While many are rightfully concerned about the growing influence of video-based social media platform TikTok and the Chinese government’s ability to harvest incredible amounts of user data from it, China’s largest social media and video game studio, Tencent, has quietly been acquiring a commanding stake in the most popular video game companies around the world, and no one has seemed to notice.
Tencent has established itself as a critical tool of the Chinese Communist Party. The video game company has used its games to spy on Americans and used its digital content to propagandize our children. It has preyed upon the lack of technological literacy of parents across the country, placing their data privacy and their kids in direct jeopardy.
Tencent’s quiet rise to global digital dominance is one of the great threats facing American children online. From TikTok to Tencent and your child’s favorite video game, China is committed to influencing our kids and stealing our private data. It is critical that parents begin to take a more active role in curtailing what their kids are playing online.