TikTok

What Can TikTok Offer to Societies? Beyond What Meets the Eye

We all know it. By now, it has become one of the leading mainstream platforms, bringing to the social media scene a new feature and a new form of entertainment, reels. It is TikTok, the short-form video entertainment platform that in no time usurped one of the internet’s leading social media kings, Instagram. Used by […]

India’s Chinese Apps Ban: India’s Own App Store? 

The recent decision by the Indian government to ban 59 Chinese mobile apps. Including popular ones such as TikTok, UC Browser, and ShareIT, has raised concerns among Indian smartphone users about the fate of these applications on their devices.  Dissecting the Chinese Apps Ban and Its Implications  The ban was introduced citing national security concerns […]

TikTok Issues: Data Privacy and Children’s Rights Violations

TikTok issues have been the talk of the world lately, especially data privacy and children’s rights violations. Lately, numerous countries are banning TikTok citing security concerns. It comes down to two main reasons: data privacy and the lack of protection for children and minors. The application has 1.534 billion users out of which 1 billion […]

U.S. War on Chinese Hardware and Software

The U.S. war on China goes beyond Chinese hardware to now include its software. Can we afford slowing down technological advancements? The U.S. is not a fan of Chinese technology operating on its soil as it “strongly believes” that that could open it up to Chinese surveillance. And to drive that point home, late last […]

Portuguese NGO Sues TikTok, Says Platform ‘Profits from Children’

A Portugal-based European consumer protection group has sued short-video app TikTok for allegedly allowing children aged under 13 to sign up for an account without parental consent and failing to implement measures to protect them. The lawsuit came a day after Britain’s data watchdog said it had fined TikTok 12.7 million pounds ($15.81 million) for […]

AI Experts Disown Musk-Backed Campaign Citing Their Research

Four artificial intelligence experts have expressed concern after their work was cited in an open letter – co-signed by Elon Musk – demanding an urgent pause in research. The letter, dated March 22 and with more than 1,800 signatures by Friday, called for a six-month circuit-breaker in the development of systems “more powerful” than Microsoft-backed […]

Amazon and Microsoft Cloud Services Face UK Antitrust Probe

Amazon and Microsoft, the two dominant cloud providers, face an antitrust investigation in Britain after the communications regulator said some aspects of the market, including fees to switch supplier, were a cause for concern. Ofcom, which started looking into cloud services last year, said it was particularly worried about the practices of Amazon Web Services […]

UK Watchdog Fines TikTok $16 Million for ‘Misusing Children’s Data’

Britain’s data watchdog said on Tuesday it had fined TikTok 12.7 million pounds ($15.9 million) for breaching data protection law including by using the personal data of children aged under 13 without parental consent. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) estimated that TikTok allowed as many as 1.4 million UK children under 13 to use its […]

Will TikTok Ever Move Out of the Gun Sights of Governments?

TikTok has been making headlines ever since it debuted and went viral. Is “viral” even the right word to describe the cultural reset it triggered? Unfortunately, most of these headlines are not in the app’s favor, including adding to the mental health crisis among U.S. teens AND United Arab Emirates (UAE) teens and spreading misinformation […]

TikTok Represents ‘Strategic’ Challenge, Says Top US Cyber Official

The head of the U.S. National Security Agency’s cybersecurity directorate on Monday said TikTok represents a “strategic issue” rather than an immediate “tactical” threat to the United States. Speaking at a policy conference in Northern California, Rob Joyce, director of cybersecurity for the spy agency, reiterated the agency’s earlier position that the Chinese-owned social networking […]