TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew admitted to Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks that the Chinese language app tracks customers’ keystrokes throughout a Home Committee on Power and Commerce listening to on Thursday.
“Does TikTok track users’ individual keystrokes?” Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) requested, to which Chew responded by stating, “Only for security purposes, for example, like detecting bots.”
After Miller-Meeks requested Chew to make clear that “the only purpose that you would monitor keystrokes is for security purposes,” the TikTok CEO stated, “I can get back to you on the specifics,” after which deflected, by saying different corporations behave in an analogous manner.
In a latest interview with GMA3: What You Have to Know, former Trump official Keith Krach warned that TikTok is ready to observe customers’ keystrokes.
“That means they have access to your passwords, all your data, they have access to your health records, your bank records, they have access to your geopolitical information or your geospatial information,” Krach stated. “That means that they can track where you are, where you’ve been, and where you’re going.”
“Look at it as a digital virus,” he added. “And the only cure for this; the only vaccine for this is a total ban.”
Some would possibly agree with Chew’s suggestion that U.S. social media corporations interact in the identical conduct as TikTok, however the distinction is that U.S. corporations will be held accountable beneath U.S. legal guidelines, whether or not that takes the type of motion by Congress or regulators, whereas the identical will not be attainable with TikTok.
Elsewhere throughout Thursday’s listening to, Chew stated “I don’t think that ‘spying’ is the right way to describe” the alleged Chinese language surveillance of People utilizing his firm’s social media platform.
You’ll be able to observe Alana Mastrangelo on Fb and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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