TikTok Danger is Real

It’s not just about content

The decision to ban TikTok sparked nationwide debate, with discussions often centering on data privacy, censorship, and national security. While these concerns are valid, the most significant and alarming risk posed by TikTok is its advanced data collection capabilities, particularly its ability to track user locations and contacts—and the implications this has when paired with artificial intelligence (AI).

At its core, TikTok’s biggest threat lies in how it collects and correlates user data. TikTok is not just passively gathering innocuous information. It tracks your phone’s location, daily habits, and all the contacts you interact with through your device. With this data, the platform’s parent company, ByteDance, allegedly shares sensitive information with the Chinese government. By utilizing AI, they can analyze user movements and interactions to uncover far more than surface-level information.

For instance, TikTok doesn’t even need your real name to identify you. By tracking your phone’s habitual routes—whether it’s returning home every night, going to the workplace each morning, or visiting the gym at certain times—the algorithm can pinpoint who you are in just a matter of days. It can decipher if the device belongs to a spouse, a stay-at-home parent, a working professional, or even a child attending school.

Speaking of children, if your kids have TikTok on their phone, not only can they be tracked, but they can be influenced by outside sources not without parental supervision, knowledge or control. The threat is a both physical and intellectual.

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But the extent of this surveillance doesn’t end there. TikTok also monitors which other phones consistently share proximity to yours, such as on an escalator, at a grocery store, in church, or during a workout. When combined with its algorithmic analysis of user content on the app, the platform can deduce highly sensitive data—such as political affiliations, sexual identity, or personal interests.

This depth of tracking and profiling poses a tremendous national security risk. Imagine an AI with the ability to map out the connections of millions of Americans, analyze their behaviors, and cluster them into groups based on political, professional, or social affiliations. Such a dataset, in the wrong hands, could be leveraged for espionage, blackmail, or propaganda with unprecedented precision. Not to mention sending drones targeting specific individuals, more on this in my What is a Drone post.

It’s important to note that this risk is not unique to TikTok. Other platforms, like Twitter, have faced criticism for selling user location data or inadvertently exposing sensitive information to third-party buyers. However, TikTok’s direct ties to an authoritarian regime elevate the stakes. This is not merely about ad targeting or privacy violations; it’s about giving a foreign government access to a tool that could track and influence individuals and communities on an extraordinary scale.

Ultimately, the debate about TikTok isn’t simply about who owns the platform—it’s about who has access to the data. With TikTok voluntarily shutting down its platform following legislative action, the risks surrounding its operations have been magnified, signaling a wake-up call for those who prioritize national security and personal privacy. The implications of TikTok’s location tracking and user profiling capabilities stretch far beyond entertainment—posing a legitimate threat to the United States and its citizens.

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