Tag: TikTok Meltdown

@ebakerwhite: TikTok Parent ByteDance Planned To Use TikTok To Monitor The Physical Location Of Specific American Citizens

[Well, here it is. Two years ago we warned everyone who would listen that TikTok were apparatchiks for the Chinese Communist Party–by law in China because of the CCP’s civil-military fusion–“If Google is the Joe Camel of data, then TikTok is the Joe Camel of intelligence.” We did panels warning about TikTok including the CEO’s struggle session and the CCP constitution–facts, you know. Tim Ingham warned that on top of everything else, the deals suck. And then there’s Twinkletoes, who is in our view a walking, talking Foreign Agent Registration Act violation.

[According to Emily Baker White writing in Forbes:]

China-based team at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, planned to use the TikTok app to monitor the personal location of some specific American citizens, according to materials reviewed by Forbes.

The team behind the monitoring project — ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department — is led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports to ByteDance cofounder and CEO Rubo Liang. 

The team primarily conducts investigations into potential misconduct by current and former ByteDance employees. But in at least two cases, the Internal Audit team also planned to collect TikTok data about the location of a U.S. citizen who had never had an employment relationship with the company, the materials show. It is unclear from the materials whether data about these Americans was actually collected; however, the plan was for a Beijing-based ByteDance team to obtain location data from U.S. users’ devices.

Read the post on Forbes

TikTok is Tapdancing Again

I wonder which TikTok exec would be talking to an FCC commissioner like Brendan Carr? Could it be this guy aka “Old Twinkletoes”? Hanging in there for the “Say Anything” IPO tour?

Set design by Tuesday Addams

@digitalmusicnws: Is TikTok Safe for Kids? Platform Faces At Least Eight State Investigations Over Its Impact On Children and Teens

Eight states (Massachusetts, Florida, California, New Jersey, Vermont, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Tennessee) just recently announced their investigations into TikTok, which settled an Illinois privacy lawsuit for $92 million in 2021. The coordinated scrutiny arrives as TikTok – which has been described as “legitimate spyware” – remains extremely popular, reportedly boasting north of three billion downloads and more traffic than Google.

Furthermore, TikTok’s userbase reportedly skews young, and higher-ups have capitalized upon the platform’s prominence within demographics that are relatively difficult for companies to reach.

Read the post by Dylan Smith on Digital Music News

Remember this meme when Google tried to kill the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act?

@cgartenberg: Reddit CEO says TikTok is ‘fundamentally parasitic,’ cites privacy concerns

[Editor Charlie sez: Artists and songwriters should consider how their music is used for child data exploitation and Internet addiction. Not surprising that Europeans are investigating TikTok for data protections for children under 13 and the transfer of personal data by TikTok to China military-civil authorities likely under Articles 7 and 14 of China’s National Intelligence Law.]

Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman called TikTok “fundamentally parasitic” due to concerns over privacy during an appearance at the Social 2030 venture capital conference this week (via TechCrunch). Huffman specifically called out TikTok’s practice of fingerprinting to track devices as being of particular concern. 

“Maybe I’m going to regret this, but I can’t even get to that level of thinking with [TikTok],” Huffman said at the event, “because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it’s always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone.”

Read the post on The Verge

Jack Ma’s Pain May Explain Why Kevin Mayer Got Out of TikTok

When TikTok first came under criticism for being under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, many in the music business didn’t quite know what to make of it. Kevin Mayer’s sudden departure seemed kind of inexplicable and sudden. I moderated a panel of great experts on the subject at the Music Business Association Law and Technology Conference (materials here) and we put together what I still think are important background documents for understanding the differences between doing business in an authoritarian collectivist state that has the legal basis in national law to demand not only compliance, but also governance and also ownership.

Now we have evidence from billionaire Jack Ma and Alibaba/Ant Group of just how in your face Kevin Mayer’s sit down may have been. Remember, Jack Ma is a member of the larger Chinese Communist Party according to the BBC. (I have to believe that TikTok grand poobah Zhang Yiming is also a member and most definitely is very familiar with these sit downs.)

According to the Wall Street Journal’s Lingling Wei, Jack Ma offered CCP regulators any part of Ant Group they wanted if they’d just let him conclude what would have been the world’s largest IPO.

As Jack Ma was trying to salvage his relationship with Beijing in early November, the beleaguered Chinese billionaire offered to hand over parts of his financial-technology giant, Ant Group, to the Chinese government, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

“You can take any of the platforms Ant has, as long as the country needs it,” Mr. Ma, China’s richest man, proposed at an unusual sit-down with regulators, the people said.

Jack Ma has done a number of things to provoke retaliation by the CCP government. He got sideways because Ant Group has a banking operation has loaned approximately $230 billion outside of the CCP’s banking controls. The last straw seems to have been criticizing CCP Chairman for Life Xi Jinping’s financial regulations that Ma felt would cause capital shortfalls that would be made up by the Bank of China (the CCP’s central bank) buying equity to make up those shortfalls. See how that works? They’re not requiring Ant to sell them equity, they are just helping out. That’s a nice IPO you got there, be a shame if something happened to it.

TikTok’s Mr. Zhang has been there and would probably tell Mr. Ma to embrace the suck.  It should come as no surprise–according to his Wikipedia page, Mr. Zhang understands what happens when you don’t toe the Party line:

[Zhang’s] first app, Neihan Duanzi, was shut down in 2018 by the National Radio and Television Administration. In response, Zhang issued an apology stating that the app was “incommensurate with socialist core values“, that it had a “weak” implementation of Xi Jinping Thought, and promised that ByteDance would “further deepen cooperation” with the ruling Chinese Communist Party to better promote its policies.

All of which gives us better insight into why Keven Mayer might have decided to exit TikTok.