Will TikTok Be Banned in the U.S.?
The House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew for more than five hours on Thursday regarding TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government and concerns over American users’ privacy.
Background
On March 7th, the RESTRICT Act was introduced in Congress. The proposed legislation would grant the POTUS additional leverage to investigate and possibly restrict the use of technology from "foreign adversaries," among them China.
TikTok is a subsidiary of the Chinese-owned company ByteDance which has a 20% stake in the video-sharing app. It has exploded in popularity over the past two years and is widely popular among American adolescents. Although TikTok is a U.S.-incorporated company headquartered in L.A. and Singapore, its connection to Chinese-owned ByteDance raises alarms. Chinese law mandates companies operating in the country comply with data security regulations, including providing data to the government if requested.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray has raised concerns that TikTok poses a national security threat. In a hearing with the House Homeland Security Committee in November, he stated:
"…The Chinese government could use [TikTok] to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose, or to control software on millions of devices, which gives it an opportunity to potentially technically compromise personal devices."
Relations between the U.S. and China have been tense in recent months, and lawmakers are concerned that the Chinese government could use TikTok to access American user data.
Key Takeaways from the Hearing
TikTok ties to China
Chew’s denials that the Chinese government did not influence the platform did little to persuade lawmakers. When probed on ties to ByteDane’s connection to the CCP, Chew answered that he could not speak on behalf of those entities, yet on the same token, he attempted to reassure lawmakers that Chinese Communist Paraty could never access the data.
Safety of minors
The safety of minors on the platform was of wide-reaching concern across the committee. They raised compelling points on how TikTok failed to safeguard teens against anxiety, depression, eating disorders, drug traffickers, predators, and suicidal ideation.
Representatives referenced the tragic deaths of a 10-year-old girl who died participating in the blackout challenge and Chase Nasca, who killed himself after exposure to suicide-themed content on TikTok. Some representatives shared their constituents’ concerns about their children's health and potential threats to national security.
Chew repeatedly referenced the controls on the app, which has different algorithms depending on a user’s age. During the hearing, Senator Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota texted his teenage sons about their experience using such controls. His sons responded that the controls were easy to bypass.
Project Texas
Project Texas is a $1.5 billion plan for TikTok to create a U.S. subsidiary tasked with securing U.S. user data with Austin-based cloud company Oracle. The new company would elect directors, with U.S. government officials reviewing the names.
When asked about who had access to American user data, Chew referred to Project Texas. Chew claimed that it would address data privacy and security concerns, and committee members insisted that it wasn’t enough to protect users. Committee members pointed out that the results were in the future, and they wanted to know who could presently access that data. Chew answered that TikTok engineers in China had access. Project Texas aims to move that data to the U.S.
Bipartisanship
Committee members on both sides of the aisle put up a remarkably united front over their hostility towards TikTok. Every single member gave no quarter, and several observed that the issue united them, despite their political affiliations.
Concerns over TikTok’s influence cover issues ranging from national security, Chinese censorship, data privacy, immigration, child safety, drug trafficking, adolescent mental health, and misinformation related to elections, the coronavirus, and even the health of expecting mothers.
In other words, fears of TikTok’s influence cross every background, age, family status, profession, political belief, health condition, and ethnicity, including every U.S. state in the nation.
Eroding Trust in TikTok
This was the pervasive theme that emerged from the hearing. If TikTok cannot protect the health and safety of its users, then it cannot be trusted to protect American users from the influence of the Chinese government.
Will TikTok Be Banned?
The overwhelming support of Congressional members, the Biden administration, and former President Trump’s efforts to ban the platform suggest that TikTok’s days are numbered. So few issues have united Americans such as this.
Still, it’s not that simple. When former President Trump attempted to ban the app, he faced legal challenges. The ACLU made a statement opposing a TikTok ban. Opponents can make a compelling argument that banning a widely-used public media platform is a gross violation of the first amendment.
However, a Forbes report revealed that ByteDance used TikTok to monitor journalists’ physical location using their IP addresses. So TikTok isn't exactly a paragon of free speech.
What’s Next?
There is an outcome in which only one committee member questioned Chew and which he failed to answer. The U.S. Government could force a divestiture between ByteDance and TikTok. It would not ban the platform, but it would extricate potential Chinese influence from the platform.
The Chinese government stated that it would "strongly oppose" a forced sale of TikTok. Chinese law requires licenses for the export of certain technology, and a forced sale of TikTok would mean the export of tech and data, raising national security concerns for China.
The United States has been down this road before. In 2016, an actor of a foreign adversary that ignited the war in Ukraine hacked the VR systems of a Florida election company. They came staggeringly close to compromising the outcome of a presidential election.
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
