| Welcome back to The World Weekly, where we will be deconstructing the biggest news stories and placing the seemingly local developments in global context. This week we look at why governments across the world believe the key to limiting Chinese surveillance is banning a social media app.  Photo illustration created March 8, 2023 in Washington shows two editors testing the Bold Glamour filter on TikTok. (AFP) TikTok Troubles TikTok had a bad week. On Friday morning, New Zealand announced that lawmakers and other staff at the Parliament would not be allowed to have the app on their government-issued phones. Hours before that, on Thursday, the UK banned the app on government devices. Last week, the Danish defence ministry issued a similar order prohibiting the app on official phones. These developments come on the heels of other such measures in Europe, the US and Canada that have been taken in the past couple of weeks. Now is a good time to ask, what is TikTok? It's a social media application, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, that exploded on the scene in 2017. In India, many know TikTok only by name after the app was banned in country in 2022, along with hundreds of other China-linked app amid escalating tensions on the Sino-India border. TikTok has a singular focus: the sharing and viewing of short video content. Between the effectiveness of its algorithm, how easy it is to use and the introduction of continuous scrolling, the app has revolutionised social media, forcing giants like YouTube and Facebook to copy its approach to video content, and Instagram to pivot its strategy away from image-based content to video content through its very own in-app version of TikTok called Reels. With over one billion active users, TikTok was the most popular app in the world in 2022. Its biggest user base is in the US, with over 113 million active users, and, as of February 2023, it has been downloaded more than 3.5 billion times -- the fifth app and only non-Meta-owned (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger) app to hit this milestone. Prior to the ban, India accounted for 30% of all its downloads. TikTok's revenue has grown for seven consecutive quarters and, so far, in 2023 alone, it has collected $205 million more than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter combined in revenue generated through in-app purchases (IAP). For TikTok, as opposed to the other apps, however, IAP is among its main revenue streams.  US senators introduce bill giving the president power to ban TikTok at Capitol Hill news conference in Washington on March 7. (Reuters) Cybersecurity concerns But since 2020, TikTok has also raised national security fears across the world because, intelligence agencies and experts say, the app extensively harvests user data such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers. Are concerns over this legitimate? Depends on who you ask. The nature of TikTok's data collection is not dissimilar to other social media platforms, but here's the catch: the Chinese government passed a law in 2017 that binds companies to “support, assist and co-operate" with Chinese intelligence efforts. This raises concerns that China may force ByteDance to share private data of users, especially government officials and journalists. This fear was heightened in December after it was revealed that TikTok employees accessed personal information about two journalists while tracking down the source of a leaked report on the company. Experts have also raised concerns that the app might be used to push propaganda on behalf of the Chinese government, since the success of TikTok's algorithm is among the biggest reasons for its popularity. TikTok's sister app, Douyin, which is only available in China, is said to be engineered to promote more educational or feel-good content. Chinese surveillance Part of the suspicion over TikTok come from the deteriorating relationship between the Chinese government and governments across the world, especially in the West. But the possibility of Chinese surveillance isn't entirely farfetched -- even if its abroad -- as demonstrated by the spy balloon incident in early February. If you don't remember, the US government shot down a Chinese-owned balloon that was spotted over sensitive sites in the US. While China said it was a weather balloon that was blown off course, Washington claims the balloon was trying to conduct covert surveillance. So far there is no evidence that ByteDance has shared any data with the Chinese government. The company has repeatedly denied that it would do so if asked. It has also said that user data is stored in the US and Singapore, not in China. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify next week before the US House Energy and Commerce Committee about the company’s privacy and data-security practices, as well as its relationship with the Chinese government, the Associated Press has reported. The decision now lies with Washington. It has told the company's Chinese owners to divest their stakes in the app. Till now, bans on TikTok in the US have been restricted to official devices. Should this turn into a federal ban, Washington allies will be sure to follow. That's all for this week, folx. If you have any suggestions, feedback, or questions, please write to me at sanya.mathur@hindustantimes.com | 
