users.
On the other hand, Tiktok is undergoing national security review by the US Foreign Investment Commission (CFIUS).CFIUS is a government agency that evaluates whether foreign investment constitutes risks for national security.The two sides have negotiated for more than two years on data security requirements.
Bloomberg's recent report also quoted sources saying that if the negotiations with CFIUS are broken, Tiktok's management is considering the possibility of peeling from the parent company as the final means.According to Bloomberg analysts, Tiktok's US business valuation may be from $ 40 billion to $ 50 billion (about 53.7 billion to S $ 67 billion).
Sino -US lack of mutual trust Tiktok is not easy to resolve US concerns
Scholars of interviewees believe that due to the lack of mutual trust between China and the United States, the measures taken by TIKTOK are not enough to resolve US concerns, or to avoid other Western countries from further ban employees from using the application on the official equipment.
Researcher Fayizar pointed out in an interview that in intense Sino -US relations, the Tiktok ban highlighted the actual concerns of various countries on the actual situation of cyber security and the unreasonable economic competition that encouraged under geopolitical influence.
He also believes that the current measures taken by Tiktok are not enough to solve the problem they face."What's more likely is that TIKTOK will not work hard to make the United States reassuring, because the trust between China and the United States is almost zero, we can see this from the spy balloon incident."
Fayizar also said whether other countries followed the United States to launch a similar TIKTOK ban depending on various factors, such as bilateral and economic relations between the country and China, the importance and popularity of TIKTOK in China, whetherThere are alternative options, and judging whether the risk of Tiktok composition is comparable to other social media applications.
Net security scholars: All applications have risks
In addition, experts remind that people should not only pay attention to the disable Tiktok on the official devices, and ignore the potential risks of other social media applications.
Professor Tick of the Internet Security Expert of the National University of Australia told the Guardian that although Apple and Google currently give users more authority to restrict what information can be obtained by social media applications, such as location and contact information, these applications are still these applications.Can be widely collected by user information.
Ulla, a professor of network security assistant professors at the University of Campbara University in Australia, also warned that all applications have risks.He said that although it is reasonable to download the equipment that can be downloaded for official duties, people will still provide a lot of information through personal mobile phones."We also need to treat personal equipment very cautiously, and what data we have exposed to outsiders."
Worried about the flood of harmful content
Disadvantable youth mental health
The dispute around Tiktok is not only national security, but also some people worry that the harmful content on the platform is not conducive to the mental health of young people.
According to a research report released by the US non -profit organization "Campaign of Digital Hate" in December 2022, the content of dietary disorders on the TIKTOK platform has accumulated 13.2 billion views.
Researchers have opened multiple fake users of "13 -year -old children", and videos of relevant posture, diet and mental health watch and like, and find that these accounts can receive self -harm within a few minutes (2.6 minutesRecommended content of diet (within 8 minutes).
The Guardian reported that Tiktok said in response to the above report that the research did not reflect the experience of real users or the habit of watching videos.The Tiktok spokesman said: "Our community standards clearly show that we do not allow promotion, normalization or beautification of dietary disorders, and have deleted the content of violations of these rules in the report."
Pew Research Center's polls released in August 2022 showed that about two -thirds of young people in the United States used Tiktok.Among them, 16%of the teenagers interviewed said that "almost all the time" was swiped videos.
This shows that Tiktok's attraction to young users cannot be underestimated, which has also caused concerns about application addiction or "dangerous challenges" on the platform.
For example, "Blackout Challenge" encourages the challenger to hold his breath or try to suffocate himself until he loses consciousness.According to Bloomberg's statistics, as of November 2022, at least 15 12 years old or less children were killed in 18 months, and five deaths in groups aged 13 to 14 have also appeared.According to reports, TIKTOK has shielded syncope challenges from search engines.
Other dangerous challenges that have become popular are the "Sleeping Chicken" challenge. The challenger uses an over -the -counter cold medicine to cook chicken breasts. Many people try to be curious and try to produce drunk effects after eating.
Another is the "Benadryl Challenge", that is, the challenger takes a large number of antihistaminamines to try to produce illusion effects.
Young user: Tiktok is easy to addicted
Local Tiktok user Zheng Haoyue (19 years old, student) accepted an interview with Lianhe Zaobao that she started using Tiktok from the age of 13 and spent at least two or three hours a day using social media applications. In addition to like to brush various short videos, on averageI will upload their dance short films every week.
She admits that addiction to TIKTOK is from the time when the crown disease epidemic was blocked three years ago."At that time, I was using it all the time (tiktok), and then it became addicted. The highest record can be brushed for five or six hours a day."
Zheng Haoyue expressed support for Tiktok's measures to launch the time limit for users under 18 years of age, and believes that this will help young users to cultivate self -control using social media."It is also good to have these measures, because Tiktok is really addictive, but 60 minutes is a bit short for young people. They can easily find ways to bypass these restrictions."
tiktok in March, it will automatically set the 60 -minute use time limit for users under 18, but young users can still solveDefault settings, or falsely reporting age to avoid the time limit of use.
Zheng Haoyue said that she had accidentally brushed the harmful content about self -harm on Tiktok, but in recent months, she has rarely brushed negative content, so she still has confidence in the platform's check -in.
