Don’t Install TikTok On Your Phone, It’s A Spyware: Reddit CEO
TikTok, one of the most popular video-sharing platform, has welcomed a lot of criticism all around the world. Now, Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman said that the app is “fundamentally parasitic”. Huffman pointed out TikTok’s practice of fingerprinting to track devices as a major security issue in the Social 2020 venture capital conference.
As reported by TechCrunch, Steve Huffman said that maybe he has to regret what he is going to say but he doesn’t know what Tiktok is up to. He added that Tiktok is fundamentally parasitic as it always keeps a check on its users via the fingerprinting technology used by the app.
He concluded his statement by saying that he will never install an app like that on his smartphone. Huffman also said that he actively warns people to avoid installing TikTok as it is a spyware. Steve Huffman’s comments were mostly controversial throughout the conference.
What Is Fingerprinting?
Fingerprinting is the process of tracking a website or app to determine the visiting users, user agents and for tracking users’ browsing activities within and across sessions. Companies can collect information using fingerprinting for the purpose of profiling and thus it poses a risk to the privacy of users.
TikTok’s Take
However, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has said that it uses the fingerprinting technology to track malicious or inappropriate behavior of the browser. As per the research performed by Matthias Eberl, the app was working smoothly even after disabling the fingerprinting scripts.
Not only Steve Huffman, but many tech executives in the industry are worried due to the practices of TikTok. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO also raised her concern and said that TikTok is growing at a very fast pace with the help of fingerprinting and has a huge database.
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