The Land of the Free might lose access to TikTok in as few as 165 days. Although the app is already banned on national governmental devices, its parent company ByteDance could be forced to sell the app or else be prohibited in app stores and web hosting services based in the U.S. With 1 billion active users as of 2021, TikTok is currently the fifth most popular social media platform in the world (after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram). The American public could loose the app entirely.
On March 8, President Joe Biden announced that he would sign into law the bill intended to force ByteDance to divest TikTok within 165 days. The House Energy and Commerce Committee had voted unanimously (50–0) to advance the bill the day before. In response, ByteDance launched a congressional lobbying campaign in an effort to mobilize TikTok users, and now, before users can access content on the app, they are prompted with the message "Your voice can keep your community inspired" and a link to call their legislators before the vote.
Although Republicans have proposed the most aggressive restrictions on TikTok so far, some of those restrictions have also gained support among Democrats. The bill is backed by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who say the app is "a grave threat to U.S. national security" because of its Chinese ownership. A threat to U.S. national security would be the only Constitutionally allowable reason to ban a social media platform. "America's foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States," Gallagher said when announcing the bill.
The People's Republic of China comprises 35% of global manufacturing production (as of 2020), and this is considered by many American politicians and pundits to be potentially destabilizing to the U.S. position as an economic superpower. But what what do dance videos have to do with it?
Allegations Of Surveillance Against ByteDance
Beijing-based developer ByteDance owns the short-form user-submitted video hosting service. TikTok was launched in China and India in September 2016 and in the U.S. in August 2018. By October 2020, it surpassed 2 billion mobile downloads and its global popularity has had both cultural and economic effects.In October 2022, Forbes published a story in which an unnamed source divulged that the Department of Justice Criminal Division, Fraud Section, in cooperation with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia subpoenaed information from ByteDance about whether its employees had access to location or other private data while they were using TikTok. Although it is unclear from the materials provided whether data about these American users was actually collected, the unnamed source claims that ByteDance’s plan was to obtain data from any and all U.S. users’ devices.
Interviews with current and former employees, supported by more than 60 documents, photographs and video suggest that TikTok's data center location in Northern Virginia has experienced "security vulnerabilities" that range from unmarked USB drives plugged into servers, to unescorted visitors walking the hallways, to boxes of hard drives left unattended in open areas. All of this might be the result of TikTok trying to grow its own data storage capacity. Or it might suggest that ByteDance is using the app to perform surveillance (and counter-surveillance) in the U.S.
ByteDance is owned by its founder Zhang Yiming and Chinese investors (who have a 20% stake), non-Chinese global investors (60%), as well as its own employees (20%). In April 2021, the Cyberspace Administration of China — a state-owned agency — purchased a 1% share in ByteDance's main Chinese entity. The increasingly vociferous claim by U.S. government officials is that there is not enough separation between the app and its executives and software developers in China.
While the evidence of actual violations is meager, ByteDance's privacy practices have come under scrutiny all over the world. TikTok has been widely criticized by economics influencers, government agencies concerned with national security, and lawmakers concerned with the perceived immorality of the app's content.
TikTok Bans Have Always Been Trending
TikTok has been facing bans and threats of bans since soon after it inception. It was banned in Russia when the Russian government criminalized what it described as the spread of “misinformation” about its invasion of Ukraine. In Africa, both Senegal and Somalia have placed bans on the app for overtly political reasons; those bans have since been lifted. In Asia, the app has been banned by the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and never even allowed to launch in Iran.TikTok has faced restrictions across Asia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, and Taiwan for reasons that vary from "blasphemy" and "pornography" to "cognitive warfare." Whether these rationales reflect cultural differences in what is perceived as appropriate in art and entertainment, or if they reflect a more generalized anti-Chinese sentiment is a matter of debate.
What is not a matter of debate is that U.S. Congress is moving forward with federal legislation that will force ByteDance to sell its stake in the U.S. version of TikTok or ban the platform entirely. This raises questions about the way economic globalization affects cultural globalization as well as personal privacy rights.
On March 11, former President 45 re-stated his opinion that TikTok presents a risk to U.S. national security, yet is opposed to banning the app simply because doing so would benefit ostensible competitor Facebook. In what seems to be a personal animus against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (Meta owns Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, among other platforms), Trump says he considers Facebook to be the real "enemy of the people."
Who among the American public Congress is actually protecting — and how effective that attempt at protection will be — remains to be seen. In the meantime, have you seen the newest crochet plushy videos on TikTok? So cute.
UPDATE: The House of Representatives passed the bill on March 13 with bipartisan support (352–65). But because the House is the lower chamber of Congress, the bill will now have to move to the upper chamber, the Senate. The Senate is currently populated by 49 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 3 Independents; all three Independents caucus with the Democrats, so the Senate majority is currently Democratic. This might mean that the bill will not actually be passed into law. Only time will tell. Follow LEO Weekly for updates on the TikTok ban.
