TikTok has become a point of controversy for several reasons over the past several years, now as the app maker behind its success opens TikTok’s first European data center, located in Dublin, Ireland, we look back at one of the most controversial claims made against it over the past several years.
Back during the early months of government-mandated quarantine and social distancing, one of the apps that really took off with people dying of boredom in their homes was the Chinese video-sharing app TikTok. At that time, the Hacktivist group Anonymous issued a warning about the app stating there is something wrong with it, and people need to uninstall it right away.
According to the official Twitter account for anonymous, people should warn anyone they know to stop using the app.
The tweet also included a link to the original Reddit post that shows how the app works like a hacking device against all its victims.
Anonymous calls the app ‘Chinese malware’ allegedly being used by the Chinese government to run a massive spying operation. Based on the Reddit post made by an unknown male user who claims to have reverse-engineered the app, TikTok is “a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network.”
“They provide users with a taste of ‘virality’ to entice them to stay on the platform. Your first TikTok post will likely garner quite a bit of like, regardless of how good it is… assuming you get past the initial moderation queue if that’s still a thing. Most users end up chasing the dragon,” said on the post.
According to the post, TikTok’s logging data is “remotely configurable, unless you reverse every single one of their native libraries and manually inspect every single obfuscated function.” Additionally, once users install the app, the CPU type, memory usage, disk space, and hardware IDs are allegedly being saved by TikTok.
There have been many warnings posted regarding Chinese apps over the past few years, including popular video conferencing app Zoom. But many people have ignored warnings and continue to utilize these apps with little issue. Maybe the infamous ‘Anonymous,’ warning was overblown? What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.
