Yes, there is a private/direct messaging feature in TikTok that should of course be considered accessible to ByteDance, and by extension the Chinese government.
However, that is not the only valuable information.
The user behavioral profiles (which users have viewed what videos when, what do they engage with, what do they re-share to others) are valuable, particularly if you can de-anonymize them against account registration data. Also, the social graph of a big service like TT is a goldmine.
Both types of information are useful whether you're doing traditional espionage, targeted influence operations, or mass-influence/propaganda.
For traditional espionage, knowing what sort of content someone watches could give you direct insight into non-public aspects of their life that could be leveraged. (I.e. mental or physical illness, sexual interests, relationship problems, fringe political leanings, etc. etc.) There's a fair amount of not-exactly-porn but porn-adjacent stuff (and lots of health/wellness/lifestyle content) on TT that could give you leverage or at least ideas on how to approach someone if you wanted to convince them to pass information to you, provide access to something, etc.
The real value is in targeted influence ops, though. Find someone you want to influence, or a small subset of the population you want to influence, and drill down to figure out who their 'thought leaders' / opinion-setters are within their social circle. Figure out what kind of media engages them. Go after them indirectly via their friends/colleagues/family. TT is demographically limited right now, so you're probably not changing many Senators' votes directly, but you might be able to get their kids, their kids' friends, their junior staffers, etc. thinking a particular way. Done the right way, the actual influence target might never even need to be messaged-to directly. They'd get the full social-media 'Inception' treatment and probably think they came up with their opinion organically or by being in touch with the culture.
And then of course for mass-messaging/propaganda, you use the information in aggregate just like any big advertising company does, but for political ends, and without having to engage an actual advertising company that's going to create a tangible trail.
However, that is not the only valuable information.
The user behavioral profiles (which users have viewed what videos when, what do they engage with, what do they re-share to others) are valuable, particularly if you can de-anonymize them against account registration data. Also, the social graph of a big service like TT is a goldmine.
Both types of information are useful whether you're doing traditional espionage, targeted influence operations, or mass-influence/propaganda.
For traditional espionage, knowing what sort of content someone watches could give you direct insight into non-public aspects of their life that could be leveraged. (I.e. mental or physical illness, sexual interests, relationship problems, fringe political leanings, etc. etc.) There's a fair amount of not-exactly-porn but porn-adjacent stuff (and lots of health/wellness/lifestyle content) on TT that could give you leverage or at least ideas on how to approach someone if you wanted to convince them to pass information to you, provide access to something, etc.
The real value is in targeted influence ops, though. Find someone you want to influence, or a small subset of the population you want to influence, and drill down to figure out who their 'thought leaders' / opinion-setters are within their social circle. Figure out what kind of media engages them. Go after them indirectly via their friends/colleagues/family. TT is demographically limited right now, so you're probably not changing many Senators' votes directly, but you might be able to get their kids, their kids' friends, their junior staffers, etc. thinking a particular way. Done the right way, the actual influence target might never even need to be messaged-to directly. They'd get the full social-media 'Inception' treatment and probably think they came up with their opinion organically or by being in touch with the culture.
And then of course for mass-messaging/propaganda, you use the information in aggregate just like any big advertising company does, but for political ends, and without having to engage an actual advertising company that's going to create a tangible trail.