Quote:Nebulous privacy and censorship criticisms about video social-media app TikTok have been swirling for months. Security analysts from CitizenLab are the first to collect real data on the platform’s source code, and reported that TikTok meets reasonable standards of security and privacy.
 
The platform, they figured out, is a customized version of more intrusive versions of the application used by TikTok’s parent company, China-based parent ByteDance, across East and Southeast Asia, minus the limitations in access or privacy.
 
CitizenLab explained that the controls ByteDance has put in place for the version of TikTok available in the U.S. are sufficient, “nor [contain] strong deviations of privacy, security and censorship practices when compared to TikTok’s competitors, like Facebook,” the report said.
 
There are lingering concerns, however, that the source-code capabilities to censor speech on the various ByteDance apps could be “turned on” in the U.S. version of TikTok down the line.
 
TikTok is the first social-media platform to come out of the Communist country and explode across the globe. TikTok’s rise has been so meteoric, last year it posted the most downloads in a single quarter for any app ever, and crossed more than 2 billion users worldwide.