While TikTok has taken giant leaps over the last few months, emerging as one of the most popular social media apps, Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman clearly isn't impressed by the platform. Huffman has hit out at TikTok by calling it a spyware and has asked users to uninstall it. According to a report by Tech Crunch, Huffman said that the app is so fundamentally parasitic that he couldn't install it on his smartphone. The statement was made at Social 2030 event in front of a large group of Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs gathered for a one-day conference.

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“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," he was quoted as saying.

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

TikTok claims to have 500 million active users.  It was the second-most downloaded app of the world in 2019 - WhatsApp grabbed the pole position. In India, it 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.

The platform has started 2020 with a bang. It is now the most downloaded non-game app of January 2020 in the US. According to app analytics company Sensor Tower, the app was downloaded 7.7 million times combined on Google Play Store and Apple App Store which was 23.8 times more than the number of downloads in January 2019.

The second spot was grabbed by Disney plus with 6.8 million downloads.