According to a new study, users are more addicted to TikTok than they are to YouTube in the United States. AppAnnie’s latest research
(https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/market-data/mobile-market-pandemic-recovery-signs/)
as reported by Digital Music News
shows how usage varies among three countries: the USA, the UK, and South Korea. I personally wonder if the very great difference in Korea might not have something to do with the fact that TikTok is owned by a company (ByteDance) headquartered in the People’s Republic of China, the country that tried its best to impose North Korea and communism over the entire peninsula back in the 1950s.
The report also notes that TikTok collects a LOT of user data and since it’s not bound by U.S. laws, it does not bother to limit what it collects. The fact their collections would violate numerous American state and federal laws about privacy does not seem to concern them. It needs to be said that this only applies to those who create videos and upload to the platform, not to those who use it only for viewing. Viewers do not need to register, so they do not provide any personal information.
You may recall the Trump administration accused the company of being an information conduit to the Chinese Communist Party, which TikTok’s ownership disputes, noting that its servers are in Singapore and the USA. Both Microsoft and Oracle drafted offers to purchase TikTok’s U.S. operations. As of the fall of 2020, Microsoft’s bid was declined and Oracle was still in the hunt, but I see nothing more recent than that.
In the meantime, parents of younger social media users may want to heed the advice given by Karen North, a professor of social media at the University of Southern California, as reported in USA Today
and not let their children download and use TikTok.
mediainmind 
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