FBI Says TikTok Is China's Weapon Against US

For the FBI, TikTok is a national security issue. (photo: dock. tiktok)

JAKARTA - The United States (US) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is once again worried about national security, where China will use millions of TikTok data to control its users.

The opinion was conveyed by FBI Director, Christopher Wray, during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing yesterday, he was very worried that the Chinese government could use the application to control millions of user data or software.

In fact, they can also take advantage of its recommendation algorithm which determines which videos the user will see next.

"(It) can be used to influence operations if they want to. Under Chinese law, Chinese companies are essentially required and I'll be short here, basically do whatever the Chinese government wants them to do in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool." the Chinese government", Wray said.

Wray added, regarding the worldwide threat that the application programming interface or API, which ByteDance embeds in TikTok is a national security issue.

This is because China can use it to control the collection of data of millions of users or control recommendation algorithms, which can be used to influence operations. This means that the Chinese government could technically harm the personal devices of Americans.

Launching SCMP, Thursday, November 17, Uncle Sam's Country, said Wray often faces cyber threats from various countries. The FBI has seen a spike in cybersecurity cases and as the number increases, so does the complexity of investigations.

"We are investigating more than 100 different ransomware variants and each has multiple victims and a large number of other new threats posed by cybercriminals and nation-states", Wray said.

The popular video streaming TikTok, which has millions of users in the US, is the center of a long-standing national security debate. However, this application is much loved by teenagers who increasingly avoid social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.