Spying, melancholy, obsession - The true risks posed by TikTok are exposed.
The behavior exhibited by politicians: inconsistency and hesitance.
One glaring instance: President of the United States, Joe Biden (81). He recently advocated for Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok in America within the next nine months, otherwise, it could be prohibited due to concerns that China's authoritarian government is monitoring millions of US citizens through the app. TikTok has indeed filed a lawsuit against this.
Baffling: On the very same day of the signing, Biden uploaded a video to the Chinese app, with the topic being a voter expressing gratitude to him for the fine pension plan.
What exactly is TikTok?
Formulated in 2016 by Zhang Yiming (41) from China, the app aims to keep users addicted since it seems to anticipate a user's preferences before they do. Topics encompass politics, art, travel, as well as a lot of pointless absurdities.
⊙︎ Mechanics: Users view videos on their mobile device; if a video doesn't meet their liking, they can swipe it up with their finger. Another video promptly appears from below.
The algorithm swiftly assesses a user's interests based on how long they watch a video. Every subsequent clip matches their preferences even better. Videos typically last 60 seconds. There's absolutely no chance of getting bored with TikTok - it's just a swipe and you're good to go.
A few weeks ago, Robert Habeck (54), Federal Minister for Economic Affairs (Greens), acquired the TikTok bug.
Habeck acknowledges that this is a hazardous balancing act, something he would've rather avoided. But he intended to join the critically successful far-right party in appealing to schoolchildren.
A noteworthy fact is: the far-right party dominates the voter hunt on TikTok, with a massive 3.6 million followers. All the other parties collectively have 1.2 million.
Politicians on TikTok, but constantly warn about dangers and repercussions. The Chancellery even possesses a particular cell phone for Chancellor Olaf Scholz's (65, SPD) profile, which should never be linked to any government Wi-Fi owing to worries of Chinese espionage.
Ulrich Kelber, chief data protection officer of the federal government, discourages using TikTok on work mobile devices. The deputy president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Sinan Selen, has distress on the platform as well.
And European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen would more likely wipe out the menace. "We understand the threat posed by TikTok," she said recently - and didn't rule out a ban. A week earlier, her commission denounced the hazard to children and teens with the secondary app TikTok Lite and threatened penalties. The business altered and took away a function where watching videos resulted in rewards for goods.
In general, the EU condemns the addictive potential of TikTok for youth and the jeopardy to their mental wellbeing.
"TikTok should be outlawed"
The greatest app apprehension stems from the backdrop of China's dictator Xi Jinping and his machinery potentially controlling TikTok. Stephan Hessel, a legal specialist in data protection, said to BamS: "This is a political dilemma." Suspicions surround TikTok regarding espionage due to its association with China and possible data theft.
Nevertheless, Hessel affirmed that TikTok cannot be forbidden in Germany due to data protection violations, as the law does not grant this liberty. "If you seek to curb TikTok, the only option is by utilizing antitrust regulations."
This implies that actions would only be taken if TikTok's dominance became colossal.
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Source: symclub.org
