Reddit's CEO describes TikTok as 'parasitic', 'spyware'

TikTok has been under the microscope of the US government

Since launching in 2017, TikTok, the short-form-video app that has taken Generation Z by storm has been downloaded more than 1.5 billion times, according to Sensor Tower; US-based research agency.

However, despite being a popular app it has been surrounded by its fair share of controversies and this time around Steve Huffman, the CEO of Reddit has criticised the app saying there isn’t much that Silicon Valley could learn from TikTok.



Huffman was speaking at a panel discussion called Social 2030 joined by Facebook policy chief Elliot Schrage and Sam Lessin, Facebook's former vice president of product.

"Maybe I'm going to regret this, but I can't even get to that level of thinking with them," Huffman said. "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."

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"I actively tell people, 'Don't install that spyware on your phone,'" he added.

The app has been under the microscope of US government and agencies that claim that it could be feeding data back to the Chinese government.

Recently a student from California filed a class action against the company because the app made an account for her without her consent and started collecting her data.

This article originally published on Business Insider.