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TikTok vs. ByteDance: What can the American team do to protect American users’ privacy in this global privacy battle?

As this tweet excerpt has shown above, a sense of distrust grows among the TikTok user against the Chinese-owned company despite its fun functionalities especially among the younger generations. We have already witnessed the previous Trump administration attempting to ban TikTok once. At a time when the US-China tension has been developed from trade to technological spheres, user information and data have become a national security concern. So what are really the issues at stake here? And how can the American corporate side do to ensure its user’s privacy from penetrated by China?

In fact, a NBC news article suggests that TikTok is just as much of a privacy threat to any of other mobile applications. The Chinese-developed application does not make its users more susceptible to data-collection from China ore to make the Beijing-based developers more capable (Collier). Another article suggest in some way TikTok actually takes less personal data than Facebook does (Fowler).

So what are the American company doing to make this possible? 

Here are some ways TikTok America does to maintain data independence from China. 

TikTok Information is not stored in China, but in US and Singapore.

TikTok  has a separate US executive team. Kevin Mayer, former CEO from disney. 

TikTok is not available directly in mainland China. 

TikTok is not and will not be subjected to Chinese request for user’s data. TikTok said the Chinese government has never asked it for user data, and it would refuse such a request. TikTok also said its security team is led out of the U.S. by an executive who has decades of industry and U.S. law enforcement experience.

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The worth of user data for TikTok

How much is your data worth to TikTok?

Here’s an excerpt from one of my previous posts(check it out, too) on how TikTok packages and monetizes user data:

“It’s widely accepted that 18-34 is the most coveted age demographic in advertising due to their willingness to spend money, receptiveness to advertisements, and ability as tastemakers.

Low-end estimations have TikTok averaging 80 million monthly active users in the United States. Of those 80 million, Statista.com reports that almost 70 percent of users are between the ages of 10-40. That means TikTok is able to reach 56 million users aged 10-40 every month.  For comparison Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, averages over 100 million more monthly active U.S. users(190 million) than TikTok, but only 43 percent cover the 10-40 demographic. This closes the margin to Facebook’s 76 million of the most coveted users on earth to TikTok’s 56 million.

If TikTok is able to prove to advertisers that their 56 million users are more valuable than Facebook’s 76 million users through engagement statistics, gender data, or retention rates, then they own a major market over one of the founders of the economy.”

So we know how many users TikTok is able to pitch to advertisers, but how much is that packaging of user data worth in a pitch to advertisers?

According to Robert Shapiro and Siddhartha Aneja, the average projected value of  U.S. user data stored by Google, Facebook, Amazon, Oath(Verizon) and Twitter was around $11,300.82(in billions). However, that number factors in major non-social media platforms like Google, Amazon, and Verizon, so let’s focus on Facebook and Twitter.

We already know that Facebook averages nearly 200 million U.S. users and TikTok averages about 80 million. According to Statista, Twitter is less than both platforms with around 69 million monthly active users. Based on these monthly active user numbers and Shapiro and Aneja’s findings of Facebook’s projected user data worth($21,948.6 in billions) and Twitters($749.7 in billions), we can infer that your TikTok data, compiled with millions of others on the platform, has a floor of $749 billion and a ceiling in the trillions of dollars.

As an individual, Shapiro and Aneja project each user’s data to be worth somewhere between $366 and $616.

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1st part of Tiktok privacy policy--Information You Choose To Provide

The most common but the most valuable data that users release while users have little control on the data

Dawar (2018) suggests in an article in the Harvard Business Review, accurate marketing relies on a comprehensive monitoring infrastructure: “A platform serves consumers by constantly anticipating their needs. To do that it must collect granular data on their purchasing patterns and product use and try to understand their goals” (Dawar 2018). 

To maintain Tiktok’s operation, popularity, and profits, Tiktok collects many data that other large platforms also collect. “A TikTok spokesman said the app collects less personal data than some U.S. tech companies like Facebook or Google, whose products track activity across devices.” The basic data Tiktok collects is registration information, user-generated content, information users share through surveys or participation, and phone and social network contacts. According to its data privacy policy, this type of data is called Information You Choose To Provide. 

For example, Tiktok requires users to provide their email addresses when users register Tiktok accounts so TikTok can always send users advertising emails. Users cannot refuse registration information collection, such as email address, phone number, and language. Tiktok also links users’ subscriber information with their activities on their platform across all their devices using their emails and phone numbers.

User-generated content, including comments, photographs, and videos, and information users share through surveys or your participation is the main content of the app. This type of data is unstructured data created by us users. “TikTok has the ability to share your video for advertising purposes based on their EULA (End-User License Agreement), but your video is still belongs to you.” Tiktok data analysts can work on this data using an algorithm and change them into structured analyzable data, which becomes Tiktok's product for profit-seeking. Later, this processed data, aka Tiktok product, helps customize and personalize the content and ads users see. “We infer your interests, gender and age for the purpose of personalising content. We also infer the interests of our users to better optimise advertising across our Platform.”

Therefore, if you check the Information You Choose To Provide, you will realize Tiktok’s emphasis: Tiktok provides service for you and you initiatively choose to use the app and provide all the information. By telling users that they are the ones who choose to provide the data, Tiktok puts most of the responsibility on the users, not the platform. This type of data, such as phone numbers and user-generated content, seems quite common and every app collects this data. However, it is the most valuable data because user-generated content, such as videos and clicks, helps Tiktok understand and predict personalized “purchasing patterns and product use” (Dawar ,2018), and email address and language become the best way to reach out. It is the source of Tiktok’s operation, profit, and popularity. However, there is stll a lack of transparency on how Tiktok creates the algorithm internally when I search the information online. Moreover, it is difficult for users to avoid this type of data collection because registration information is required to access the data and the user-generated content data also means more popularity and exposure for individual users. Therefore, users give up their personal information and their posted content to gain service, exposure, and popularity.

Andrejevic, Mark. 2019. Automating Surveillance. Surveillance & Society 17(1/2): 7-13. https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/index

https://www.tiktok.com/legal/privacy-policy?lang=en

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Surveillance from China

In 2019, the Guardian reported that TikTok's staff and automated systems had enforced moderation rules that censored material deemed to be politically sensitive. Footage of Tiananmen Square protests and Tibetan independence demands were among the material said to have be banned or restricted.

Further reporting from the Washington Post, which talked to six former TikTok employees, said moderators in China had the final say on whether flagged videos were approved.

ByteDance said the guidelines referred to had since been phased out.

But some argue that its moderation culture may still be biased in favour of the Chinese state.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53476117

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2nd part of Tiktok privacy policy--Information we obtain from other sources

What does TikTok Mean by “Third Parties”?

Other Social Media Platforms

TikTok, like many other popular platforms, gathers user information from major user databases like Apple, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Many users don’t think twice about this exchange, as it allows them to create or login into their TikTok account quicker, but in reality, this speedy login process gave TikTok access to data that may have taken tens of hours of in-app time to collect. Where the user may have saved a few seconds, TikTok saved hours.

TikTok doesn’t directly state what they do with user data from third-party platforms, but they do warn users about what third-party platforms may learn from them sharing TikTok content on other platforms, essentially referring to their third-party platform usage. The privacy policy states, “If you access third-party services, such as Facebook, Google, or Twitter, to login to the Platform or to share information about your usage on the Platform with others, these third-party services may be able to collect information about you, including information about your activity on the Platform, and they may notify your connections on the third-party services about your use of the Platform.”

As of April 2021, users must explicitly accept apps like TikTok to track them across platforms. In the past, denying access would result in a lesser in-app experience, but in its ios 14.5 notes, Apple states, “You can still use the full capabilities of the app, regardless of whether you allow the app to track your activity.” To combat the data loss of this update, TikTok required that all users see personalized advertisements.

Advertisement Companies

While TikTok explicitly states that they do not sell user data, TikTok does package and leverage user data to advertisers. Said advertisers then purchase in-app advertising slots to target the demographics TikTok laid out. Once the ad is in circulation, TikTok, the advertising company, and another third-party business(TikTok calls them “analytics providers”) exchange information on the ad’s performance, highlight trends, and if the advertiser is pleased, start the cycle again.  

Legal Third Parties

“We may disclose any of the information we collect to respond to subpoenas, court orders, legal process, law enforcement requests, legal claims, or government inquiries, and to protect and defend the rights, interests, safety, and security to TikTok Inc., the Platform, our affiliates, users, or the public. We may also share any of the information we collect to enforce any terms applicable to the Platform, to exercise or defend any legal claims, and comply with any applicable law.”

Essentially, anything you say, do or send on TikTok can be used against you in a court of law.

Hackers

Two months after 45 million TikTok users fell victim to a data breach, TikTok announced its involvement with third-party hackers for security purposes as a way to find potential holes in TikTok’s security. TikTok explains the process by saying, “The idea of working with a hacker may sound confusing to some, but like many technology companies, we actively encourage these efforts as a part of our security strategy. When a security researcher spots a gap in our security and alerts us, we can fix it before it is exploited by a malicious actor.”

As the statement said, this practice isn’t uncommon from tech companies, but like the other third parties in this post, it’s interesting to know who your favorite app is working alongside.

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Andrejevic’s reading: Automating Surveillance

“If panoptic power is symbolic in the sense that it relies on the efficacy of the spectacle of surveillance, automated surveillance is operational in that it acts instead of displays or warns. The surveillance camera works to encourage the target to internalize the lessons of surveillance, whereas the automated system triggers the ongoing application of external force: police are dispatched by a predictive algorithm to catch criminals “in the act” and drones are deployed to assassinate insurgents before they can act. This shift accords with an environment in which surveillance is no longer exceptional but constant, no longer targeted but ubiquitous.”

“The peril posed by automated surveillance is not that it will be perfected but that we will act as if it could be, thereby developing increasingly comprehensive sensing networks to feed into automated sorting and decision-making systems, displacing the language of politics with the efficacy of the operation.”

Therefore, different from panopticon that means internalization of surveillance, data collection from tiktok means a more “comprehensive and ubquitous monitoring” that has 24/7 sensing networks to know more about you and predict you. 

Andrejevic, Mark. 2019. Automating Surveillance. Surveillance & Society 17(1/2): 7-13. https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/index

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Personal expereince: App Tracking in Practice

After getting vaccinated I was hoping to have a more eventful summer this year, so I begun looking for airplane tickets to Hawaii. Of course it took a while to decide what days I would want to go, in between my searches of different option combinations I would switch to Tiktok to relax. Since I live in Los Angeles all the Tiktok videos that would come onto my For You Page would be places to visit or eat in LA. However, after a couple of times that I checked airline ticket prices I begun to see Tiktok videos of where to go hiking on different Hawaiian islands. Once I actually bought my ticket I was now getting multiple videos of food recommendations and hiking trails and beaches to visit at the exact island I bought my ticket for. Along with these recommendations I also begun to get videos about how to find the best and cheapest Airbnb housing. And thanks to these videos on Tik tok I was able to find a very good Airbnb at a very reasonable price.

Was I a little spooked that Tiktok knew where I was planning to go? Yes, I felt a little uncomfortable that there were servers in the US and Singapore that knew exactly where and when I would be this summer. Of course, I understand that apps like Tiktok are actively collecting as much data from me, but the uncertainty of not knowing exactly who has access to this data and for how long they’ll have access is what is frightening. 

But this loss of privacy saved me some money and now I have a long list of the best places to hike, swim, and eat while I’m on vacation. Aside from this, Tiktok provides me with instant gratification and entertainment on a daily basis. This sacrifice of privacy is one I will continue to engage, in order to be able to connect with the social networks found on Tiktok’s platform. 

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Recommendations: In the age of data surveillance, what can we TikTok users do to protect our privacy?

With the majority of its users unaware of what, when and how information has been extracted and manipulated, the unconsciousness of the users render them defenseless when the corporates and algorithms have made them vulnerable and surveillance exculpatory. Especially when the mother company is based in Beijing, data surveillance become an issue of national security and requires the attention and participation of every TikTok user.

Here are some of the users options to arm themselves in front of the tech giant. 

Check for yourself what information you are sharing 

TikTok does purposefully overwhelms its users, just like any other social media application, with its verbose Terms and Conditions agreements with important information buried in it. Users tend to over look them and adopt the default settings and overlook the crucial details about agreement for the platform to handle their private information. However, it does not mean that the users are completely defenseless. 

Know Your Opt-Out Options as a User

On their Privacy Policy, TikTok declares that the users may “refuse or disable Cookies by adjusting your browser settings” (TikTok Privacy Policy). In that ways, the users can block the information-collecting cookies installed by TikTok from collecting their information or users preferences. However, there are few things to note about this. First, the process of disabling cookies can be complicated and exhaustive because each browser or device requires different manual cookie settings to disable them. Some may even lead to many new webpages of procedures. Second, blocking TikTok cookies only prevents your user information from being collected by TikTok, while the third-party ad companies and other extension browsers are not included. TikTok allows these service providers and business partners to collect information about your online activities through Cookies. They and their business partners link your contact or subscriber information with your activity on our Platform across all your devices, using your email or other log-in or device information. TikTok clears says on their Privacy Policy page that they “are not responsible for the privacy practices of these service providers and business partners.” And lastly, disabling cookies also means the user will no longer be able to access certain functionalities. Clearly, these disadvantages all come in as a bundle adding on the liabilities of the users themselves, most of whom end up not doing anything about it as a result.

The users can consider other opt-out options too. Including,

Manage third-party advertising preferences for some third parties 

Opt out targeted advertising on your cell phones (“Limit Ad Tracking” on iOS and “Opt out of Interest-Based Ads” on Android).

Opt out of marketing or advertising emails by utilizing the “unsubscribe” link or mechanism noted in marketing or advertising emails.

Switch off GPS location information functionality on your mobile device.

Disconnect Tik Tok from other social media platforms and cell phone applications

Above all, the main idea is to be sensitive of what information you are sharing and take ownership of your privacy. When facing tech giants who profit from user data, data collection can be impenetrable. While many users are giving in to it as the new norm, they should be mindful that there are ways to minimize the implications coming along with it and stand up against their manipulation. 

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The major web platforms are the most prolific and profitable hunter-gatherers of personal information

Robert Shapiro and Siddhartha Aneja

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If a risk is missed, a prediction flawed, then the proposed solution is always more thorough, accurate monitoring—never less.

Mark Andrejevic

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Surveillance issue: Everything to Know about TikTok’s Surveillance on You

Is this use of data a type of surveillance? Short answer, yes.

According to Business of Apps, TikTok generated over $500 million in U.S. revenue alone in 2020. TikTok is able to generate over half a billion dollars in revenue while remaining free to users because it operates under what is known as a “surveillance economy”. Popularized by major platforms like Google and Facebook(more on them later), a surveillance economy incentivizes popular platforms to monetize their users by collecting user data, drawing trends from said data, then selling those trends to high-paying advertisers.

The exact type of surveillance is known as “automated surveillance”. In terms of TikTok, automated surveillance is the storage, collection, and processing of any useful information on users. This information can range from simple variables like age and gender to the most detailed bits of information like what time a day a user usually visits or the average amount of time spent on a particular post.

The more detailed information the better because it allows TikTok to package and pitch that information to advertisers.

An example of how this works + how TikTok benefits:

It’s widely accepted that 18-34 is the most coveted age demographic in advertising due to their willingness to spend money, receptiveness to advertisements, and ability as tastemakers.

Low-end estimations have TikTok averaging 80 million monthly active users in the United States. Of those 80 million, Statista.com reports that almost 70 percent of users are between the ages of 10-40. That means TikTok is able to reach 56 million users aged 10-40 every month.  For comparison Facebook, the largest social media platform in the world, averages over 100 million more monthly active U.S. users(190 million) than TikTok, but only 43 percent cover the 10-40 demographic. This closes the margin to Facebook’s 76 million of the most coveted users on earth to TikTok’s 56 million.

If TikTok is able to prove to advertisers that their 56 million users are more valuable than Facebook’s 76 million users through engagement statistics, gender data, or retention rates, then they own a major market over one of the founders of the economy.

This brings me to my next point.

What are the major implications of TikTok’s storage of user data?

On one end of the spectrum, the end of the spectrum that TikTok wants users to believe, the only implication that stems from storing user data is a better in-app experience. TikTok will only use user data to make sure users see videos of things they enjoy, advertisements of products they wished they had, and recommendations of accounts they’d like to follow. This is how Google knows exactly what you’re looking for no matter how obscure and how Facebook is able to show you just the post you would like.

So what’s the catch? I already mentioned it.

Users can’t get the good end of the spectrum without the risk of falling victim to the bad. Whether it be through data breaches like the $92 million one TikTok had to pay to settle or through scandals like the one between Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, there are numerous examples of the negative implications of platforms collecting user data.

Further reading:

If you’re interested in learning more about things like automated surveillance, surveillance economy, and how much your data is worth, here are some readings you can check out:

Surveillance + Society

Who Owns America’s Personal Information and What is it Worth?

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“Neither app (Tiktok and Douyin) appeared to collect contact lists, or record or send photos, videos, and location data without user permission, the researchers reported, citing network traffic data collected between January and September 2020.“

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A podcast that concisely summarizes Tiktok privay issues around the world, including consumer-related problem in Europe: embedded advertising and misleading use of personal data, and national security problem in the US: personal data stealng by the Chinese govement 

However, ther is no international collective law on data privacy and the entire Earth community needs to have a consensus on valid ways to collect and use data. 

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#analysis based on tiktok privacy policy

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#analysis based on tiktok privacy policy

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Personal experience: My experience On TikTok

I would now like to take the time to consider the platform we’ve used to discuss this topic and create a more personal blog post as I write about my own private experience with TikTok. I write this post in hopes that my understanding of the media form, my perceptions of it, and its impacts on me and my friends can serve as guidance to not only those pondering the possibility of creating an account but those who are actively using TikTok as well.

Section I: Learning About TikTok and Beginning to Use It.

I’ll begin this post by writing about my initial thoughts about the application from a distance, before I even considered creating an account. My initial reaction to TikTok revolved around the dances I would see. I would infrequently encounter short videos of kids dancing to trendy songs and while this isn’t good or bad on the surface, I did notice that all of the dances were the same, there seemed to be a lack of originality. There was an apparent lack of talent which was ingrained in the platform at the time. Users were simply copying each other in order to hop on trends in hopes of being seen or made famous. Whatsmore, the application itself seemed to be a copycat platform or marriage between Vine and Musical.ly. More succinctly, not only was the content unoriginal but so was the concept of the media form as well. I was very unimpressed with what I saw and rather than simply dismissing the application, I actively disliked it and assumed I would hate anything or anyone I saw on it. 

Eventually, TikTok’s growth became apparent in my friendships at USC; I would see people on it here and there and hear them discussing how they had begun to like this app which was so hated amongst so many groups. They would convince me and those around them to give the platform a chance but often had little takers. I would quickly come across more and more of these discussions but still gave the platform little thought. 

Eventually, under the pressure of a couple friends and my girlfriend who promised that I would not regret it, I promised to download the app and give it a try. After a couple days of very limited use, I found nothing interesting as I was primarily being fed these dancing videos that I had seen every so often before I downloaded TikTok. I quickly began to realize that my intuition had been correct and that the content that I was looking for could not be found on the application. I stopped using the application and didn’t go on for weeks to come. 

Some weeks after, the Trump administration banned the application for its alleged data trafficking in China. This surged my interest in the application so it, again, was on my radar although I wasn’t using it. When these rumors began to die down, however, I gave the platform another chance as many of my friends were using it at this point and giving me good reviews. 

Upon spending more time on the application, I began to be fed the content I was looking for: funny videos, sports clips, cooking tutorials, and so much more. I now use the application daily in my free time and find the application a genuine source of entertainment. The reason this change was able to occur, however, is what makes me uneasy. Now, let's discuss the implications of this change in sentiments and what underlying processes allowed it to happen in the first place. 

Section II: Algorithms and Privacy

To be simple and direct, the reason that TikTok now appeals to me is because its algorithm is so effective in identifying using interests and characteristics. The only reason that the platform didn’t initially serve my entertainment purpose was because I didn’t give it the time - literally. The more time a given user devotes to the application, the more it is able to learn. Through usage, likes, follows, messages, and more data collected outside of the application, TikTok is able to create user profiles and identities from which they can feed their user better informed and more personalized content. Their ability to do so in such an effective manner is what makes the application so great - and so scary. 

Every time that I use the application and see something that makes me laugh out loud or makes me want to send something to my friends, I say to myself, “wow, they know me really well.” The videos I watch, given a relatively small amount of content which misses the mark, very finely reflects both my humor, personality, and interests and that is why the application seems so threatening to me. It is almost hard for me to put the application down at times, I often find myself reminding myself to take a breath and put my phone down. 

In these moments where I put my phone away, I often find myself asking whether I should be concerned about my usage and what implications such a platform has on my safety and security online. Luckily, assignments like this allow me to have some purpose behind my research and better understand where my privacy stands. Upon reading the privacy policy that they have posted, I have come to a few conclusions: that TikTok is very much like any other social media company and that this is a reason to feel safer, and that TikTok is very much like any other social media company and that this is a reason to feel worried. 

All social media companies strip us of our privacy and thus threaten our online security. The information taken from us is often unknown and given to unknown developers who will use this data for unknown purposes. Although TikTok poses no excess threat in comparison to other media forms many of us use today, that does not mean that it is a reason to be void of concerns. It is essential that we push to gain back our internet security and privacy and that we not only make but enforce legislation that can protect the online citizens of this nation. The more personalized our digital lives become, the more ingrained with the web and difficult to separate our privacy will become. So in finishing, I will say that TikTok should be understood as a genuine source of information and entertainment, and so should it be seen as a reason to raise our privacy concerns.