TikTok followed up with a lawsuit of its own (New York Times, 5/22/23). The New York Times (3/17/23) reported that theJustice Department is investigating the surveillance of American citizens, including several journalists who cover the tech industry, by the Chinese company that owns TikTok. Social spying hypocrisyThe funny thing here is that if the US government is worried about social media being used for surveillance, it should look inward. But TikTok, like other for-profit social media platforms, routinely collects data on users to sell to advertisers (MarketWatch, 10/25/22; CBC, 3/1/23). (By comparison, CNN.com reportedly has 129 million unique monthly visitors in the US, the New York Times brand has 99 million and FoxNews.com has 76 million.)

Source: CNN May 27, 2023 19:24 UTC