Duke scientists: It may be too late for TikTok’s ban to be effective

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colorado, joined the chorus of voices Thursday with a call to ban TikTok application.

The use of a short video app created by a Chinese company is already there prohibited in North Carolina on any state-owned device or those that are given to state employees for their work. The governor’s office says cybersecurity experts found security risks in it.

These concerns hinder the app’s popularity. It is used by 2/3 of American teenagers and is the second most popular app worldwide, with over 1 billion downloads in 2022 alone.

Robin Kaplan, visiting fellow at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, said: “When we carry these phones with us every day, we’re sharing data — what we’re doing, who we’re with.

“They may collect your name, your email, your IP address, and a range of other data that the privacy policy allows, such as your keystroke pattern.”

Kaplan was one of the speakers at Thursday’s event, where experts and visiting professors talked about the risks the supplement poses and whether it could be banned.

There has long been bipartisan concern in Washington, D.C., that Beijing will use legal and regulatory powers to collect user data to try to push pro-China narratives or even disinformation.

Phil Napoli, another Duke professor who is director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, said it may be too late.

“In the US, our model for regulating the digital platform has been to do nothing.

“It would be nice if restrictions were put in place before these platforms became visible. Can you put the horse back in the barn?”

ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is in talks with the US government to try to avoid an outright ban, and The company’s CEO is expected to testify before Congress in March about privacy issues.