Director of the FBI, Chris Wray believes TikTok poses threats to national security as a Chinese-owned app that could “manipulate content.” TikTok which boasted over 1 billion active users in 2021 is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese technology company which Wray says is in the hands of a Chinese government “that doesn’t share our values”.
Wray said the FBI were concerned that the Chinese had the ability to control the apps recommendation algorithm, “which allows them to manipulate content, and if they want to, to use it for influence operations.” It was also said that China could use the app to collect data on its users that could be used for traditional espionage operations.
He then went on to state that “The Chinese government has shown a willingness to steal Americans’ data on a scale that dwarfs any other,” then adding that Americans should be very concerned about giving China “that much ability to shape content” and “access to people’s devices.”
These security risks don’t just pose a threat to the United States but the United Kingdom too as there are around 17 million TikTok users in the UK. With this number only rising, so is the risk of more and more data being collected and more individuals being the target of “influence operations.”