Steve Huffman, the co-founder and CEO of American social news aggregator Reddit, has slammed the TikTok app during the one-day “Social 2030” conference, calling the Chinese app “fundamentally parasitic” and warning about its “truly terrifying” scanning technology that is allegedly spying on its users.
“Maybe I'm going to regret this, but I can't even get to that level of thinking with them”, Huffman was quoted as saying by TechCrunch, as he was discussing the suggestion that American start-uppers could learn something from the app.
“Because I look at that app as so fundamentally parasitic, that it's always listening, the fingerprinting technology they use is truly terrifying, and I could not bring myself to install an app like that on my phone”, the Reddit boss added.
“I actively tell people ‘Don't install that spyware on your phone’”, he reiterated later.
The comments were made as the video-sharing app, which is forbidden in China, became the most downloaded app on the Google Play Store and Apple Store this January. It was also declared one of the most downloaded mobile apps of the past decade.