Why the tick in the Sino-US conflict?

Tiktak has gained popularity among teenagers in a short time. The app has millions of users at home and abroad. While the social video app may seem innocent at first glance, the app is in the middle of a Sino-US nerve war.

The United States wants to ban ticking in its own country for security reasons. Australia wants to do the same. India has taken the app with one hand from the middle, has banned it in its own country. But the biggest market for a tick is India.

But why so many problems? A BBC report has tried to find the answer. Let's try to know the answer in the light of that report.

What is a tick?

TickTock can be called a mini version of YouTube. Users can post one minute long videos and add a variety of songs and filters to the video. Humorous clips and lip matching videos are also provided.

After having one thousand followers, users can stream live for the purpose of fans if they want. If they want, they can also take virtual gifts bought from the fans for money.

If you want, TickTock users can exchange messages among themselves.

The range of ticks

TickTock has been on the top download charts almost regularly since the beginning of last year. The use of ‘TickTack’ and another version of TickTock, ‘Down’, has increased significantly in this lockdown of the epidemic. In all, the app has been downloaded 200 million times worldwide, with about 600 million active users.

Tick ​​tock relations with China

Today's TickTock is basically the story of multiple different apps. The US app Musical.lv was launched in 2014. A similar service called 'Down' was launched in China in 2016. The service was launched by Chinese technology giant ByteDance.

ByteDance later spread Dwayne's service worldwide under the name 'TickTock'. The company bought Musical.lY in 2016 to connect with Tiktak's activities.

In recent times, balance is moving away from ticking. The company has hired former senior Disney executive Kevin Meyer as chief executive of the social video app.

How much data does TickTock collect?

The main controversy over TickTock is over data or customer data collection. TickTock collects a lot of information from users. These are,

Customer watching a video.

· Location data.

· Phone model and which operating system the phone is running on.

· What rhythm are people typing.

Many have expressed concern about the app's data collection. Recently caught, the app copies and pastes data from users' clipboards. Many could not take it easy.

However, the clipboard data is not just ticked, but copy-paste many more apps including Reddit, LinkedIn, New York Times News app, BBC News app. In many ways, TickTock's data collection can be compared to the data collection of other social networks like Facebook.

Now the question is, where is the problem if a lot of western social and media outlets collect the same information that TickTock collects? The answer is that the only tick-tipped app mentioned is the Chinese app. In this case, Chinese law has become a headache for the United States and other Western countries.

Chinese law states that a Chinese company will be obliged to provide any information about its customers to the Chinese government. And the Cambridge Analytica scandal has shown what could happen if the consumer information of US citizens is in the hands of a foreign government.

Can China use ticks to keep an eye on people?

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also complained that TickTock users were at risk of losing data "in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party." TickTock, however, has always said that they store data collected outside of China.

Despite claiming to be out of control of China, TickTock was fined for mismanaging children's data in South Korea. In addition, Tiktak's algorithm 'anti-Semitic' once brought death to the fore. "The idea that we are somehow under the control of the Chinese government is completely false." - says Theo Bartram, head of public policy for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The security fears surrounding TickTock are very similar to those of Huawei. The main fear is that the Chinese government could force ByteDance, the owner of TickTock, to transfer data to foreign users.

According to the country's 2016 National Security Act, any organization or citizen must "support, assist, and assist state intelligence in compliance with the law."

However, in an effort to build trust, he said, "Even if China comes with a request for soccer data, we will accept it."

However, it is difficult to say whether ByteDance will become a Chinese institution and hurt the Communist Party. In 2016, the company's popular news app 'Totiao' was sent offline within 24 hours by the Internet Information Office in Beijing. At the time, the company was accused of promoting "pornographic and tasteless content" against the news app.

The organization will have to face a big situation if it disobeys the instructions of the top people of the country directly. The BBC says this could lead to a change in the organization's leadership.

Tick ​​tock can be used in Chinese propaganda?

Another major concern about China is censorship. China is at the forefront of conservative Internet use in the world. The country's "Great Firewall" is always working to keep its citizens away from content that is readily available abroad and uncomfortable for China. Way