New TikTok terms of service and privacy policy, fact versus fiction.

Hi, my name is Jess. I'm a social media professor, researcher, and teacher at the University of Georgia. I am also the author of this academic peer-reviewed article talking about how platforms communicate in things like terms of service and privacy policies and how they communicate their values, ideas, and what is allowed and what is not allowed on their sites. So, by now, everyone has probably seen this when they have logged on to the app and it talks about what has changed now that TikTok is part of the TikTok USD joint ventures, whatever. That is the new corporate entity. So I'm going to talk about bullet point one and then bullet point two because they are doing two completely different things here. So first and foremost, this morning, I read the new terms of service and I do have to report there is nothing abnormal there. And if you're like, Jess, but now they're geolocating me, it said so in that new terms of service bullet. I have bad news for you and they have been geolocating you this entire time. The bits in the terms of service about geolocation and device tracking are nothing out of the norm from any social media platform, including Meta, Snapchat, all of the above. What is abnormal is TikTok USD joint venture. Yes, that is the new corporate entity. That is the Trump-appointed group that bought TikTok and now oversees its US operations. So what is abnormal here is the relationship between these location tracking, device tracking features and the US government. So yes, this whole deal happened because US politicians were worried about the Chinese government getting too much sensitive user data. Now the United States government is likely to get too much sensitive user data. And speaking of sensitive user data, let's turn to that second bullet point about information collected that has me the most worried. So that second bullet point about information collected comes from the TikTok privacy policy which was updated yesterday. And now it's very small here on the screen, so I encourage you to pause to read, but in this bottom paragraph here, it now specifically mentions in the information it collects about you, trans and non-binary status as well as immigration and citizenship status. Let's be clear, this is not remotely normal. While social media platforms have always collected demographic information such as race, age, ethnicity, country of origin, all of that stuff, these specific instances worry me greatly. Because in my research that I posted at the start of this video, platforms really like to highlight what they value and what they prioritize, and this shows us that this administration and this new TikTok joint venture prioritizes collecting this type of information about people. If you are no longer comfortable being on this app, here are a couple other places on the internet you can find me. And as always, let me know what questions you have down below and stay safe out there.