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On March 13, 2024, in a 79-18 vote, the United States Senate passed a bill that gives Chinese internet company ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, a one-year ultimatum: sell the app or face a ban in the U.S. TikTok is a popular social media platform where users can create and view short-form videos; in recent years, its popularity has risen in the U.S., making it one of TikTok’s largest markets.
The ban would focus on removing TikTok from Apple and Google app stores. The U.S. federal government would set civil penalties for distributing and updating TikTok. Also, the ban will include internet hosting companies and not allow them to continue running the app.
The legal fight behind TikTok transpires as a rivalry between superpowers — the U.S. and China — where data security and advanced technologies are valuable assets essential to their economic power and national security.
What Are the Motivations?
The main concerns in the U.S. regarding TikTok are cybersecurity and misinformation. There is significant anxiety about China potentially using TikTok to spread misinformation about the war in Gaza and the upcoming presidential election. U.S. intelligence also reports that TikTok routinely collects location data and photos from its users to discover their biometric data, psychological profiles, and behaviour patterns using artificial intelligence. Adding to the fire, ByteDance may be legally required to share user information with the Chinese government or forced to take action in their name for “intelligence-gathering operations.”
TikTok’s Response
TikTok officials have long dismissed U.S. government claims and have tried to distance itself from its parent company ByteDance. In May 2024, TikTok sued the U.S. government, claiming that Congress had unfairly singled out and banned TikTok, calling the move an “unconstitutional” violation of free speech. The lawsuit claims, “Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community.” TikTok also points out that the ban is based only on a hypothetical allegation of data insecurity without referencing specific evidence.
CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, also showed his disappointment in a video uploaded onto the app, discussing how the company had invested in “keeping user data safe and the platform free from outside manipulation.” He also emphasized how this bill would take billions of dollars from creators and small businesses, and end more than 300,000 jobs.
Alongside the claims made by the U.S. government, TikTok representatives have been avidly negotiating for years with the Committee on Foreign Investment. They intend to address the government’s questions about the relationship between ByteDance and China and how user data gets maneuvered. TikTok emphasizes its work with “Project Texas,” which ensures that U.S. data remains in the country.
The U.S.’ disregard and attempt to undercut TikTok’s involvement in “Project Texas” says a lot about the reasoning behind the effort to ban TikTok. What the U.S. has been doing goes beyond a simple cybersecurity and data protection matter. It comes from a place of insecurity — for the first time, a non-Western-dominated platform has reached the hearts and minds of American citizens that the U.S. cannot control or inspect what goes into their screens. Such a bill is the last string of hope the U.S. wants to maintain their leading influence over technology, risking every step of its biggest competitor — China.
The final say of the future of such a ban is still uncertain because it requires balancing freedom of speech against the U.S. government’s claims of a threat to national security.
The Problems With TikTok
TikTok poses a national security threat in two main ways: influencing public opinions through its feed and the potential misuse of user data without proper protection.
The U.S.’ concerns about national security come from a shadowing threat about how China could use TikTok’s algorithms to influence 102 million American users and what it could accomplish with their data. At a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives, FBI Director Christopher Ray stated that the Chinese government should not control Americans in any case: “Americans need to ask themselves whether they want to give the Chinese government the ability to control access to their data.”
Tristan Harris, an American technology ethicist, highlights how China is aware of the intrinsic influence that TikTok can have on its users and already uses access to American data to instill specific types of content of their liking. He demonstrates that, unlike the American app, the Chinese version shows children science experiments, educational videos, and patriotic content and limits the use of the app to only 40 minutes per day. The rest of the world does not have access to this version of TikTok, which makes Harris point out how China’s domestic version is a “spinach version” of the app, while Western TikTok is an “opium version.”
TikTok also has a direct relationship with the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP makes companies support their domestic and foreign objectives, especially if they use intelligence-gathering operations. Organizations that use intelligence-gathering operations collect confidential or strategic information relevant to national security, military, or law enforcement. Erin O’Toole, former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, highlighted that ByteDance’s corporate structure is directly linked to the Chinese government, suggesting that data collection and sharing is already happening.
In TikTok’s defence, its CEO Shou Zi Chew repeatedly cited “Project Texas” — the company’s plan to migrate American data to U.S servers. However, this project only tells us the location of these servers and not who accesses them. Chew also failed to guarantee that Chinese ByteDance employees would not have access to the data nor be able to manipulate the algorithm to spread Chinese misinformation. It is important to note that regardless of all the promises, ByteDance cannot refuse to hand data to the Chinese government due to its commitment to support their domestic and foreign goals.
Frailness Behind Shutting Down TikTok
The U.S. decision to ban a single platform instead of creating a bill that addresses industry-wide data protection suggests that data security is not the only motive. Preserving U.S. economic and geopolitical dominance in the global sphere appears to be a hidden agenda.
Dr. Michael Geist, an expert from Canada’s Research Chair in Internet and e-Commerce Law, details how banning TikTok is indeed a case of economic nationalism. He argues that the U.S. uses national security to block a popular Chinese service from accessing the U.S. market. Unsurprisingly, TikTok, an app that records video and audio, would have access to our camera and microphone. Geist also points out that Western social media platforms engage in the same data collection TikTok is facing criticism for. In a 2018 study of over 17,000 apps, researchers discovered that more than three-quarters accessed sensitive data, such as cameras, external storage, and microphones, often without user consent or knowledge.
Banning TikTok would warn the world that the U.S. will not allow social media platforms from other countries to have significant global influence. The ban would also be the kind of internet censorship the U.S. criticizes China for. Besides, almost 150 million Americans produce videos on TikTok, and such a ban goes directly against First Amendment rights.
Lauren Armistead, Deputy Director at Amnesty International, further explains how targeting TikTok would set a double standard in U.S. social media regulation. Armistead also argues that a TikTok ban would not address the human rights risks associated with the business practices of companies like Google and Meta. To focus only on TikTok fails to acknowledge the data collection that happens with the rest of the tech giants.
Moreover, China could easily purchase Americans’ data from brokers, so banning TikTok would not significantly increase user privacy. Calli Schroeder, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, defends such a statement, adding how “[Americans] could get rid of TikTok today, and China would not lose any significant amount of personal information on Americans.”
Are There Any Solutions?
Protecting user data is crucial not just for Americans but for people worldwide. The U.S. TikTok ban aims to address this concern, but it falls short. Effective solutions should go beyond targeting a single company and tackle the real data privacy issues on all major social media platforms today.
Data security ownership should rest in the hands of users, and increasing accountability mechanisms over the app’s privacy and security policies should be an initial mandatory action. The U.S. Congress should establish comprehensive rules that limit all tech companies that use personal information in potentially harmful ways. The proposed American Privacy Rights Act is a step in the right direction. This act would restrict the data social media platforms collect and sell without user consent. Users would also be able to learn more about data collection and have the option to opt-out.
The approach we need is not fear-mongering about which government owns TikTok or any other social media platform. Instead, the approach should ensure that no government, tech company, or distant data broker will share and manipulate user data without consent.
Edited by Anthony Hablak and Light Naing
