Image citation: Leight, Elias. “‘If You Can Get Famous Easily, You’Re Gonna Do It’: How TikTok Took Over Music.” Google Image Result for Https://Www.rollingstone.com/Wp-Content/Uploads/2019/08/Tiktok.jpg, Google, 12 Aug. 2019, https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rollingstone.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F08%2Ftiktok.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rollingstone.com%2Fpro%2Ffeatures%2Ftiktok-video-app-growth-867587%2F&tbnid=CTm14Lw3JDgl1M&vet=12ahUKEwiDsIT4vur4AhVprmoFHSQNBQEQMygKegUIARDpAQ..i&docid=Sqhpb7BAtOkmbM&w=2400&h=1600&q=tiktok&client=safari&ved=2ahUKEwiDsIT4vur4AhVprmoFHSQNBQEQMygKegUIARDpAQ.
What Is Tiktok?
To put it short, Tiktok is a video-streaming social media app that lets its users create and watch short clips from other creators. Users can show appreciation to a video by liking it or to a creator by following that creator. These short videos can be about virtually anything: music, dancing, art, information, and other topics of interest. What makes Tiktok unique is its popularity and influence over a global audience. Towards the end of 2021, Cloudflare's Radar published that Tiktok.com was the most popular domain (followed Google.com and Facebook.com). Additionally, Tiktok made transferring information easier, connecting the world. But, how did we get here in the first place?
History Behind Tiktok
Tiktok was released in September of 2016 by the Chinese company ByteDance. In 2017, ByteDance acquired its rival app: Musical.ly and transferred all of its accounts to Tiktok. When ByteDance got its hands on Musical.ly, it changed the name to "Tiktok" and established offices in 11 locations: Berlin (Germany), Beijing (China), London (UK), Moscow (Russia), Los Angeles (USA), Jakarta (Indonesia), Shanghai (China), Tokyo (Japan), Seoul (South Korea), Mumbai (India), and Singapore. Today, Tiktok is one of the most popular social media apps with over 2.6 billion downloads worldwide as of December 2020. Even with this much popularity, Tiktok has been under the spotlight lately for the wrong reasons.
The Security Issue With TikTok
Ever wonder why you get such personalized ads on Tiktok? There's a reason for that. Although Tiktok claims that it does not share its users' private information such as usage, cookies, and location with third parties, it still shares the information with "trusted partners". This is problem is not unique to Tiktok. Other organizations such as Facebook (Meta) have also been accused of selling its users' personal data to third parties. Further, Tiktok keeps track of your messages that you send through the app (they are not encrypted), age, phone number, exact location, and payment information. Furthermore, something that raises a lot of eyebrows is that Tiktok may be forced to share its users' information with the Chinese government. Tiktok denies ever sharing the information stored in the US servers with China, however, a series of leaked audio from internal TikTok meetings tell a different story. They reveal that China-based ByteDance employees have accessed the data stored on US servers.
Overall, Is It Safe To Use TikTok?
In the end of the day, it's your call. Although the US government has not taken action to "ban" TikTok nationwide, there have been a few close-calls in the past. More recently, companies like Wells Fargo Bank have told their employees to delete TikTok from all company-owned devices, and many US government agencies have told their employees the same. TikTok can be a good way to spend your free time and gain a following by expressing your passion, however, that comes with a serious risk. There are other ways to enjoy and create short videos similar to TikTok that are not scrutiny such as YouTube shorts or Facebook reels. With so many alternatives, do you really need to risk your data and security on TikTok? Ask yourself that question before opening TikTok tonight.
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