Twitter is doing exactly the same things.. So is Instagram, Google, Microsoft, etc...
It's no different for many other social apps. Even user accounts are often linked to individuals that harvest and scape data from most of these platforms routinely.
I'm not saying that TikTok isn't nefariously aligned with political agendas, but we've really got to ask ourselves at this point just what exactly ALL of these social app platforms are doing.
They make so much money and share so little with the creators on them which of course creates a windfall of funding for them to integrate complex tracking and manipulation into the platforms year over year.
Right now, the only reason why these sites are beginning to come under scrutiny is because people who are considered "High value assets" (i.e. congress people and government leadership) are realizing that these apps, and the phones that run them exist within their homes now, listening to vital conversations that these people have.... How? Because their children use the apps, even if their parents don't.
There is a mesh network everywhere now, based on the devices we've purchased that provides intel to anyone who knows how it works and it's gone widely ignored for years... Phones with lidar that can scan rooms for occupants, multiple pictures and selfies saved under real names of individuals, voice recordings galore, etc...
All content provided by children and adults alike in the quest for social media popularity.
If we're worried about just TikTok weaponizing this data, we're worried about water on a duck's back. The types of information that can be collected by apps now has completely crossed the line in terms of privacy. The biggest offense is that personal devices (the only ones we CAN purchase any more, and the devices we're supposed to be owners of) all allow this data to be gathered and shared with apps, not that apps are harvesting the data.
Two factor authentication alone often forces users of services (considered vital to their work) to share their phone numbers with private companies, and from there it's sold to others, and used to track users across the web. Now private companies collect more data on individuals than the US government, and it can be easily accessed to determine anything from credit and insurance-worthiness for individuals to being used in deepfake content (potentially by BOTH companies and by individual users on platforms) all without our knowledge, and with our unwitting consent -- buried deep into EULA agreements everywhere.
Congress has dropped the ball, too busy being enthralled into public theatre, and many congresspeople actually being invested into many of these tech companies profit-wise themselves.
It's a tragic game of "shoot yourself in the foot" because most of the profiteers from the data mining game never realize the damage they do until they find out their own children become victims of it.
It's not really about TikTok in my opinion, it's about get rich schemes and all of the corrupt Ponzi schemes we keep fostering and permitting to run freely in this country. It's been going on forever, and that's the thing undermining America most, our domestic impulse to both salute and coddle those that make profit without accountability or morality.