Years ago it was reported on by Internet 2.0 which was shared by news organizations such as Huffington Post. Additionally there was this guy on Reddit 5 years ago who decompiled the app and shared all the results on a subreddit made specifically for it LINK HERE and he claims that the app is literally more malware-like data collection than actual video playing app, like the amount of install data is mostly just the data collection tools.

If TikTok didn’t want these stories swept under the rug and if there wasn’t truth to these stories they could have sued these people for defamation. But they didn’t, implying they would have lost the case handily and looked bad for it.