Concerns abound over social media data collection

Atanu Biswas

Professor, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

A bipartisan Bill that would force Chinese tech giant ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to sell the social media app or face a ban for all US devices was approved by the US House in March, reflecting the growing multidimensional unease that US lawmakers feel about Big Tech. While President Biden said he would sign the proposed legislation to ban TikTok if the Congress passed it, it’s uncertain what will happen to the Bill in the Senate, and its ramifications are neither simple nor straightforward.

With nearly 170 million TikTok users in the US, a ban on the app will undoubtedly hurt millions of businesses, deny artistes a platform and ruin the livelihoods of countless creators across the country. Furthermore, as Donald Trump anticipates, it will undoubtedly increase Facebook’s dominance. However, national security (or at least a concern on that count) is much more important.

In 2020, then President Trump moved to outlaw TikTok and another popular app, WeChat; later, President Biden reversed that decision. Governments in various countries have banned TikTok on official devices due to concerns about cybersecurity and privacy, perhaps primarily for its Chinese connections. For instance, due to privacy and security concerns, India banned TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps, including WeChat, in 2020. Several other countries have also enforced a ban on TikTok.

In March 2023, Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, gave testimony before a US congressional committee. Security experts believe that the US government’s current concerns seem to be based primarily on the ‘potential’ for TikTok to be used for foreign intelligence. US lawmakers continue to perceive that TikTok poses a serious threat to national security because of its ties to China. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that TikTok should be “ended one way or another.”

Working with a privacy researcher, The Washington Post came to the conclusion in 2020 that TikTok didn’t seem to gather any more data than the average major social media platform. A 2022 study by the mobile marketing company URL Genius, however, found that out of all social media apps, consumers’ personal data was tracked more by YouTube and TikTok.

But even if TikTok gathers data comparable to that of other major social media platforms like Facebook or X, that’s still a significant amount of information. It includes details about the videos users watch, the comments they make, the private messages they send, and, if they consent to this degree of access, their precise geolocation and contact lists. In addition, according to TikTok’s privacy statement, the company gathers user data such as email addresses, phone numbers, age, search and browsing histories, details about the images and videos users upload, and, if consented to, the contents of their device’s clipboard, allowing them to copy and paste information into the app.

As per several studies, TikTok follows users online even when they aren’t using the app. TikTok said the information is used to bolster its advertising business. And TikTok is not unusual in this regard; many tech giants employ the same tool on a far greater scale. TikTok is, therefore, merely a product of the broader surveillance capitalism economy, which frequently directs users into rabbit holes of uncertainty.

Yes, many of the apps we use collect too much information about us. Typically, they gather users’ personal data primarily for their own use to show consumers relevant advertisements. Companies can impact our behaviour in ways we are frequently unaware of by getting more information about our preferences, shortcomings and areas of interest. The Cambridge Analytica incident, however, demonstrated how successfully personal information can be exploited to even sway major elections.

However, more than the app itself, TikTok’s ownership and governance policies may be the main cause for concern. TikTok doesn’t operate in China, but it’s apprehended that ByteDance and, by extension, TikTok, may be forced to cooperate with a wide range of security activities, including perhaps the transfer of data, since the Chinese government enjoys significant leverage over businesses under its jurisdiction. It’s thus a loaded gun, not just a smoking one.

One worry is that if China were to have access to TikTok’s user data, it might be used for intelligence purposes. Another worry is that China might try to persuade TikTok to control what users see on the site, thus inducing a significant impact on US elections, policy decisions and democratic discussions. Security experts emphasise that while these are ‘hypothetical’ apprehensions at best, they are conceivable, given TikTok’s ownership structure and Chinese laws. However, right now, there’s no public evidence that China has taken TikTok’s commercial data for intelligence or other uses. And Chew has stated that TikTok would reject any request for its data from the Chinese government, which it has never requested. However, there’s cause for concern regarding its ability to accomplish that. Thus, it seems that everything depends on how much confidence the US and other nations have in the Chinese government.

Experts claim that widespread misinformation and privacy concerns abound on all social media platforms. Thus, concentrating only on TikTok may obscure the wider picture a bit, as many have warned. Actually, many social media companies are believed to sell data to third parties. Therefore, foreign adversaries have enough options for purchasing and obtaining data. Some experts feel that prohibiting TikTok is like patching just one hole in a very leaky boat.

What about the future of the hyped US Bill? Experts predict that the Bill will stall, and TikTok may file a lawsuit if it is eventually signed into law. Furthermore, China has the ability to thwart it through a 2020 amendment to its technology export law. And selling the company may not be feasible without the Chinese government’s approval.

In 2018, US lawmakers had interrogated Mark Zuckerberg about the company’s handling of user information, mostly brought on by the startling disclosures about Cambridge Analytica. Zuckerberg made a reform pledge. At that time, Senator Bill Nelson had said: “If Facebook and other online companies will not or cannot fix these privacy invasions, we will.” Is it time for introspection after six years?

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