At the beginning of this month, President Trump signed an executive order that targeted Byte Dance, the Chinese-owned parent company of TikTok. By September 20, Byte Dance’s other assets, including TikTok, are scheduled to be sold. A one-week delay in TikTok ban from app stores was imposed after Trump conditionally authorized an Oracle-Wal-Mart agreement for the acquisition of TikTok shares.
What does the term TikTok mean?
For people between the ages of 15 and 25, TikTok has become a popular video-sharing platform. With its fast and flashy viral content and highly customized algorithm, it boasts the highest engagement rate per post of any social networking app in 2019. Its monthly user base has swelled to 800 million since its launch.
These two companies have been shut down.
Microsoft and Walmart both said earlier this month that they were in talks with ByteDance, but on September 13 software provider Oracle struck a contract with ByteDance.
As contrast to Microsoft’s agreement, this is a last-ditch effort to keep the app from being banned. Instead, a 20 percent stake in a new company dubbed “Oracle and Walmart” will go to TikTok ban Global, which will employ Oracle’s cloud computing capabilities. As a result of a new Chinese policy that prohibit the export of cutting-edge technology, including TikTok’s artificial intelligence backbone, the purchase will also require Beijing’s authorization.
Including the algorithm in Microsoft’s agreement may have scuppered the deal. An algorithm analyses a user’s preferences and behavior’s to produce a personalized content stream.
What’s so remarkable about Oracle, exactly?
Not for its consumer social networking sites, Oracle is a tech company best known for its JavaScript software. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, is a vociferous Trump booster, and Trump claimed that the US Treasury should receive a “very big percentage” of the TikTok ban selling price. While there is no law to justify this, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States periodically collects a modest fee to cover the costs of conducting a national security assessment.
What does this mean for the personal information of Canadians?
Canada’s Public Safety Minister Bill Blair stated that the social media platform TikTok will not be prohibited. Both Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith and New Democratic Party (NDP) MP Charlie Angus said in the same month that additional proof of personal information exploitation was needed before a Canadian TikTok ban could be imposed.
Based on an intentionally vague definition of what constitutes data collection, ByteDance is located in Beijing, China. In 2017, China passed a cybersecurity legislation that permits the government to compel companies to turn up their confidential information.
Personal information is collected by TikTok ban for targeted advertising like Facebook, Google, and other American tech firms, but it is currently the most major Chinese-owned social media app to gain a worldwide audience.
As stated in the app’s privacy policy, TikTok ban collects geolocation data, online browser history, information provided by third-party social network providers, and behavioural information.
TikTok is able to track the precise location of its users at all times using IP addresses and GPS data. Although it may seem excessive to some users, TikTok is not the only app that does this. There is a lot of ambiguity in the privacy policies of the major social media platforms.
What if TikTok is banned?
If the sale is refused, the US government may place a limitation on the sale of TikTok ban servers, which has never been done before. It’s not clear what would happen if the government ordered the app to stop receiving updates because so many Americans and Canadians already have the software loaded on their phones and tablets.
Boman Martinez-Reid, a TikTok star from Canada, has used the app to promote his career, while others have used it to cope with the affects of COVID-19. It remains to be seen if Oracle can recreate the sense of community and usability that Chinese technology provided.
