The popular social media platform, TikTok, allows users to make short videos that can include dancing, singing, and talking to an audience of other users. Popular videos get included on the “For You” page, where thousands of people across the world can see them. TikTok has grown in popularity towards the end of 2019, but the app came under the investigation of the United States’ Committee on Foreign Investment after several lawmakers questioned the app’s security.

TikTok, a United States-borne company, is now owned and operated by a Chinese company called ByteDance. Speculators have accused the app’s operators of sending data from users in the United States back to their headquarters in China. An official statement by TikTok denies these accusations, despite having reportedly ambiguous privacy policies. Some users have expressed concerns over the app’s capability to track users’ data usage. The app reportedly displays ads that target its users’ search engine history, which can be seen as a sign that the app is gathering user data.

A class-action lawsuit filed in California on December 2^nd accuses the company of collecting and storing user data and sending it to their headquarters in Beijing. Many users have also raised concerns over the censoring of certain topics on TikTok. One video on the app shows a girl doing a makeup tutorial, then pausing to call out the Chinese government on their recent abuse of Muslim Uyghurs. Not only was the video deleted, but the user’s entire account was permanently banned. Another popular video shows a transgender man who documented his hormone transition over the course of several years. TikTok took this video down as well. This censorship is concerning for many American TikTok users who are accustomed to almost completely free speech in the United States. While there are subjects that users cannot post about on social media in the U.S. due to safety and privacy concerns, Americans are not used to having their thoughts and ideas removed because they discuss politics, LGBTQ content, etc.

Users who download the app are agreeing to follow the app’s rules and guidelines, but TikTok has proven to be more particular than other social media apps on what kinds of content they do not allow. It is important for all social media users to be aware of how their data is being collected, and how the apps they’re signed into are using this data. With TikTok in particular, users should be aware that the videos they post are not only viewable to users around the world, but they may also be used by the company itself to gather data.

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