Take By TheTechBoy @thetechboyorg
I went ‘viral’ for one video on my YouTube about hating TikTok. The President is planning to sign a TikTok ban if Congress approves it. I am all for bolstering American businesses and companies. Simultaneously I generally see TikTok as a complete waste of time and completely stupid. However, I don’t want the Chinese Communist scrolly app to be banned.
If this law was signed it would apply to companies such as Apple and Google from hosting it on their mobile application stores. It would not apply to possession of TikTok. If possession of TikTok was a crime half of GenZ and Millennials would be in jail. The law would probably also not apply to international companies so the Samsung Galaxy store would be exempt from the ban.
ByteDance Eats Data
ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is legally obligated to share data to the Chinese Communist Party. This means that they have data from over 150 MILLION Americans. They have access to half of Americans’ phones and an algorithm that could practically mind-control young Americans. If TikTok is banned the CCP will still have access to this data. Users will still try to use it.A great opportunity presents itself from ByteDance and the CCP (but I repeat myself). I believe ByteDance will bite.
With TikTok banned from the Google Play Store, millions of Android users will no longer have the ability to download the application officially. However, Android devices can download applications hosted on external websites. Think of it as a Windows computer downloading software from the internet.
This will lead to multiple things. Firstly, multiple tech blogs will give users tutorials on how to install TikTok APKs on their Android devices (Think of APKs as EXEs for Android.) Secondly, because there is no verification for applications that are not in reputable stores like the Play Store or the Galaxy Store, malicious actors could edit the code behind TikTok and place malware in it. This means that the attackers will be able to see and control your device from anywhere in the world.
With millions of people addicted to TikTok this would be a great attack vector for random hackers to hack into your device, OR it would be an even better target for the CCP to
hack into millions of US-based devices. They could use the power of these phones to form a giant botnet (essentially multiple computers sharing their power) to take down websites, mine cryptocurrency, and even crack passwords!! They can also steal data off of your phone such as passwords and texts!! This can be coupled with the data they already have on half of America!!!
China holding the keys to these abilities could change the course of the entire free world. The Chinese government could have virtually unlimited money and take down people’s entire digital identities whom they do not like, all using your mobile data and your processing power!!
Are VPNs the Answer To TikTok?
Now to be fair, a small majority of Americans have iPhones, so if TikTok gets banned from the App Store, then it’s blocked indefinitely. Apple iPhone users cannot install external applications without some serious tech savvy, so it’s fine, right? Wrong!! China will not give up its stranglehold on Americans that easily and Americans will not give up TikTok easily. More Americans would switch to Android phones (yay!!) but many will stick to IOS. However, I believe that ByteDance has a solution for this, and it is called a VPN.
Essentially, a VPN takes all your internet traffic and tunnels it through a server. It is good for privacy and allows you to access content that is banned in your country. If TikTok was banned from the App Store, millions of US IOS users would download legitimate VPNs from the store, change the locations of their Apple ID to pretend they are in Europe or Mexico etc., and download TikTok. However, VPNs cost money. Enter ByteDance.
ByteDance could create a free VPN application with servers in countries that do not ban TikTok. This would mean users would be able to download and use TikTok. However, this VPN would essentially work as a man in the middle. This means that it would, as all VPNs do, intercept your traffic and pass it through their servers. However, unlike a legitimate VPN, this VPN would take that data and decrypt it either with supercomputers or the hypothetical Android botnet. This would be detrimental to the security of Americans.
Once this traffic is decrypted (the VPN would not use good encryption anyway) the Chinese Communist Party would be able to see every site, application, and password you entered on your iPhone (and Android users who want a free VPN) it would also couple this data with the data TikTok has on you to create a huge profile on you. ByteDance would use this data for fine-tuning the algorithm, akin to Novabox-like mind control, while the Chinese Communist Party would use this data for more nefarious purposes. Remember, who decides what ByteDance shows you, decides how to take mind-control of you!!!