Between fear for national security, suspicions of espionage on the part of China, and dangers for the mental health of young people, TikTok is in the storm. For several months, the Chinese network has been feeding all the criticism of the West, with the United States as the figurehead. But is TikTok even more harmful than the American giant’s Meta or Twitter, which are already not very exemplary in terms of data protection?
TikTok, the hugely popular Chinese social media platform, has been thrust into the spotlight once again. With mounting concerns over its privacy and security practices, the platform has come under fire from regulatory bodies around the world, including the European Commission, American federal agencies, the United Kingdom, and Canada. And now, France has joined the fray, with its decision to ban its 2.5 million state officials from using TikTok and other “recreational applications” on their work phones.
A decision comes the day after the muscular hearing of Shou Zi Chew, boss of TikTok, before the American Congress. For several hours, the CEO of the subsidiary of the Chinese group ByteDance tried to defend his platform and somehow reassure the concerns of American elected officials. On Wednesday, March 22, during a press conference, Democratic Representative Jamaal Bowman wondered: “Why so much hysteria around TikTok? “, arguing that the platform presents the same risks in terms of data privacy or misinformation as “Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter”.