TikTok CEO says that separating from ByteDance won’t address security issues
The US government is mounting pressure on the social media platform TikTok to separate from its parent company i.e., ByteDance. It could be done by selling the US division of the app. If the company doesn’t go for this, it would have to face a complete national ban in the country. However, the official of TikTok has responded to this order by saying that such measures won’t mitigate data privacy and security issues. The company wants to cater the security concerns with the aid of Project Texas.
Chew told The Wall Street Journal, “I do welcome feedback on what other danger we are talking about that is not handled by this, and so far I haven’t heard anything that can’t genuinely be managed by this.
Chew’s comments were made in response to worries that China would exploit TikTok to collect user data. The Chinese government might compel ByteDance to reveal user information and demand modifications to the content that TikTok’s algorithms display to Americans, legislators are concerned. In addition, the FBI’s current inquiry into ByteDance’s purported access to the data of US journalists has heightened already-present worries and criticisms of the firm’s data handling procedures.
What is Project Texas?
TikTok is going to address the security concerns of the US government via Project Texas. The company has denied the US government’s request for diversion from ByteDance. Project Texas will protect users’ data by transmitting it to domestic Oracle servers. In this way, third parties would have access to the app’s algorithms. The company states that it has invested heavily in this project. TikTok also states that it might introduce the project in the EU.
Besides these assurances, a former employee of TikTok’s trust and safety teams claims that Project Texas has several drawbacks. According to the employee’s indications, the Chinese government could still have access to the data of US users. however, the CEO stated that despite any modifications to Chinese law, the project will keep China from accessing US user data.
“The concept behind Project Texas is that since we are taking U.S. user data and putting it out of their reach, it won’t matter what the Chinese legislation or any other law says. These are the genuine solutions, in my opinion, Chew added.
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