Oh dear. I won't be surprised to see this being true since TikTok is just a worse version of Facebook/Instagram who has already admitted and shown evidence of them violating the privacy of its users [0] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5], and its defenders are just running out of excuses faster than a running tap at this point.
Before anyone says 'All social media companies do this', If large social networks like Facebook have been fined in the billions of dollars for such repeated privacy violations, then given the size of TikTok, you might as well agree that for TikTok to continue to operate in the US, it must to pay a multi-billion dollar fine for such repeat offenses and abuses of its user's privacy simply on the grounds of the size of the many users on the platform.
Before anyone says 'All social media companies do this', If large social networks like Facebook have been fined in the billions of dollars for such repeated privacy violations, then given the size of TikTok, you might as well agree that for TikTok to continue to operate in the US, it must to pay a multi-billion dollar fine for such repeat offenses and abuses of its user's privacy simply on the grounds of the size of the many users on the platform.
[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilybakerwhite/tiktok-...
[1] https://www.scmagazine.com/news/privacy/uk-tiktok-16m-fine-c...
[2] https://fortune.com/2022/12/22/tiktok-data-privacy-blunder-c...
[3] https://futurism.com/tiktok-spy-locations-specific-americans
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65126056
[5] https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/05/08/tiktok-lgbtq/