> If Microsoft acquires TikTok how would they go about vetting all of the code to remove any malicious components?

Rename it "Skype for Teens". Make no changes to the codebase.

That's more like it, but seriously there aren't a lot of articles written about app acquisition and the process of going through and debugging a massive codebase. If they buy it, no one from Microsoft will ever write a blog talking about how the code was a mess and how their team improved it.

They will grep for and comment out the code that goes like “maliciouslyUploadSecretInfo.*()“

Sorry, but that was a ridiculous question.

Acquiring an app from a Chinese company and slapping the Microsoft branding on it without doing some sort of vetting would be absurd.

What’s absurd is thinking Microsoft doesn’t have anyone who can read source code.

How is it different from acquiring a US app?

According with the new cold war narrative, in this case we have an very evil code that spy people all the time. Forgetting that last time I checked, companies proven by leaked documents to really spy and pass information to the government was Microsoft, Instagram, Facebook and Google.

They're not. "Malicious" in this case means gathering user data and MS wants that data. They're just going to point the information flow to their servers.

My take on this is that a Chinese company can't take a National Security Letter, and Microsoft already has a Room 641A.

TikTok is "malicious" only because a Chinese company partially owns it. That's literally it and it's just like any other social media company otherwise.

What malicious components?

And how do you define malicious? Every social media contains malicious components, do you mean something different? I don't think TikTok is anymore malicious then Instagram.

Malicious as in doing things outside the scope of what Microsoft wants done.

Anyone else think Facebook launching this might stop Microsoft from buying TikTok now? Depending upon how much money they need, I think Microsoft not having any past social media presence might scare them taking on Facebook as a competitor.