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Study: TikTok Shares Personal Data More than Any Other Social Media App

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TikTok logo with an eye, repeated a bunch of timesAll social networks are collecting your information. Data is money. Currently, that mostly is in the form of ad revenue, but there are other uses. Suggestion algorithms can find content that keeps users engaged. The longer a user feels stuck on a page or app, the more profitable they are. That’s more ads seen, over longer periods of time. It’s also more interactions, helping them not only improve their algorithms for you, but also people like you. People who like the same things, or who may share the same demographics. It’s important to consider what companies are doing with the data they collect. If they use it only internally, it’ less dangerous than if they’re sharing this information. It’s why a site like YouTube may collect a large sum of data, but most is used internally, to either sell ads through parent company Google, or to suggest videos.

TikTok, however, stands out. Not only is the app gobbling up huge amounts of personal data, researchers aren’t sure where that data is going. Chinese tech giant ByteDance, owner of TikTok, may use data internally the same way many other tech companies do. After all, their content suggestion algorithms are what made TikTok popular. However, they also have a record number of third party trackers. This means your data is going elsewhere, and it’s difficult to say for sure where it’s all going. All we know is that, while all social networks collecting your data are invading your privacy for profit, TikTok may be taking that a step too far, crossing a line even Facebook and Google haven’t.

The Study

People watching TikTok were already concerned about the company’s ties to the Chinese government. Chinese companies have very little freedom under the Chinese government. An app like TikTok, which collects massive amounts of data on users through what they watch, like, and even what they create, is a potentially dangerous tool. However, the fact that not only is ByteDance collecting this data, but a large number of third parties as well, is troubling. We have no idea what these third party trackers are using your data for, or where it’s ending up.

According to URL Genius, who used Apple’s Record App Activity feature to capture tracking domains apps use, TikTok was the worst offender. They observed Facebook (Meta), Instagram (Meta), LinkedIn, Messenger (Meta), Telegram, TikTok, Twitter, and Whatsapp (Meta).  And, yes, that’s a lot of Meta. Even if Meta, formerly just “Facebook,” used the same tracking features on all of their apps, that’s still an obscene amount of control Meta has over social networking and your data.

YouTube and TikTok were the top trackers. They both had 14 different trackers, higher than the average for each app of just six network contacts. However, 10 out of those 14 trackers were first-party trackers for YouTube, that is, tracking services owned by Google. On TikTok’s side, a shocking 13 out of 14 of those trackers were third party trackers. One one network contact was related to ByteDance. The rest? Out in the wind. That’s your data leaking out far beyond what you would expect. TikTok having your data is shady enough. With that, a company as involved in AI as ByteDance can discern a lot from you. But with most of their trackers being third parties, it’s incredibly difficult to figure out who else has your data.

Even If You Block Tracking

Somehow making matters even worse, these third party trackers showed up in Apple’s tattling feature regardless if users allowed tracking or not. In fact, third party trackers showed up in a variety of social networking apps, even when the user asked these apps not to track them. Because TikTok primarily uses third party trackers, this is exceptionally harmful.

TikTok Responds

TikTok claims they similarly tested the app, using the same methodology as URL Genius. They claim they found all of those third-party trackers really go to one of four third-party domains. Those are Google, Apple, Snap, and AppsFlyer. The latter is an advertising analytics company, and could make up a large portion of the trackers. It’s interesting to see Google and Snap on the list too, as both compete with TikTok directly on their own platforms.

What TikTok Tracks

Wired looked into what TikTok tracks from each users specifically. This is the data that TikTok is collecting for their own needs, but may make it to third party trackers as well, at least in part. Wired found TikTok’s collecting, “the device you are using, your location, IP address, search history, the content of your messages, what you’re viewing and for how long.” They also infer your age range, gender, and interests. Furthermore, because the U.S. does not have laws against biometric scanning like some other countries, TikTok can also collect your biometric data, including a voice print and facial recognition data. TikTok can track you anywhere in the world by your voice or face. But if you have the app on your phone, they already know where you are. With face and voice tracking, they could find you on other apps as well.

It’s possible for apps like TikTok, as well as Facebook, YouTube, and any other social network, to do object identification within videos as well. We already know Facebook does this for photos, something you can see simply by looking at the alt text or tags for a photo. Facebook hides tags from the user interface, but a number of third party services can surface them, and you can also with browser tools. This data can form a more complete picture of what’s in the background of your videos, or the topics of your videos, to find more ways to reach you with marketing or targeted videos on your for you page.

What You Can Do

For a moment, I’m going to pretend you can’t quit TikTok. What can you do if you still want to preserve your privacy? These are going to be similar to the ways you can preserve your privacy on Facebook. However, a few are TikTok specific.

First, you can enable a few privacy settings in TikTok. This will at least help slow or stop the spread of your private information or videos to other people. Set your account to private so you have to approve followers and people can’t share or duet your videos. You can also turn off personalized ads in settings. If you want, you can download the data TikTok has on you, however, this may not include the information TikTok can infer from your data, so it’s likely an incomplete picture. In your preferences, disable anything that is related to tracking, finding your account, or other potential privacy violations.

Do not link your accounts. TikTok can link to your other accounts, like Google or Instagram, to share your videos elsewhere. Do not do it. If you do share something to another social network, copy the link, remove any tracking information from the URL (usually anything after the ‘?’ in the URL will suffice), and then share the shortened URL. If TikTok can link to other accounts, they could collect a wider range of data from other apps you use.

Now the more generic suggestions. You can turn off app tracking for all apps. This won’t be complete, and apps can still track you, but in your iPhone go to Privacy > Tracking > and turn off Allow Apps to Request to Track. This won’t even give them the chance to ask to track you, it’ll just turn it off.

Change your email address. If you haven’t signed up yet, create a new email address. Many email providers allow you to create an alias email address. You can use that. Other services, like Firefox Relay, allow you to spin up a fake email address that will forward to your real email address. If you ever decide to quit TikTok permanently, you can easily delete the relay email, making sure TikTok can never track you again.

Delete the TikTok app. Only browse TikTok from a browser. In fact, make it a browser you don’t use for anything but TikTok. Firefox Focus or DuckDuckGo make great mobile browsers that are focused on privacy. On your desktop computer, use a browser like Firefox with tab containers and the add-on Containerise. Then create a tab container for TikTok and set up Containerise to force all TikTok domains into that container. This will prevent TikTok from tracking you on other websites.

If you turn off location services for TikTok in your phone’s settings, you can also take it a step further by masking your IP address, which can give them a general location. Use a VPN like NordVPN to mask your exact location.

On iOS, you can view the apps and websites that are tracking you. Go to Privacy, scroll down to “App Privacy Report.” Here you can see the apps and websites that track you the most. Consider not using the ones that track you.

Stop Using TikTok

For the love of all that is good, just stop using TikTok. Even outside of the privacy implications, it’s a rather terrible service. Through trends and suggestions, it, intentionally or not, encourages fast fashion and wastefulness as well as bullying. That’s not even to get into its social impact. TikTok has pushed hateful users towards LGBTQ+ users, where they report they face bulling, false reports, and automated bans. Trans users say they face “shadow ban,” where their content doesn’t spread after they use a trans tag or discuss transgender topics. TikTok will even promote transphobic content if a user likes even just one transphobic post. And, while very recently they banned deadnaming and misgendering, if it’s anything like Twitter’s ban, it won’t be enforced.

“I had a video where I tried to speak up on my experience being bullied in high school for being transgender and that video got taken down right away. I don’t know why. They just said it went against their guidelines.”

– Fletcher Furst, trans TikTok creator

TikTok has blocked the spread of posts by people it judged to be unattractive. Seriously. They said it was to stop bullying, but after sharing posts from trans people with transphobic users, that seems unlikely. It’s more likely they wanted the app to have a certain image and feel: “all the pretty people are here.” If you use TikTok, think about the people you follow and see frequently.

The social network has also banned people after they spoke out against China’s genocide of the Uighur people. In fact, TikTok has hidden posts about protests and encouraging actions to protect civil rights all around the world. They even shadowban LGBTQ+ tags in places that have a negative attitude about LGBTQ people, hampering any progress activists could make in those countries.

TikTok will literally promote hate and bigotry if it thinks a user is into it, but they won’t allow activists to spread their messages. It’s not just that TikTok is bad for tracking users, it does subtle, hard to notice things that mask the work of activists. It pushes users towards complacency and fun videos to keep them engaged. It’s highly addictive, more so than other social networks. It’s not just that they’re tracking you, compiling and sharing your personal information for who knows what reasons, it’s that they’re also doing some pretty wicked things, intentionally or not. Is that really something you want to keep using?

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