A disturbing new report into Chinese-owned social media platforms TikTok and WeChat has raised concerns around content moderation.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s lead author Fergus Ryan told Jim Wilson TikTok has an estimated 700 million users worldwide, and counting.

“Any user data these apps collect, and they collect a lot, it means there’s no firewall between that data and the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

“The key difference to other social media apps … is that it’s not about who you follow, it’s how you use the app.

“There are even suggestions from experts that facial recognition data, or even the sentiment of users, is fed into their algorithm.

“The scary thing about that is it’s a total black box.”

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