The movement to ban TikTok has gained traction ever since the Trump administration attempted to do so in 2020.
Since then, multiple states have banned the app on more than two dozen state devices.
President Biden also signed a federal bill on Dec. 30 that included a TikTok ban on all federal government-issued devices.
The federal government and state governments have enacted these bans because TikTok is owned by the Chinese parent company ByteDance, which has been accused of sharing data with the Chinese government. This has led to concerns about user privacy in the hands of a foreign adversary such as China.
But these bans aren’t enough as it only affects government-issued devices. The issues with TikTok affect millions of Americans, especially teenagers.
FCC commissioner Brendan Carr recently called for a ban of the app and shared his concerns that China could use TikTok to influence US elections, as reported by Axios. These concerns have been investigated in a Forbes exclusive, and it has been found that MediaLinks TV, a propaganda arm of the Chinese government, has created TikTok accounts to push decisive political content to American viewers. Teenagers on the app are constantly being exposed to polarizing rhetoric, which will not only affect our current politics, but also our future politics.
Forbes also has reported that though TikTok claims it will try to label these accounts as state-run, their honesty comes into question as more than 300 ByteDance and TikTok employees have previously worked for Chinese propaganda outlets.
In July, Forbes reported on a previous Buzzfeed News report that former employees of ByteDance have claimed that a now-defunct ByteDance application called TopBuzz was used to push pro-China messages to American audiences.
This is all incredibly concerning because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to use TikTok as a way to further polarize America.
In a November Washington Post column, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla) and Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis) made the case for banning TikTok. An important point made by them was that under a 2017 National Intelligence Law enacted by the CCP, all citizens and businesses had to assist in intelligence-related work. This type of work includes data-sharing, meaning the data TikTok has on millions of Americans is at risk of being in the hands of the CCP. This makes it even easier to manipulate US politics and increase polarization.
More shockingly, The New York Post in June reported that leaks from internal TikTok meetings show that ByteDance has repeatedly accessed American user data, with employees admitting that all user data is seen in China. After these leaks, TikTok claimed it will delete all American data, but it’s uncertain on whether they did.
Rubio claims that more American user data in the hands of China means there is a higher chance of Chinese blackmail and espionage with the information. This type of information could easily be used by Chinese hackers as a part of China’s current cyberwar against the United States.
But it’s not just US politics. The Guardian reported that a leak from TikTok had revealed that it censors content that goes against CCP propaganda narratives, such as the Hong Kong protests and Tiananmen Square massacre.
The risks are high for national security. We can’t let China interfere in our political affairs and take American user data. This jeopardizes Americans’ interpersonal communications due to these polarizing actions.
Russia tried this by pushing polarizing rhetoric on Facebook during the 2016 election. But the difference is Russia didn’t have control over a popular youth social media platform to take data.
At the start of his tenure, President Biden revoked former President Trump’s executive order on banning TikTok, a symbolic act because courts had already prevented it from taking effect.
But it’s time Biden looked at the facts presented. China is a foreign adversary and is actively trying to undermine our political processes and take our data for undoubtedly nefarious purposes. TikTok must be banned on all devices in the United States.
At the start of his tenure, President Biden revoked former President Trump’s executive order on banning TikTok, a symbolic act because courts had already prevented it from taking effect.
But it’s time Biden looked at the facts presented. China is a foreign adversary, akin to that of the former Soviet Union, and it is actively trying to undermine our political processes and take our data for undoubtedly nefarious purposes. This is well supported by a multitude of evidence.
This is a message to the Biden administration and Congress: Ban the Chinese espionage tool that is TikTok, on all devices in the United States.