TikTok’s first transparency report details which countries have submitted requests to access user data and remove content.
Canada only filed one request, which was an “emergency request” that would have been to aid with an investigation involving imminent harm.
The transparency report reveals that India submitted the most requests for user data and content takedowns with 107 requests. The U.S. followed with the second highest requests totalling 79 submissions.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is a Chinese tech company. Interestingly, China has not been listed in the report as TikTok claims that the country did not submit a single content takedown request. This could be due to the fact that the Chinese version of the app is called Douyin.
This report comes after TikTok had been scrutinized in all of 2019 for its relationship with China. A report from The Washington Post revealed that TikTok was likely appeasing the Chinese government by censoring content related to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Although TikTok denied the allegations, the U.S. government still called a national security probe. The U.S. army also recently banned soldiers from using the app after saying it was considered a cyber threat.
In terms of Canada, TikTok is ready to expand its Canadian division following a year of growth, as the company is advertising three job positions. The popular video-sharing app is looking to hire a head of Canadians operations, according to its job postings on LinkedIn.
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