TikTok influences Gen Z voters, the CCP collects its data to track and locate users

The US government is panicking about TikTok, as the Chinese-owned social media platform collects U.S. citizen data and influences young voters in the 2024 elections. Recently, research revealed that there are over 150 million TikTok users in the US and those users are young.

On TikTok platforms, users find plenty of bizarre trends like the one that recently went viral, “Chicken War”, and dangerous challenges like “the blackout challenge” which claimed several young deaths in 2022.

In addition, the CCP is using TikTok as a marketing tool to spread its propaganda and influence over user data. It targeted Gen Z voters.

TikTok uses tactics that hired another firm, like People First. The firm would find users who actually agree with the political message. The firm pays them to promote its propaganda. At the same time, the CCP collects the data from TikTok. They will use the data for whatever they want. The Wall Street Journal reported on 5 June, that The CCP used TikTok data to identify and track Hong Kong protesters in 2018, said former ByteDance head of engineering Yintao Yu. The allegations were made by Yintao Yu, a former head of engineering at TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance America, who was fired when raising concerns. Eventually, he filed a wrongful-termination suit against ByteDance in early May 2023. Yu said the CCP members targeted civil rights activists in Hong Kong and pulled network information, SIM card identifications and IP addresses in an attempt to physically locate these users.TikTok also stores all users’ direct messages, search histories and content viewed. His filing claims that ByteDance allowed the CCP to access a “backdoor channel” to U.S. user data. The CCP owns the access level called “god credential”, which allows viewing all data collected by ByteDance, including American users. However, ByteDance denies the charges. A few years ago, Miles Guo warned America that TikTok is a digital fentanyl for young Americans. The company is owned by the CCP. Now, Miles Guo has been detained without bail since March 15. He is the victim of the CCP’s infiltration of the US justice system. The US Congress must investigate his prosecution to find out the CCP’s black hands behind the system.