Col. John Mills on TikTok and Chinese cyberattacks

CSP Senior Fellow joined “China in Focus” to discuss recent news surrounding TikTok and Chinese cyberattacks.

We also sat down with John Mills, retired colonel and former director of cybersecurity at the Defense Department. He talks about what the recent headlines on TikTok are revealing about the Chinese regime’s cyberattacks on America and what it means for each individual.

Mills said: “TikTok has always represented one tentacle of the CCP, essentially establishing a digital twin of every one of us. It is a big data-gathering platform of all of our behaviors, of our personalities. And they are essentially using this to populate their big data and then their ability to conduct big data search and big data analytics to create a digital twin of every one of us—our interests, what we like to watch, how we behave, how we react when we’re watching it, et cetera, et cetera. It’s very concerning.”

TikTok “should be considered a platform, a venue, a social media site that is not good. It’s as simple as that. This is not something that people … it is a view into our lives we are giving to a hostile foreign power. Would we have, if something like this existed during the legacy Cold War, would we have wanted the Soviet Union to be inside our mobile devices, inside our houses, inside of our smart appliances? Of course not. There would have been much more swift action. … It’s an education process to tell American parents: ‘Hey, American parents, just like you’re fighting for control of our schools, our school boards, our county councils, this is a window into our personal lives. There is nothing good that comes out of this,’” he added.