There is no doubt about the fact that the short-form mobile video app TikTok has taken over the digital consumers' world by storm. Everybody, everywhere who owns a smartphone is probably aware of the app, and definitely knows how to use it too. Currently, the app has over 500 million active users and is slowly eating up its engage Facebook-owned WhatsApp's 2 billion users. The popularity is immense, but Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman doesn't encourage the app's use, and also discourages installing the app, as well.

According to a recent Tech Crunch report, Huffman accused TikTok of being a "fundamentally parasitic" app.

“Maybe I’m going to regret this, but I can’t even get to that level of thinking with them. 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," Tech Crunch reported Huffman saying Social 2030 event in front of a large group of Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs gathered for a one-day conference.

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

Recently, the ByteDance-owned video sharing app TikTok was the world's second-most downloaded app in 2019 with nearly 220 million installs, the first being WhatsApp with five billion downloads.

Moreover, in India TikTok has emerged as the most engaging application, according to a report by data analytics firm App Annie. The ranking is based on year-on-year growth in both Apple’s iOS and Google Play downloads. TikTok was also the breakout social app of 2019 in the country.

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