Anonymous Hackers Target TikTok: ‘Delete This Chinese Spyware Now’

I think it's funny that Forbes actually used a Twitter post of a screenshot of a Reddit thread. That is just lazy reporting.

Additionally, while I don't use Tik Tok nor do I trust it, I don't find anything overtly scary about what Tik Tok is collecting. Device information, network information, location information, other installed apps; this is not uncommon. The reverse proxy thing is a bit strange. Downloading zips and running the payload is not outside the realm of possibility either. I'm not a mobile programmer but I've had to write similar code for completely legitimate desktop programs several times. Anti-debugging and obfuscation is literally just the way apps are made these days. You can even build it into your toolset and let your IDE do it for you. Having a crappy non-encrypted API is nothing new, and I absolutely refute the claim that other social media apps don't try to hide the data they collect and send about you. Almost everything sent over the web by major platforms is encoded or encrypted in some fashion. And it's par for the course for Chinese software to have obvious backdoors, hardcoded credentials, and overall crappy security. I can't speak for their censorship or moral practices because I don't use the app.

I am not saying I support TikTok or censorship. I'm just saying I don't think the behaviour described is enough to call the app a "spying platform" for the Chinese government. It probably is, but 100% of that work would be done on the back-end anyway. Client apps are general-purpose information gatherers. That is their primary function. That should surprise no-one.