WASHINGTON: TikTok is known for its short videos popular with teens, yet the global social media sensation has become the center of a geopolitical war between the United States and China.
US President Donald Trump called the app a national security risk, claiming that TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance could access user data and hand it over to Chinese intelligence services.
Trump's executive order would ban new TikTok downloads starting Sunday night and ban use starting Nov. 12 unless a deal to restructure his ownership materializes.
700 million users
TikTok has seen some two billion downloads and its user base is estimated at 700 million, making it one of the biggest players in the social media space.
He is known for his short user-generated videos of 15 to 60 seconds, many of them featuring dancing, skits, or commentary on the news. Filters and special effects can be added.
The coronavirus pandemic has helped TikTok expand its user base beyond young smartphone users, as new types of content are added and popular "influencers" join the platform.
Created in 2016 as Muscal.ly, the application was acquired by ByteDance in 2017 and renamed as the global version of the Chinese application known as Douyin.
According to the company, TikTok has 100 million users in the United States alone, with 50 million logging in every day. Before July, when reports of a ban began to circulate, TikTok was adding about 400,000 US users each day.
The threat of spies?
While his wacky videos appear innocuous, TikTok has drawn scrutiny over potential security threats.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio called in 2019 for an investigation into TikTok's ties to Chinese authorities, and in 2020 the Defense Department told all of its staff to remove the app.
TikTok has denied ties to the Chinese government and claims that its servers are inaccessible to Beijing.
"We store all US user data in the United States, with backup redundancy in Singapore," TikTok said in a recent statement.
"TikTok's data centers are located entirely outside of China."
But a White House executive order in August claimed that TikTok "automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users" and that this "threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party to access personal and proprietary information of Americans."
This, according to the White House, could allow China "to track the location of federal employees and contractors, build personal information files for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage."
Make a deal:
Trump has sought to remove TikTok from Chinese control and has blessed a deal that would make Silicon Valley giant Oracle the data partner for the app.
It was unclear whether Beijing would approve the deal, the terms of which remained somewhat murky.
One of the key details is what would happen to the TikTok recommendation algorithm seen as the key to its success. The system uses machine learning to determine user preferences and deliver videos to keep people engaged, without too much repetition.
Last month, China issued new rules that would prevent the export of artificial intelligence algorithms and technologies.
ByteDance has claimed that it would retain control of the algorithm, while Oracle could simply inspect the data and source code for security flaws. Trump has said that he will not accept any deal that leaves the Chinese in control of TikTok.
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