After Huawei, China’s TikTok has been targeted by the US banning the platform from federal devices, as Brussels analyzes how the social network protects user privacy.
On January 10, TikTok’s executive president, Shou Zi Chew, met with four European Commissioners on the subject in Brussels, and will meet with the Internal Market Commissioner on January 19.
After Huawei, the social network TikTok, owned by the Chinese ByteDance, is in the crosshairs of Americans, not only for data reasons, but also to be able to influence the thinking of its users and, at most, allow espionage.
“We are talking about the social network with the highest number of active members”, points out in an interview with Lusa to the lawyer João Leitão Figueiredo, partner of the law firm CMS in the field of technology, media and communication.
TikTok has made “about 6,000 million ‘downloads'” of the application andunlike the other social networks, which are all owned by US companies – Twitter, Facebook and Instagram (Meta) among others – this one is Chinese.
“So we’re in a battle between titans here and Europe is kind of in the middle here,” he says.
It is clear that Europe has “a greater political and cultural proximity to the United States” than to China, which “also means that the various European agents are a little more involved in these matters at the moment”, he emphasizes, Washington’s “pressure” on this subject.
It all started two years ago with Donald Trump, then President of the United States: “In 2020, Trump was the first to raise that warning cry that the Chinese, the autocratic regime (…) Chinese used this social platform to influence exercise the American people,” he recalled.
If “we look at TikTok’s approximately 1,500 million users, we are even talking about an absolutely monumental number of users, 100 million are North Americans”, about 30% of the North American population.
In Europe, “we have 250 million users, with the particularity of TikTok, unlike other social networks, since it has always been used by a younger audience, from 13 to 19 years old”, that is, about three quarters of users.
“That’s why 200 million young Europeans use TikTok,” he says.
The North American logic is based on two vectors, the first of which has to do with information security and the transfer of data from the US to China.
“This is a common problem and it is completely controlled by the European Union. The second point has to do with the use of the TikTok algorithm, which basically allows the posting of ‘non-stop’ content. [sem parar] on the devices of the North Americans and this is where the most serious problem starts to emerge,” he continues.
None of this differs much from other platforms, but the US concern is how to “ensure that this massive use of data (…) does not end up in the hands of the Chinese government”.
Well, “we suspect that the private sector in China is not as robust and not as independent from the state as in liberal democracies or in European democracies and in the US”. And this issue was reactivated “again”, and Senator Ted Cruz was one of the most active spokespersons in the fight against TikTok, he recalls.
In view of this, the “Solomonic solution would involve the transfer of TikTok to a US company”, but it is clear that ByteDance is “not exactly interested in selling (…) and losing its biggest source of income” from a project “from a Chinese technology company in terms of social networks”, he believes.
However, they hired Oracle’s “cloud” services – dubbed the Texas Project – “to hold any data deemed sensitive in the US under the terms of the negotiations currently taking place” with CFIUS [Commitee on Foreign Investments In the US].
“What is happening and why are too many loopholes starting to appear in this matter? Because they are going to block access to information or it is to block access to information that would be easily accessible to TikTok” and it’s not that the social network wants, he emphasizes.
This is information about users’ habits, their location and that “is not covered by this agreement as Oracle provides only part of the technical platform, the ‘cloud’, all the ‘software’ that will be installed and used for the maintenance and the management of US citizens’ data” will be owned by TikTok, “that is, it is only the appearance that this project, ‘Project Texas’ (…) is a solution”.
On the one hand, “it’s positive” since “there’s some of the data that inherently won’t be” transferred to China, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Firstly because more recently with access to recordings of TikTok meetings it became clear that they were in fact “playing with the situation” saying “Okay, we keep the data there, but we managed to access it from China “.
This came to state “naked” that the attitude “has not been the most transparent in these matters”, but that’s no different from other platforms. “This problem is mainly related to the fact that it is a Chinese company and there is here, since the height of Huawei, and now again an iron arm for power in the markets [dos serviços] digital”, emphasized.
The director of the FBI came to warn that there was an “attack on the way of life” of the North Americans and “a way to change the way of thinking” according to what Beijing’s “intentions” are.
“Europe woke up a little later and it is also logical that this happens because” this “is politically a bit more neutral and not in this dichotomy between two giants, between two great powers such as China and the US,” he argues. .
Europe, unlike the US, already has legislation on digital services and markets – the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – due this year that will regulate some of these aspects that affect will be on TikTok, as just like other platforms.
The recent revelation that ByteDance will have used TikTok data to track journalists caused “major impact” in Europe, sparking fears that, beyond a use of influence and data transfer, it is possible to engage in espionage and, yes , “makes a lot of money” in a more serious case, “he warns.
“The US is putting pressure on European decision-makers to make more abrupt decisions, not just from a legal point of view, in the sense of saying, let’s make rules that oblige them to abide by our rules in Western democracies, but, more than that, we are going to deny them access to our markets,” he says.
These are two of the world’s richest and most relevant markets for TickTock, not counting China.
“We are talking about a maximum limit (…) to be able to talk about espionage, but on the other hand we are talking about a company’s ability to influence our way of thinking, our way of acting against what it is our knowledge or our conscience. And this is an element that seems to me very important, or equally or more important than the fact that my data is transferred to China because I have TikTok on my mobile phone or any other device, “the lawyer argues.
While there is no transversal decision in Europe, there are “demonstrations from various political parties, particularly in Germany, to try and pass legislation banning TikTok ‘downloading’ to government devices”.
There is also an ongoing investigation by the Irish authority into the personal data breach, pending a decision.
“However, it will not be a few million euros that will hit TikTok and in the end it is more important to solve a real problem than to try to solve it with fines,” he concludes.
Source: DN
