Tik Tok has a security threat
What Do I Need to Know About TikTok, and How Should I Do It? Reply to Rodgers and the Steering Committee on Big Tech
Rodgers said that Americans deserve to know how the actions of these companies affect their privacy and security, as well as how TikTok is keeping their kids safe from online harms. We have made our concerns clear with TikTok. It is now time to continue the committee’s efforts to hold Big Tech accountable by bringing TikTok before the committee to provide complete and honest answers for people.”
The momentum to banning the app has only grown, following revelations that employees have accessed the data of US users multiple times.
Ukrainian forces have proved resilient during the war in Ukraine, and have mounted intense attacks on Kremlin forces. The conflict is entering an ominous phase of drone warfare. Russia has begun launching a series of recent attacks using Iranian “suicide drones” to inflict damage that is difficult to defend against. NATO officials are keeping an eye on Russia to make sure it doesn’t move to use a nuclear weapon, as Russian president Vladimir Putin is threatening to use a nuclear weapon of his own.
The WikiLeaks: How to Stop Giving Passwords and Set Up Passkeys in the Age of Crowdsourced Deception and Cybercrime
While researchers are concerned that Microsoft’s Exchange server isn’t getting development resources it needs anymore, customers should consider shifting to cloud email hosting because of the vulnerabilities in the service. And new research examines how Wikipedia’s custodians ferret out state-sponsored disinformation campaigns in the crowdsourced encyclopedia’s entries.
If you are worried about the threat of a ransomware attack around the globe, researchers point out that middle-of-the-pack gangs like the Vice Society are maximizing profits by not investing much in technical innovation. Instead, they simply run the most sparse and unremarkable operations they can to target under-funded sectors like health care and education. If you’re looking to do something for your personal security, we’ve got a guide to ditching passwords and setting up “passkeys” on Android and Google Chrome.
And there’s more. Each week, we highlight the news we didn’t cover in-depth ourselves. Click here to read all of the stories. And stay safe out there.
Towards a Labeling Scheme for the Internet of Things: A U.S. Government Step in the Way to Make Digital Cameras and Printers Safer
Microsoft said this week that some prospective customers of it’s cloud services were exposed to its data. On September 24, researchers at the threat intelligence firm disclosed the leak to Microsoft and the company quickly closed it. SOCRadar said in a report that the exposed information stretched back to as far as 2017 and up to August of this year. The researchers linked the data to more than 65,000 organizations from 111 countries. The information exposed by Microsoft included names, company names, phone numbers, email addresses, email content, and files forwarded to Microsoft or one of its authorized partners. Cloud misconfigurations are a longstanding security risk that have led to many exposures.
There are no easy answers to improve the longstanding security dumpster fire created by cheap, undefended internet of things devices in homes and businesses around the world. After years of problems, the countries of Singapore and Germany have figured out how to make internet-connected cameras and printers safer. The labels give consumers a better understanding of the protections built into different devices—and give manufacturers an incentive to improve their practices and get a gold seal. This week, the United States took a step in this direction. The White House wants to have a labeling scheme for the internet of things. The guidelines for labels were discussed at a summit by the administration. “A labeling program to secure such devices would provide American consumers with the peace of mind that the technology being brought into their homes is safe, and incentivize manufacturers to meet higher cybersecurity standards, and retailers to market secure devices,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-bytedance-americans-data-security-roundup/
Internet and Cyber Security Vulnerabilities During Trump’s U.S. Presidential Elections: The Case for a Global Privacy Security Roundup
Sources told The Washington Post this week that sensitive information related to Iran‘s nuclear program and the United States’ own intelligence operations in China were included in documents seized by the FBI this summer at former President Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “Unauthorized disclosures of specific information in the documents would pose multiple risks, experts say. The Post said that people aiding US intelligence efforts could be at risk. The information could also potentially motivate retaliation by other countries against the US.
Open internet proponents were relieved last month when an American candidate beat a Russian challenger in an election to run the International Telecommunications Union, an important international standards body tasked with cross-boundary communications. We looked at the susceptibility of the internet infrastructure and the vulnerability of crucial undersea cables.
The US’s new legal climate for abortion access is promoting a culture of community scrutiny, similar to authoritarian states in which neighbors and friends are encouraged to report wrongdoing. And surveillance is on the rise in soccer stadiums around the world as well. The eight stadiums in use during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, for example, will be packed with more than 15,000 cameras to monitor spectators and to conduct biometric scanning.
The more secure, “memory safe” programming language Rust is making inroads across the tech industry, offering hope that a massive swath of common vulnerabilities could eventually be preempted and eliminated. We have a list of the most important vulnerabilities that should be patched right now.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-eu-privacy-policy-security-roundup/
Telling Liz Truss about a hacking attack against her cell phone: the cash app, Cash App, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Liz Truss is having a rough time. The Mail on Sunday reported that agents working for Russia had hacked into her cell phone when she was foreign minister. The breach allegedly allowed these Russian operatives to intercept messages between Truss and officials in other countries, including messages about Ukraine. Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, is alleged to have suppressed the breach by Simon Case. The Labor Party has called for an urgent investigation into their Conservative opponents. “There are immensely important national security issues raised by an attack like this by a hostile state which will have been taken extremely seriously by our intelligence and security agencies,” Labor Party shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said last weekend. There are serious security questions surrounding how this information has been leaked and released.
Another of Jack Dorsey’s corporate creations is facing new heat this week. According to a Forbes investigation, the Cash App is helping fuel sex trafficking in the US and elsewhere. Based on police records, “hundreds of court filings,” and claims by former Cash App employees, the investigation found rampant use of the Cash App in sex trafficking and other crimes. There is a staff dedicated to working with law enforcement and the company, owned by Block Inc., maintains that it doesn’t tolerate illegal activity on Cash App. Meanwhile, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that although rival payment platforms like PayPal provide the the center with tips about potential child abuse facilitated by their services, Forbes writes, “Block hasn’t provided any tips, ever.”
The US Treasury Department this week said US financial institutions facilitated ransomware payments totaling nearly $1.2 billion in 2021—a 200 percent increase since 2020. A White House summit aimed at combating the rise of “ranyms” a type of malicious software that blocks access to files until a fee is paid, landed just as the report did. The financial Crimes Enforcement Network has an acting Director that says that Ransomware, including attacks by Russian-linked actors, remain a serious threat to national and economic security. While $1.2 billion in payments is already painful enough, the number does not take into account the costs and other financial consequences that come with a ransomware attack outside of the payment itself.
Privacy and China: What Do We Want to Learn From TikTok’s Insights? First Results from the U.S. Senate
Lawmakers questioned the CEO of TikTok about his company’s attempts to protect US user data and his ties to China, in the first appearance before Congress.
Legislators in the US have been worried for years about Russia and other hostile foreign governments spreading misinformation and subverting US elections via social media. Concerns—not necessarily rational—over privacy and data use have led to calls to ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok. Senators worry about how governments will use recent events in the financial system.
McCarthy supports legislation to ban TikTok in the US. I am not sure that we have to give the president the authority. I think maybe we may be able to do it ourselves and I’ll let it work in the House,” the California Republican told CNN’s Manu Raju.
The discussions lag because of a split in the White House. There is pressure from some senior national security officials to force TikTok to separate from its parent company, ByteDance. Yet others say the new safeguards TikTok is implementing are enough to ameliorate most concerns about Chinese influence.
McQuaide said that they would brief Congress on the plans developed under oversight of the country’s top national security agencies, which are well underway in implementing.
The Rise and Fall of TikTok: Revisiting the Public Image of Social Media in the 21st Century with a Comprehensive Analysis of What It Has to Offer
A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Receive a daily digest of the evolving media landscape.
The top US diplomat said he believed the app is a threat to US national security, but would not outright say that it should be banned. He said that the administration and others were seizing the challenge it posed and were taking action to address it.
The Senate-passed bill would provide exceptions for “law enforcement activities, national security interests and activities, and security researchers.”
In 2021, TikTok announced it had reached one billion monthly global users. Two-thirds of teens in the US say they use it, according to the research center.
The administration’s conflicting approach to TikTok, which embraces the app as a vital conduit to the public, and its fear of the app as a potential tool of foreign influence, is a perfect response to the unique problem that TikTok poses. Seemingly overnight, TikTok has managed to remake American culture both low and high, from media and music to memes and celebrity, in its own image. This year, more copies of TikTok than the Bible were sold, making Colleen Hoover the best-selling author. TikTok coined “quiet quitting,” one of the hallmark phrases of 2022, and introduced a whole new dialect of algospeak — “seggs,” “unalive,” “le dollar bean” — that is now spreading across pop culture. Corporations and brands, from Goldfish crackers to Prada, have redirected billions of dollars worth of advertising to the platform in recognition of its all-encompassing reach, which can, at seemingly any moment, turn even a decades-old product into a must-have item. Last year, TikTok had more site visits than Google, and more watch minutes in the United States than YouTube. It took nine years for Facebook to reach 1 billion users, but five for TikTok.
The ByteDance App is Not an Agent of China, nor is any Other country; Its Investigated by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.
“If any Chinese company is to have any chance of surviving increased scrutiny from Western governments, they will have to entrust their data to third party security firms and endure rigorous third party audits and government intrusion, in addition to transferring ownership,” Capri said.
Most drastic measures have not advanced due to the lack of political will and courts intervening to stop them.
“I think some concern about TikTok is warranted,” said Julian McAuley, a professor of computer science at the University of California San Diego, who noted that the main difference between TikTok and other social media apps is that TikTok is much more driven by user-specific recommendations.
“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Zi Chew will say, according to written testimony released by the House committee on Tuesday night.
But it was not lost on Chew that American companies have made similar mistakes in the past. American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security. “Just look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, for one example.”
Blinken said that he believed TikTok was a national security risk and should be “ended one way or another,” while adding, “there are different ways of doing that.”
There is a possibility that the committee will approve of the steps taken by TikTok to make sure that the Chinese government does not see user data.
Behind closed doors, the deliberations of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. are secretive. It’s unclear when the committee will finish its investigation and which way it is leaning.
State-of-the-art concerns about the use of TikTok on government devices: A U.S. Reply to Blinken
At least 14 states have recently banned the application from being used on government devices; some state-run public universities followed suit, banning or blocking the app on their campuses.
In fact, China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law requires Chinese companies to furnish any customer information relevant to China’s national security. TikTok collects astonishing amounts of user information, more than some other popular social media apps. There is no evidence that ByteDance ever gave this information to the Chinese government. Yet in an episode that revealed the possibility of future government interference, ByteDance itself admitted in December that it had fired some China and U.S.-based employees for wrongfully snooping on American’s private information, including that of journalists, collected through TikTok.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said TikTok should be “ended one way or another,” but noted “there are different ways of doing that.” During the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Blinken said he didn’t know if it could be enough for TikTok to be put up for sale.
“It makes sense that US soldiers would be warned not to use the app because it may leak their location information to other entities,” he said. That’s true of the weather app, and lots of other apps that are also owned by China or not, even though they are located in your phone.
A federal privacy law would also discourage mobile phone networks, adtech companies and data brokers from selling the exact kinds of data that TikTok could provide to the Chinese authorities. And any fair mechanism addressing TikTok’s risks should also apply to American companies selling data internationally or to US intelligence services.
But in his testimony, Chew attempted to ease the longstanding concerns about the app and called the fears of Chinese government access to TikTok’s user data “hypothetical.”
Zik Tok: Protecting the Public Interests of a Foreign Government, a Fossil Defender of China’s National Security Laws
It’s always easy to say that a foreign government is a threat and that you are protecting them, he says. I think we should be a tad cautious about how politicized that can be, because of how far exceeds the actual threat to achieve political ends.
“TikTok will remain a platform for free expression and will not be manipulated by any government,” Zi Chew will planning to say, according to excerpts of his remarks. “We will do everything we can to keep safety a top priority.”
The irony of US lawmakers pursuing a solution to a problem that’s already been solved by draft legislation—but not actually fixed due to its own inaction—wasn’t entirely lost on the members. While primarily focused on a single company, the hearing, Florida congresswoman Kathy Castor said, should really serve as a broader call to action. “From surveillance, tracking, personal data gathering, and addictive algorithmic operations that serve up harmful content and have a corrosive effect on our kids’ mental and physical well-being,” she said, Americans deserve protection, no matter the source.
Some of the bills that have been difficult to pass are not only due to lobbying. It is more difficult to impose broad regulations on an entire industry than it is to pass a law about the US government handling its own technology.
The tech industry’s largest players have faced a kitchen sink of allegations in recent years. Big Tech has been made out as one of Washington’s biggest villains, due to a wide range of misdeeds from knee-capping upstart rivals to spreading hate speech and harassing conservatives.
There’s no evidence yet that that has actually happened. It is possible because of China’s national security laws, and also because it fits into a broader anti-China narrative linked to trade, human rights and authoritarianism. Those concerns were renewed after a report this year suggested US user data had been repeatedly accessed by China-based employees. TikTok has disputed the report.
The tech lobbying of the biggest tech companies: The case of Amazon, Google, Twitter and ByteDance, Google and Tik Tok
Beckerman said that he thought a lot of the concerns were overblown and that they could be solved through the government negotiations.
In 2019, ByteDance had 17 lobbyists and spent $270,000 on lobbying, according to public records gathered by the transparency group OpenSecrets. By the end of last year, its lobbyist count had more than doubled and the company had spent nearly $5.2 million on lobbying.
The internet industry spent upwards of $20 million on lobbying last year. Next was Amazon at $19 million, then Google at almost $10 million. The parent of Tik Tok spent less than $4 million in lobbying, yet they still made the list.
One of those bills, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA), would erect new barriers between tech platforms’ various lines of business, preventing Amazon, for example, from being able to compete with third-party sellers on its own marketplace. The legislation was a result of an investigation that concluded in 2020 that many of the biggest tech companies were effectively monopolies.
For a brief moment this month, lawmakers seemed poised to pass a bill that could force Meta, Google and other platforms to pay news organizations a larger share of ad revenues. But the legislation stumbled after Meta warned it could have to drop news content from its platforms altogether if the bill passed.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/22/tech/washington-tiktok-big-tech/index.html
Rep. Chew asked the tech community to remove TikTok from their app stores, and it failed to do so after Bennet’s executive order
Silicon Valley’s biggest players have successfully protected their turf in Washington in the past.
The decisions about the rules government might impose on tech platforms has called into question how those rules might affect different parts of the economy from small businesses to individual users.
In some cases, as with proposals to revise the tech industry’s decades-old content moderation liability shield, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, legislation may raise First Amendment issues as well as partisan divisions. Section 230 is seen by Democrats as being unfair to social media companies, while Republicans want it changed to allow platforms to get rid of less offensive content.
The cross-cutting politics and the technical challenges of regulating an entire sector of technology, not to mention the potential consequences for the economy of screwing it up, have combined to make it genuinely difficult for lawmakers to reach an accord.
“It’s really important to establishing a Republican brand. A central tenet of what unites Republicans now is taking a strong stance [and] standing up to China,” says Thad Kousser, professor of political science at U.C. San Diego.
The only witness on Thursday was dubbed a stand-in for the Chinese government by some as a way of stymying him. More than a few of the questions that were put to him were vague, speculative, and immaterial. The members of Congress were more interested in feigning interest in the responses of Chew than they were in the questions.
The chair of the Senate intelligence committee was considering a bill that would ban apps that could be applied to other apps that pose security risks, according to reports.
ByteDance sued after the Trump administration signed an executive order to ban the app, but they never went through.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) demanded that Apple and Google “immediately” remove TikTok from their app stores in a letter addressed to the companies’ chief executives, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, Thursday.
“It’s life or death for TikTok, from their perspective,” said Justin Sherman, the CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, D.C.-based research and advisory firm, who was among the researchers TikTok invited to be briefed on “Project Texas,” the company’s $1.5 billion initiative to address lawmakers’ security concerns. They are trying to solve the problem.
The focus of national security was expected to be the main focus of the hearing but multiple lawmakers raised concerns about the impact of TikTok.
The Apple of TikTok: How the US and China are going to confront toughness on China, but how they will show toughness
Unlike Google, Apple has a lot to lose regarding its relationship with both the US and China. Cook’s ability to keep working relationships with Chinese government and manufacturers is a key factor in Apple’s success.
Some observers expect Washington to take action. “We will see limitations this year,” says Mira Ricardel, a former White House deputy national security adviser now at the Chertoff Group advising businesses on regulations. “There is a unanimity of view that will lead to doing something.” Here is what that something may look like.
The India’s TikTok blockade is not easy to break. A few small ISPs permit access, according to NetBlocks. The lead developer of the University of Michigan’s project said during his visit to India that he was able to use an app he downloaded in the US to watch videos. The ban forced Indian users to use rival services, including from Facebook andGoogle, and caused difficulties for businesses that were built on TikTok.
Trump’s order would have immediately prohibited app stores from distributing TikTok, and nearly two months later would have barred cloud providers and internet infrastructure services from doing business with the company. The companies and people who were caught dodging the order could have faced jail time. “We wanted to start at the root, where it comes into the US, and extract it that way,” says Ivan Kanapathy, who was China director for Trump’s National Security Council and is now vice president at policy consultancy Beacon Global Strategies.
The company recently launched a full-fledged charm offensive that has included rapid-fire meetings in Washington with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, new transparency tools on the app and a first-ever tour to members of the media of its corporate campus in the Los Angeles area.
“There’s a lot of performative action going on,” said Adam Segal, a Chinese technology policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. He said it was a wish to show toughness on China.
Why is TikTok so Emotional? A Critique of the U.S. Embedding in the Silicon Valley: Why Does It Happen That Way?
It is said that almost half the US will go to TikTok to connect, create, to share, to learn, or just to have fun. “This comes at a pivotal moment for us. The politicians are talking about banning TikTok, it could take TikTok away from 150 million of you.
Now, all U.S. user traffic is routed through Oracle’s servers, according to TikTok officials, who also spelled out how Oracle engineers will be able to inspect all of TikTok’s source code, including the powerful algorithm that determines how videos go viral. In addition, a third party monitor will inspect TikTok’s data and algorithm in case Oracle misses anything.
A group of 2,500 people are expected to be hired by USDS in the next couple of years, according to officials from TikTok. None of them will be Chinese nationals.
The Beijing and Moscow employees of tech companies have access to personal data of US citizens, even though there is no law in the United States governing it. There are no federal laws discouraging the collection of critical data or personally identifiable information.
The plan addresses many of the major security concerns U.S. officials have, said Jim Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, but that is no guarantee it will be approved.
“The Oracle plan would work,” Lewis said. “This kind of thing is pretty standard. There’s a reasonable solution that may not be enough since TikTok has become so emotional.
ByteDance may try to spin off TikTok into an American tech company, if it isn’t able to reach a deal.
Project Texas: Providing Data Security for the Information Economy and Civil Society in the U.S., with an Unified View of the Security Plan
Segal agreed that the deal will resolve most of the data security concerns by allowing inspections of its program and transferring US user data to Oracle.
The company has given an official briefing on Project Texas on at least one other occasion, but this was the first time it had given a detailed overview of the plan.
In order to give a glimpse of how the secretive app operates, TikTok is planning on opening centers in Washington, Dublin and Singapore, as well as providing tours to journalists, lawmakers and civil society groups.
There was an example of a TikTok content moderator who could make a decision if a video violated the rules or not.
Visitors who sign non-disclosure agreements will be able to view TikTok’s entire source code in the server rooms, though journalists are not given an opportunity to do this.
Tech journalist Casey Newton of the newsletter Platformer said the content moderation game brought home just how tricky it is for the thousands of people who have to make trade-offs every day on an endless flood of videos, but it was largely beside the point.
The TikTok spokesman said that Congress can take a more deliberative approach to the issues when it shares details of its comprehensive plans with the full Committee.
If you have the courage to fly a balloon over your airspace, what would make you not use it as a weapon? Or use an app that’s on the phone of 60 million Americans to drive narratives in society that try to influence political debate in this country?” says Senate Intelligence Committee vice chair Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida.
“There’s no question about the fact that they are trying to gather as much data as they can about all aspects of our country, and even the most minuscule, small items can add up to providing them with more data,” says Republican senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota. “There’s a huge amount of data out there, which will never be touched, never be used, but it’s the small pieces that add up. They are working it. They are patient. But they clearly see us as a threat, and they’re collecting data.”
Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat of Colorado, told congressional reporters last week that none of the suggested efforts were relevant to his concerns.
The RESTRICT Act: Implications for Financial Crime, Wall-to-Ballistic Competition and the Destruction of Silicon Valley Bank
“It’s not only the fact that you can influence something, but you can also turn off the message as well when you have such a large population of listeners,” Gen. Paul Nakasone said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Our status has been discussed in a way that ignores the facts of the deal and what we have accomplished thus far. We will continue to do our part to deliver a comprehensive national security plan for the American people,” Brooke Oberwetter from TikTok said in statement.
Earlier this month, Warner introduced the RESTRICT Act, a bipartisan-backed bill that would authorize the Secretary of Commerce with the power to investigate and ban the use of technologies derived from adversarial countries. Several senators from both parties and the Biden administration have come out in support of the bill.
The US government wants to ban hardware and other gear made by Huawei, a Chinese technology giant, but it’s often not clear what proof they’ll have against the Chinese government.
“People are always looking for the smoking gun in these technologies,” NSA Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce told reporters in December. It is more like a loaded gun to me.
The senator is one of a group of democrats and republicans that want briefings from intelligence officials and tech experts. Lawmakers fear that US financial institutions could become vulnerable to bank runs and that misinformation on social media could cause public opinion to be manipulated in the financial system.
Earlier in March, Silicon Valley Bank became clear that it had made a bad bet on long-dated government debt, which meant it no longer had enough capital to comfortably pay back depositors. Many of its customers were venture capitalists and tech company founders, some of whom spread news (and speculation) on WhatsApp, Slack and social media, driving a panic some analysts and lawmakers think helped accelerate the bank’s demise.
Is Time Up for TikTok? The Sentiment On Social Media and the Intelligence Between China and the U.S.
“I’m nervous,” Kaine says while walking onto the Senate floor, his voice dropping as if he doesn’t want too many people at the Capitol to overhear. I am nervous.
When shares in Gamestop soared from $20 to $483 in a two-week period in March, regulators were aware of the potential impact of social media. The SEC said investment forums were to blame for fueling the episode.
In recent years, members of the Intelligence Committee have received a number of briefings on the potential for manipulating US markets with deepfakes.
“Foreign actors have been using social media to harm America at least since 2016, as we have evidence of what they tried to do to disrupt our election,” says Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat. Russia, China, Iran and others are trying to undermine the United States and our civility by using social media. That is a risk.
While TikTok may have 7,000 American employees, that is less than the 10,000 or more they wanted in 2020, but a big leap over the 1,400 US employees in that year.
Republican Rep. Michael McCaul has called TikTok a “spy balloon in your phone,” and fellow Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher has called TikTok “digital fentanyl.”
In recent months there has been an increasing discussion in Washington of China’s intelligence capabilities, including a spy balloon drama and a planned meeting between Vice President Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau.
CNN is going to host a special about TikTok, which has ties to China, and the impact that the app has on young people’s mental health. CNN Primetime: Is time up for TikTok? On Thursday, March 23 at 9 p.m.
TikTok: A Family-Friendly Company, Not a Left-Right Symmetric Model. The Case of a father-of-two
It was at a Harvard Business Review conference where executives, professors and artists spoke about corporate leadership and emotional intelligence.
In interviews, Chew has described himself as a a 40-year-old father of two who likes to golf and read books on theoretical physics. TikTok likes to highlight his national origin.
A press conference is scheduled for Wednesday with dozens of people on the steps of the Capitol, some of them being flown out by TikTok. The company is paying for a blitz of advertisements for a Beltway audience. And last week it put out a docuseries highlighting American small business owners who rely on the platform for their livelihoods.
Chew insisted that his company was independent and not an arm of the Chinese government or the Communist Party. But despite not producing evidence or any proof to support their claims of potential interference from Beijing, the lawmakers said they didn’t believe him.
TikTok has launched a number of new features in the last few months, including a 60-minute daily time limit for those under the age of 18. Even that feature, however, was criticized by lawmakers as being too easy for teens to bypass.
The Rise of Smart Startups: Stories of Small Business Owners and Creators on TikTok and the U.S. Digital Economy
The series spotlighted inspiring stories of American small business owners and creators. The first of the 60-second clips features a Mississippi soap maker with a deep Southern accent who built her company on the app, and the second features an educator who quit his job to focus on sharing informational videos on TikTok aimed at teaching toddlers how to read.
A disabled Asian American creator uses her platform to combat ableism, a small business owner in South Carolina launched a greeting card company via the TikTok app and an Ohio-based chef built his bakery business via the app are some of the expected attendees. Many of the creators have hundreds or millions of followers on TikTok.
Even with these efforts, Sherman expressed some skepticism about how persuasive the PR push will be, mostly because of how divided Washington is right now.
Lindsay Gorman, a senior fellow for emerging technologies at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy and a former Biden administration adviser, said that “by and large, TikTok’s lobbying efforts so far have been pretty ineffective.”
“It’s gotten a lot more attention, so there’s just more awareness of the problem,” says Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the top Democrat on the new House Select Committee on China.
The Chinese government considers some advanced technology, including content recommendation algorithms, to be critical to its national interest. In December, Chinese officials proposed tightening the rules that govern the sale of that technology to foreign buyers.
Beijing is unlikely to accept any deal that removes TikTok from its regulatory authority, he said.
To the young people around the world who spend a lot of time on TikTok, it’s the product that won their attention with its smart discovery tool and carefully cultivated community of top creators.
China’s tiktok sell-ban-intl-hnk: a note on the state-media regulators’ concerns about a licensing change
Back then, Chinese state media published a commentary by a professor of trade at the University of International Business and Economics who said the updated rules meant ByteDance would need a license from Beijing to sell its technology.
It’s necessary for cutting-edge technologies to be included in export control management, according to Cui Fan.
A senior official from the Chinese media regulators visited Bytedance last week. He urged the company to improve the use of “recommendation algorithms” to spread “positive energy” and strengthen the review of online content, according to a statement from the regulator posted on its website.
The Chinese government acquired a 1% stake in the Beijing subsidiary of ByteDance in April 2021. The subsidiary controls operating licenses for Douyin, TikTok’s sister app in China, and Toutiao, a news aggregation app.
Rules governing deep synthesis were taken effect at the beginning of the 20th century. They will restrict the use of AI-powered image, audio and text-generation software. These technologies are used in popular apps.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/22/tech/china-us-tiktok-sale-ban-intl-hnk/index.html
What is the problem with a change of ownership in a tech company? The case of ByteDance, according to Chew
He doesn’t believe a change of TikTok’s ownership will solve anything. The data security issue is more about who has access to the data even if they are legal owners.
He said that the test was whether or not user data can be ring-fenced and if it can be done through data segregation, encryption and other means.
As for a solution, Silvers expects both sides to try to “finesse a compromise” where US concerns are addressed, but Beijing still retains control over TikTok.
When TikTok was the title sponsor of the annual convention for brands and creators that make up a key part of the short-form video app’s audience and business, it was the chief operating officer who got on stage.
ByteDance has a board of shareholder and employee representatives, and global investors, which are organized the same way an internet company would be. I have to be responsible to the board and shareholders but also to the ones who made the decisions at TikTok.
Mayer held the chief executive position at TikTok for just three months before stepping down. Pappas, an Australian based in Los Angeles with experience at other big US tech platforms like Google’s YouTube, then served as interim global head of TikTok for less than a year.
The reason he was brought in is because he is not a Chinese national and Singapore is on the fence between the two worlds. “And they’re quite good at it, geopolitically.”
After completing his mandatory military service in Singapore, Chew attended university in London before graduating with an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2010. He interned at a startup that was called Facebook during his time at Harvard, and he put it in an alumni spotlight.
It can be a refreshing break from the bad habits of certain US tech execs who can not seem to use social media. Matthew Quint is the director of the center on global brand leadership at the Columbia Business School, and he believes that it could be because of cultural differences that come from leading a large tech company with a Chinese parent. Chinese tech companies that have drawn too much attention to themselves have faced government sanctions, as evidenced by Chew.
A New Perspective on TikTok and the American Business of the Short-Form Video App Store, a Witness to an Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing in New Jersey
The hearing lasted for five hours and kicked off with calls for a ban on the app in the US. It offered a vivid display of the bipartisan push to crack down on the popular short-form video app and the company’s uphill battle to improve relations with Washington.
The chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee told the witness that his platform should be banned.
Lawmakers asked for answers to questions relating to fears of Chinese authority over the company, which Chew had to provide direct answers to. Instead, his murky answers on questions pertaining to the Communist Party of China led to added confusion at times.
I have not seen any evidence of this happening, said Chew. They are committed to moving their data into the United States and storing it on American soil. The risk is the same for any government trying to get data on an American company.
We are committed to being very transparent with our users. I don’t think what we collect is better than most other players.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone, ranking member of the committee, for example, said Thursday: “Research has found that TikTok’s algorithms recommend videos to teens that create and exacerbate feelings of emotional distress, including videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders.”
Rep. Bob Latta, a Republican from Ohio, accused TikTok of promoting a video on the so-called “blackout challenge” or choking challenge to the feed of a 10-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, who later died after trying to mimic the challenge in the video.
There is not enough moderation of the content which can leave room for children to be exposed to content that promotes self harm.
Rep. Tony Cárdenas: ‘You remind me Fred Astaire a good dancer with words,'” Rep. J. P. Chew, director of the Los Alamos Telescope
Rep. Tony Cárdenas, a Democrat from California, blasted what he saw as Chew’s indirect responses and compared him to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who in his own testimonies in the past has also frustrated some members of Congress.
“You have been one of the few people to unite this committee,” Cárdenas told Chew. You remind me of him. When he came here, I said to my staff, ‘He reminds me of Fred Astaire — good dancer with words.’ You’re doing the same thing today. Many of your answers are vague; they are not yes or no.
To prepare for his appearance Thursday, CNN learned Chew has spent the last week in near-dialy, multi-hour prep sessions. During these sessions, TikTok personnel worked to hone and polish Chew’s presentation. They prepared Chew for hours of relentless questioning by playing the role of lawmakers and practicing with him.
Perhaps no exchange summed up Thursday’s hearing like a moment following Rep. Kat Cammack’s lengthy critique of TikTok’s content moderation and links to China.
The most bipartisan committee on social media security: Shou Zi Chew addressed a congressional hearing on evidence of national security violation in the Internet and other communication channels
“Broadly speaking, some transactions can present data security risks — including providing a foreign person or government with access to troves of Americans’ sensitive personal data as well as access to intellectual property, source code, or other potentially sensitive information,” a Department spokesperson said. There will be protection of national security on a case-by-case basis, and it will be done through espionage, tracking, and other means that threaten national security.
“I think a lot of risks that are pointed out are hypothetical and theoretical risks,” Chew said. I have not seen a shred of evidence. I am waiting for discussions where we can talk about evidence and address the concern that is being raised.
That’s the question coursing through the halls of Congress, Wall Street, and the public writ large after the social media company’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, waffled for hours before US lawmakers on Thursday.
But it was striking how the TikTok chief flailed under aggressive questioning from both Republicans and Democrats, uniting the parties in a way that is rarely ever seen in American politics anymore. “Mr. Chew, welcome to the most bipartisan committee in Congress,” Republican Rep. Buddy Carter said. You have been one of the few people who have been able to unite the committee.
Quite a few members of Congress didn’t pay much attention to the facts. They weren’t going to be moved by anything Chew said. As cameras were rolling, they had their talking points and were going to use them. They didn’t care about technical talk about how to route server traffic through oracle. It was never going to matter or impact how they behaved.
“Shou came prepared to answer questions from Congress, but, unfortunately, the day was dominated by political grandstanding that failed to acknowledge the real solutions already underway through Project Texas or productively address industry-wide issues of youth safety,” a TikTok spokesperson said after the hearing.
The China-Putin Visit and the Challenges of User Trust: What Do We Need to Know About Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook?
Alex Stamos is a founding partner of the Krebs Stamos Group, as well as the founder and director of the Stanford Internet Observatory. Prior to launching KSG and the SIO, Alex served as the chief security officer of Facebook and as the chief information security officer at Yahoo. His views are his own. You can read the opinion on CNN.
We are clearly at the start of a long struggle between the world’s democracies and a new coalition of autocracies, led by a Chinese Communist Party that is emerging from the Covid-19 crisis with its most autocratic leader since Mao Zedong and a burning desire to demonstrate the power of the People’s Republic domestically and abroad.
The visit this week by the Chinese President to a battered, crippled and humiliated Vladimir Putin only highlighted its new position, as the Chinese leader publicly recognized the president indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes last week. China’s military continues to push boundaries in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, preparing for potential conflicts with its neighbors and the West.
A similar battle plays out online, as China’s numerous intelligence and information warfare units support the country’s long-term economic and strategic goals. This includes frequent attacks to gain access to the West’s key companies and their trade secrets, as well as rapidly improving its capability to shape the world’s narratives via both overt and covert means.
Few members of Congress seemed sympathetic to that argument, though — and it’s the potential for future abuse by foreign actors that has seemingly scared lawmakers most. Congress has been caught on its back foot before, introducing data protection bills in the aftermath of American-made social media scandals, like the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on the Facebook Files.
Congress can also set a legal floor to the transparency social networks provide to civil society and academic researchers around the public content they are carrying. These groups find and analyze campaigns to manipulate American and global politics in order to inform citizens and journalists of the kinds of campaigns that may target them.
Ensuring that companies and the data brokers they enrich face swift reprisals for blatantly abusing user trust would have the benefit of addressing not only the accusations levied against TikTok, but deceitful practices common across the entire social media industry.
The US and its allies need to seriously engage in the information war by protecting and supporting journalists who are able to operate independently of any government and by building civil society coalitions to fight the Chinese-style censorship that is invading countries like India and Turkey.
Washington is correct to deal with the immediate risks of the single piece of TikTok but should also plan for the next 20 moves and watch the whole board. The history of the rest of the 21st century is dependent on it.
The U.S. Government as a Social Security System: How China has a Role in Detecting and Sustaining Artificial Intelligence
The laws in question are extraordinarily broad, according to western legal experts, requiring “any organization or citizen” in China to “support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work,” without defining what “intelligence work” means.
At the hearing, Chew told lawmakers that both TikTok and Citizen Lab were saying the same thing. “Citizen Lab is saying they cannot prove a negative, which is what I’ve been trying to do for the last four hours,” he said.
There isn’t much evidence that TikTok did that. The keylogging function is used for a number of different purposes, such as detecting bots, and detecting and monitoring performance. Other research has shown that the use of keyloggers is extremely widespread in the technology industry. That does not necessarily excuse TikTok or its peers for using a keylogger in the first place, but neither is it proof positive that TikTok’s product, by itself, is any more of a national security threat than other websites.
Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a long time ethical hacker and the former head of security at TWoT, said he had to trust that the companies were doing the right thing. We probably shouldn’t. And this comes down to a concern about the ultimate governance of these companies.”
Policy failures to pass strong privacy laws that regulate the tech industry have been highlighted by Lin.
The grilling of the CEO of TikTok highlighted how China was being viewed as an ideological challenge that was antithetical to American values and way of life, much as the Soviet Union was.
A recent sequence of events has made clear that the United States and China are going to fight over the throne of supremacy, a reality for millions of Americans.
The hostility of some of the lawmakers illustrated how opposition to China has become one of the dominant organizing principles of Washington politics and a rare issue that unites both parties. The disrespect shown to Chew by some of the questions as well as the tone of the questioning made it clear why some Asian American groups are worried that hostility toward Beijing in Washington could lead to more violence against Asians in the country.
If it is used that way, this is a powerful propaganda machine. This is an incredible misinformation, disinformation machine. I’m not saying they’re doing it right now, but that potential, if President Xi in China wants to somehow invade … Taiwan, and suddenly folks not only in America but around the world are starting to see videos that reinforces that kind of message, that is a propaganda tool that makes every other possibility pale.”
He opened a packet of notes before the members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In the packet, there was a sheet of names and faces of lawmakers that were going to question him, many of which already had made up their minds over whether the app was safe for Americans.
Facebook, Facebook, and Congress: A Cold War Between US and Foreign-Owned Data Privacy Networks? (After Cambridge Analytica & FTC)
In Cambridge Analytica’s case, Facebook settled with the Federal Trade Commission for $5 billion. The scandal gave birth to a debate about the federal data privacy network. Years later, Congress has yet to approve any meaningful data protections governing US or foreign-owned social media companies.
