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Nearly the whole US military has banned TikTok
When the Army, Marines and Navy all put the kibosh on TikTok, you knew it was just a matter of time before other US military branches followed suit -- and sure enough, they have. The Air Force and Coast Guard have confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that they no longer allow TikTok on government-issued devices. It's not yet clear that the ban is truly comprehensive (the recently established Space Force hasn't weighed in), but it effectively leaves no 'safe' space for TikTok on military hardware.
TikTok-owner ByteDance reportedly built a deepfake maker
TikTok parent company ByteDance has built a feature that could let users create their own deepfakes, TechCrunch reports. The feature, referred to as Face Swap, was spotted in code in both TikTok and the Chinese app Douyin. It asks users to scan their face and then transfers their image to videos.
TikTok report says China didn't request user info in the first half of 2019
In its first-ever transparency report, TikTok claims it didn't receive any user information requests from the Chinese government in the first half of 2019. Instead, the majority of both legal and government-related requests came from India. In all, TikTok says it fielded 107 legal requests related to 143 Indian accounts, and provided authorities with user information in 47 percent of cases.
US Army is the latest military branch to ban TikTok
The Navy isn't the only American military branch clamping down on TikTok. The Army has banned the use of TikTok on government-issued phones, with Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Robin Ochoa telling Military.com that it's "considered a cyber threat." The Army started warning soldiers in mid-December, roughly at the same time the Defense Department was telling employees to delete TikTok to "circumvent any exposure of personal information."
ByteDance may sell off TikTok stake to avoid US backlash
Chinese company ByteDance's TikTok app is popular with young people across the globe for posting fun videos. However, recently security concerns about the app have been raised in the US, with senators requesting an assessment of its potential as a national security risk and the US Navy banning the app from government-issued phones. Now, the company's leadership is considering how to address these concerns, according to Bloomberg.
Navy bans TikTok from government-issued phones
Don't expect to post often on TikTok if you're serving in the US Navy. The military branch has banned use of the social video app on any government-issued mobile devices. ByteDance's software is allegedly a "cybersecurity threat," according to a bulletin. The Navy's Lieutenant Colonel Uriah Orland didn't offer specific reasons for the ban, but the notice asked troops to take action to "safeguard their personal information."
House panel asks Apple, Google if app makers must reveal foreign ties
The US is growing increasingly suspicious of foreign-made apps. House national security subcommittee chairman Rep. Stephen Lynch has sent letters to Apple and Google asking whether or not they require app developers to disclose "potential overseas affiliations" before software shows up in their respective stores. The congressman is worried about claims that apps like TikTok, Grindr and FaceApp may be providing sensitive data to the governments of China and Russia.
TikTok tries to explain takedown of viral video about Uighurs in China
Other the last day or so, a TikTok "makeup tutorial" video that was actually a call for viewers to investigate the detention of Uighur Muslims in China went viral on and off the platform. However, as The Guardian and others reported, TikTok temporarily banned the account of the teenager who created the video. According to her, this isn't the first time the platfom has tried to censor her account for speaking about the issue. This evening, as much of the US heads into a holiday weekend, TikTok offered a public apology and detailed timeline of events, where it claims that the ban was not related to the topic of this video. To summarize, the company's version of events is that two weeks ago her earlier account was banned for a satirical video that featured an image of Osama Bin Laden as it violated "strict" policies against terrorist figures. Then, after the Uighur/eyebrow curling video, a separate sweep banning devices tied to accounts that had already been banned had the effect of locking her out of her new account. Then a "human moderation error" resulted in the video going offline for around 50 minutes. It's a detailed explanation that for some will be hard to believe. Feroza, the teenager who made the video, tweeted "do I believe they took it away because of a unrelated satirical video that was deleted on a previous deleted account of mine? Right after I finished posting a 3 part video about the Uyghurs? No." The incident also occurs as US regulators are looking into TikTok's parent company ByteDance, and its connections to the Chinese government. According to report today from Reuters, ByteDance has made efforts to separate TikTok from much of its Chinese operations, and is setting up a team in Mountain View, CA to oversee management of data in the US.
Senate bill would block US companies from storing data in China
US Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) wants to make it illegal for US companies to store user data or encryption keys in China. He also wants to prevent Chinese companies from collecting any more info from American users than is necessary to provide their service. He proposed these measures as part of a new National Security and Personal Data Protection Act announced today.
TikTok's owner may be readying a streaming music service
No, TikTok's owner still isn't done dipping its toes into other categories. Financial Times sources claim ByteDance is planning an on-demand streaming music service with, as you might expect, a social media hook. The app would reportedly include a collection of short, searchable video clips you could sync to songs and share with your friends. It's also set to cost less than the $10 per month Spotify, Apple and others typically charge for their all-you-can-stream offerings.
TikTok test lets users link to the products in their videos
Short video platform TikTok is experimenting with letting people find and buy products from within the app, by testing new features designed to direct visitors to e-commerce sites.
Instagram copies TikTok with new music-heavy Stories features
Facebook may be for boomers, but the company has had more success keeping younger users on Instagram. The evolving requirements of social media demand constant innovation though, and Instagram is working to stay relevant by incorporating features popularized by one of its fastest-growing rivals: TikTok.
TikTok will let you directly post videos made in other apps (updated)
One of the reasons that TikTok has enjoyed explosive growth is because the app makes it super easy to duet, share and save videos. Unlike other companies, ByteDance -- the owner of TikTok -- actively allows users to download popular creations and share them wider on messaging services and social media. In its bid to make it easier to get their content up on the platform in the first place, the company today announced new tools that lets creators upload videos directly from their favorite editing apps.
TikTok's parent company reportedly faces a national security review
Recently TikTok's popularity has exploded worldwide, and so has scrutiny over the app's parent company ByteDance and its relationship to the Chinese government. Now Reuters reports that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has opened a national security review of the company, because it had not sought approval to make its $1 billion acquisition of Musical.ly in 2017. US lawmakers have expressed concern's over the app's ability to collect data, while the company responded saying "TikTok is committed to being a trusted and responsible corporate citizen in the US, which includes working with Congress and all relevant regulatory agencies." The report notes that Musical.ly founder and now-head-of-TikTok Alex Zhu recently began to report directly to ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming, which could help separate it from the company's other holdings. Meanwhile, ByteDance just announced plans for its first smartphone.
TikTok-owner Bytedance reveals its first smartphone
The rumored smartphone by TikTok's owner ByteDance is now available. The Nut Jianguo Pro 3 is ByteDance's first smartphone. It's a continuation of work by the Chinese phone maker Smartisan (which partially explains the name), and it's being released under the Smartisan brand.
Mark Zuckerberg still won't ban 'political' ads from Facebook
For the better part of the past four years, Facebook just hasn't been able to keep its name out of the bad news cycle. The latest backlash the company is facing has to do with its political ad policies, which essentially allow politicians to spread misinformation on the site. CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the topic during Facebook's Q3 2019 earnings call today, saying he doesn't agree with "critics" who claim the company won't ban these controversial ads because "all we care about is money." Zuckerberg said ads from politicians will be less than 0.5 percent of Facebook's revenue this year, noting that the $5 billion FTC fine was more than 10 times more costly for the company.
Senators want to know if TikTok is a national security risk
To most, TikTok is an innocent platform full of cute and/or funny videos. But to political leaders, it's a potential national security risk. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) have formally asked the Intelligence Community to assess whether TikTok and other China-owned content platforms pose a threat.
TikTok is the latest platform to pull ISIS propaganda videos
TikTok may have a terrorism problem. According to The Wall Street Journal, Islamic State militants have been posting short propaganda videos to the platform. That's especially concerning because TikTok is so popular with impressionable teenagers.
Marco Rubio calls for TikTok review over censorship claims
TikTok owner ByteDance might find itself in legal trouble in the US over claims it's censoring criticism of China in other parts of the world. Senator Marco Rubio has sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asking for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to review ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly in light of the censorship allegations. He argued there was "ample & growing evidence" TikTok was silencing US material to honor Chinese government policies, effectively letting it "suppress freedom of speech" beyond its borders.
TikTok opts out of paid political advertising entirely
While other social networks grapple with complex issues of political speech, growing video platform TikTok has decided not to allow political ads of any kind. We'll have to see how that ban works in practice, as the company's list of disallowed material includes "paid ads that promote or oppose a candidate, current leader, political party or group, or issue at the federal, state, or local level – including election-related ads, advocacy ads, or issue ads." The Beijing-based app said in a statement that "the nature" of political ads don't fit its experience. As TechCrunch notes, it may not have the infrastructure to develop a verification system of the type that Facebook has built to try and manage political advertising, and notes that this statement reiterates the company's existing advertising policy. But the bigger it gets, the more people will ask questions about how censorship, moderation and politics play into the platform's decisions, and now there's a clear statement on at least one angle of its approach.
