Around the country, lawmakers are sounding an alarm about the use of the social media platform TikTok. Just this week, Gov. Tony Evers was urged by U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher to ban TikTok from Wisconsin government devices.
While the app is widely used to share funny dance videos and cooking tutorials, Joe Wetzel, department chair of Information Technology at Fox Valley Technical College says there is a legitimate concern about cybersecurity.
“It’s owned by ByteDance, which is a company that’s located in China,” Joe explains. “China hasn’t always been the best when it comes to security and dealing with intellectual property.”
As with any other social media app, if data on TikTok is compromised, it could land in the wrong hands. Federal authorities suggest data could be compiled and be used to compromise security.
Joe advises users to protect their social media accounts like they would anything else that involves their personal identity.
“Make sure that you have unique passwords for every account,” Joe advises. “That may be complicated, so you could use a password manager.”
Original source can be found here.
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