TikTok, subject of a campaign in the United States to economically decouple the social network from its Chinese parent company, has become object of controversy between the two powers. Beijing has already warned that it will do everything possible to prevent its forced sale.
Under new legislation passed by the US House of Representatives last week, TikTok could be banned in that country unless it cuts ties with its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
But in this battle what many consider a contradiction has emerged: while the company tries convince Congress of its independence from Beijingthe Chinese authorities have come to his defense.
Beijing does not want a precedent to be set by seeing a Chinese company forced to sell one of its most valuable assets, including a algorithm that is the envy of its competitorsanalysts estimate. «This type of threat is like a robbery in broad daylight“Mei Xinyu, a Chinese economist, told AFP.
US lawmakers and law enforcement agencies say TikTok poses a threat because China can access and use huge volumes of data that the application collects to spy on and manipulate your 170 million users in the United States.
TikTok denies these accusations and claims to have spent around $1.5 billion on “Project Texas,” under which American user data is stored in the United States.
But some critics believe that data is only part of the problem and that the algorithm that produces personalized recommendations for users of TikTok must also separate itself from ByteDance.
TikTok’s algorithm is the “secret sauce”
The ByteDance algorithm has contributed to the TikTok’s stratospheric success since the application was launched on the international market in 2017.
It analyzes huge amounts of user data, such as their in-app interactions and location, to offer them more content tailored to you. And its operation is a very well kept secret.
Other social networks also have their own algorithms, which analyze user data, but analysts say that TikTok has been so successful that some consider it the most valuable asset of the company.
The algorithm is “valuable because TikTok is catchy. People spend more time on TikTok than on other networks “social issues,” explains James Andrew Lewis, a technology expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), to AFP. “This is the “secret sauce that makes TikTok a success.”
TikTok claims that, within the framework of the Texas Project, the algorithm and the US user data is stored on servers Oracle in the United States.
However, The Wall Street Journal reported in January that employees of ByteDance in China updated TikTok algorithm so frequently that Project Texas employees couldn’t track all the changes.
TitTok CEO Shou Zi Chew denies that TikTok is “manipulated by any government” or that the Chinese government has ever asked for data from American users.
With information from AFP