TikTok has bolstered its Australian leadership team amidst a cloud of data and security concerns surrounding its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance. One member of Parliament has called the app an “attractive database” on young Australians for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Vanessa Pappas, general manager of TikTok in the United States, who oversees Australia, said in a statement, “We are delighted by the positive response to TikTok in Australia and have been inspired by the remarkable creativity across Australia.”
“As we continue to build a positive and safe environment for users … I am confident in the management team we’ve assembled to drive TikTok’s growth and opportunity in Australia ...” she said.
Hunter said: “I love that TikTok has helped bring Australian communities together when we’ve needed it most, whether it’s having fun at home, sharing how we’re feeling, or expressing ideas and messages that need to be heard.”
The app allows users to film, edit, upload, and share 15-second videos of themselves overlayed with music.
Australian cricketer David Warner has a 3 million-strong following on TikTok and consistently makes news headlines with his latest videos.
“TikTok is an attractive database of the habits, psychology, (and) personal preferences of over one million young Australians,” Hastie said.
“That’s powerful intelligence to have on our future political, military, business, and social leaders,” he added.
The company said its data centres were “outside of China” and that no data was “subject to Chinese law.”
“TikTok does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China. We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked. Period.”
However, late last year TikTok banned a U.S. teenager for a month after she posted a video calling out the Chinese regime for its treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. Feroza Aziz accused the Beijing-based company of “covering up” the truth.
The viral video was disguised as a tutorial on how to curl lashes, but in the video, Aziz told her viewers to “spread awareness” of the human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region, where it is estimated at least one million Uyghurs are being held in a network of mass internment camps.
TikTok later apologised and blamed the incident on “human moderation error.”
In a phone interview with The Epoch Times, Feroza said she believes TikTok’s statement is “suspicious” and “doesn’t add up at all.” Particularly, she added, because a video she posted the month before on a separate account highlighting the humanitarian crisis in Xinjiang was removed from the app as well.
