Younger Scots seem to love TikTok. They appear unfazed by a video-sharing social networking site overtly intrusive, to put it mildly, involving online behaviour that is increasingly raising privacy and security issues. This has not stopped it rapidly becoming the most downloaded app on the planet – surpassing Facebook, YouTube and Instagram – a business commercially valued more than Coca-Cola.
Mobile research from Sensor Tower reveals that two billion downloads worldwide include endorsing involvement by celebrities Justin Beiber, Dwayne Johnson and Jennifer Lopez. In a matter of four-and-a-bit years since its launch, it now hosts around 800 million monthly active users in over 150 markets and in 75 languages.
Significantly, Gen Z – born from the mid-1990s into the 2010s – feature heavily as three-out-of-five participants, with innumerable companies advertising to reach their intended demographic. The New York Times reports that such viral videos by young people now equate with reading and tag the brand ‘BookTok’. And, to be expected, publishers are increasingly using the platform.
Scottish Privacy Forum, an independent body of senior academics and policymakers, warns that individuals have ‘limited opportunities’ to opt out of the ever-growing data collection and sharing of their personal information online. The group scrutinises public policy and service delivery and its co-chair, Stirling University’s Professor William Webster, is on record calling for a better understanding of the ethics, impact and consequences behind the proliferation of such novel tech.
Steve Huffman, chief executive of Reddit web content rating and discussion website, says the relative newcomer to the social media world is not to be trusted. He claims that TikTok ‘spyware’ it is ‘so fundamentally parasitic… it’s always listening’ and employs ‘truly terrifying’ online fingerprinting tech. Huffman says he could not bring himself to install such an app on his phone. Even though, given his executive status, one would imagine he has a top-of-the-range secure mobile at his disposal.
TikTok shrugs off such claims, but it hasn’t stopped calls within the US Senate for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to launch an investigation. Notice, I haven’t mentioned, until now, that the platform is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese internet-based multinational, headquartered in Beijing but legally domiciled in the Cayman Islands.
It’s far too easy to fall into unsubstantiated politically-driven claims about China, no matter how overwhelming the evidence might appear at times. TikTok admits that it collects user’s information, including their IP addresses, mobile carrier, unique device identifiers, keystroke patterns and location data. To me, that seems far too much, especially if there are no tick boxes to opt out.
Such online behaviour sparked the US FTC to fine ByteDance $5.7 million for collecting information from minors under the age of 13, in contravention of the American Children’s Online Privacy Prevention Act. Loose change for TikTok’s owner, reckoned to be worth around $250 billion – a valuation beating Coca-Cola and far outranking Twitter, according to Bloomberg.
In the UK, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham states that private data collection and online bullying and intimidation issues persist, especially when it involves videos collected and shared by children online and a platform open messaging system that allows any adult to message any child. Last month, Netherlands’ Market Information Research Foundation filed a €1.4 billion euro lawsuit on behalf of Dutch parents, alleging the app gathers data on children without adequate permission.
Coming to our rescue is one recipient of the Scottish Business Resilience Centre’s first Cyber Community Awards. ‘Getting it Right… Keeping Your Child Safe’ is a free online seminar via Microsoft Teams live events initiative by the education and children’s services at Perth and Kinross Council. The judges commented: ‘Making online programmes for parents engaging can be a difficult task. However, this event series… empowered them to become more cyber resilient helping keep homes and communities safer from risks that exist online’.
There’s also the negative effects of too much online screen time and a Scottish Government announcement of additional learning for school staff to support young people’s mental health is timely. The Internet Society neatly sums matters up: ‘Kids need encryption too,’ adding that experts are warning against the surge in screen time. It thinks that messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram are safer as they are end-to-end encrypted.
Also, websites showing a ‘lock icon’ by the URL means they’ve been encrypted and, finally, back to that old chestnut – long and strong passwords are urged combining letters, numbers and symbols for both online accounts and devices. And change your passwords regularly. (I know, almost no-one does.)
A UNESCO survey of young people revealed that 90%, when asked, would welcome the right tools to protect themselves (more) on the internet. It only goes to show: it’s one thing saying ‘I want to be more secure online,’ it’s a whole lot different in practice as they get carried away by big bucks marketing campaigns to persuade them to reveal their innermost thoughts to all and sundry online.
One thing is clear. Surely the so-called tech multinationals raking in their billions should also ensure the next generation of ‘netizens’ can readily use encryption as a protective shield. Never has there been a more pressing time in this digital age, amidst a social media ‘open season’, to come to the rescue of young people constantly exposed to highly-questionable networking activity online.
The cyber clock is TikToking on this one…
Former Reuters, Sunday Times, The Scotsman and Glasgow Herald business and finance correspondent, Bill Magee is a columnist writing tech-based articles for Daily Business, Institute of Directors, Edinburgh Chamber and occasionally The Times’ ‘Thunderer’
By Bill Magee | 30 June 2021