TikTok is still in the news – the fact that TikTok’s owners, ByteDance, are a Chinese based company subject to the Chinese laws that gives the government far reaching rights to access any company’s data is the issue.
Here is the BBC’s take on the story:
TikTok: Why do countries think Chinese tech firms are a security risk? – BBC News
Basically there is no hard evidence that information is being accessed by the Chinese government, but the possibility remains.
Here is John Naughton’s take on the issues, in The Guardian:
John makes two great points right at the beginning of his article:
- Why are government officials in all these liberal democracies spending their time scrolling through TikTok on their official devices?
- Why has it taken so long for the Chinese security question to be asked – as TikTok has always been a Chinese company?
Then he makes one other great point – will the political rhetoric about a TikTik ban, dry up when the politicians need the TikTok users to vote for them?
Of course, the US NSA, CIA, HLS or FBI etc. (it is alphabet soup time) could persuade a US based social media company to divulge information if they could make a “national interest argument”!
Your take away from this should be to set guidelines for your team as to what they can post on social media about where they work.
Then there is Twitter… We have a board meeting this week, where there is a proposal to close all of our Twitter accounts, driven by this post.
Clive Catton MSc (Cyber Security) – by-line and other articles
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