As the debate over TikTok’s ties to China heats up, more and more Americans worry that the CCP is stealing U.S. data. A podcast host even recently compared China’s influence over TikTok to a hypothetical example of Russia controlling Saturday morning cartoons during the Cold War. Explosive comparisons like these have renewed conversation in Congress over a potential TikTok ban. In response to a new bill, more and more young TikTok users are speaking out. Is this just the latest teenager tantrum or is it a justified response to an overbearing and power-hungry government?
Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act
Over the past few years, parents across America have observed a shockingly swift movement towards short-form video platforms. With over 170 million users in the U.S., TikTok is by far the most popular of these, outperforming Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. With the average user spending 53.8 minutes on the platform each day, whoever controls TikTok has a lot of influence. While most technology companies accumulate private user data, TikTok’s relationship with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. sets it apart. Both its popularity and its ties to the Chinese Communist Party present a unique threat that the U.S. must navigate. Congress recently acknowledged this threat with the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (Bill H.R. 7521), which has already passed in the House of Representatives and awaits passage in the Senate. Contrary to common belief, this bill wouldn’t ban the actual use of TikTok. It would, however, criminalize the distribution of applications like TikTok upon failure to sell to U.S. stakeholders. The bill is Congress’ response to the growing prevalence of TikTok in American homes and the growing anxiety over this trend.
There may be factors to the equation that Congress is overlooking. Are TikTok’s recent efforts to secure U.S. user data enough to mitigate the security risk? Would a ban even be constitutional? The Senate’s decision regarding these questions are significant to millions of TikTok users across the U.S., who use the app daily as a source of entertainment and creative expression. Its ramifications could also extend into the future, where a trigger-happy government could have precedent to justify banning any platforms it doesn’t like. With these potential consequences in mind, Congress should proceed cautiously with this bill, considering all sides of this complex and multifaceted issue.
TikTok and ByteDance
Banning TikTok only becomes a dilemma when there’s evidence that it poses a threat to Americans. If it’s not threatening constitutionality, other issues need not be considered. A report submitted to Australia’s Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference Through Social Media summarized how TikTok could be dangerous:
We assess as high the risk that the Party will seek to leverage the company’s innovative algorithms and access to key data to develop its own big data harvesting and analyzing capabilities for targeted propaganda and political interference.
Submission 34 to the Australian Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference Through Social Media: pp.16
How might this occur? Social media companies collect intricate data from users. Using AI, they then predict exactly what a user wants to see, the secret behind TikTok’s For You feed. There is a possibility that the Chinese Communist Party could force TikTok to give up its data and use it promulgate propaganda on the app, engage in political interference, and potentially surveil journalists and other political figures. Moreover, if this were to occur, people outside of the operation wouldn’t know about it. Article 7 of China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law proclaims that:
All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law, and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.
National Intelligence Law, Art. 7, 2018, P.R.C. Laws
TikTok, which is headquartered in Singapore and L.A. and repeatedly denies any ties to the CCP, could be an access point to U.S. user data which hinges on its relationship with ByteDance. Because it’s headquartered in China and is therefore subject to Article 7, ByteDance forms a channel through which the CCP could access TikTok’s data. ByteDance and TikTok’s relationship appears to be strong, too. The CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, admitted to regularly communicating with the CEO of ByteDance in his testimony to Congress.
Additionally, TikTok’s privacy policy authorizes the following:
Certain entities within our corporate group…are given limited remote access to information.
TikTok Privacy Policy
This information that TikTok collects includes age, messages, phone number and contacts, choice preferences, activities on other apps and stores, general location data, and a host of other data types. Chew disclosed in his testimony that ByteDance is technically part of TikTok’s corporate group. He also admitted that Diyoun employees (Diyoun is the version of TikTok released by ByteDance in China) have accessed U.S. user data in the past.
ByteDance and the CCP
ByteDance’s relationship with the CCP is more difficult to pinpoint than its relationship with TikTok, but there’s still evidence of it. For example, Zhang Fuping, Diyoun’s editor-in-chief, declared the following about ByteDance:
[It] should transmit the correct political direction…into every business and product line, [and] use values to guide algorithms. Zhang Fuping, quoted at a party class to study a National Work Conference on Cybersecurity and Informatization, translated by Apple’s Translate App
Additionally, the report submitted to the Australian government found many other links between ByteDance employees, including the founder, and the CCP. These links fuel valid worries that, through its ties to ByteDance, the CCP could use TikTok data to influence what Americans see on the app.
Project Texas
Perhaps because it recognizes these ties, TikTok is taking measures to secure U.S. user data. An initiative titled Project Texas has ensured that U.S. data is stored on U.S. soil. Under Project Texas, third-party data manager Oracle Cloud works with an American team of engineers at TikTok to manage the data. According to TikTok’s website, this team, called U.S. Data Security (USDS), currently controls 100% of access to U.S. user data. Project Texas has essentially set up a firewall between Chinese ByteDance employees and TikTok user data; any past information sharing that occurred should no longer be possible. However, the fact that TikTok controls USDS leaves room for unease, as these precautions don’t bypass many of the original concerns.
TikTok and the Constitution
Despite TikTok’s efforts with Project Texas, anxiety over China’s access to data remains. With bipartisan support, these apprehensions aren’t going anywhere. As the U.S. gears up for a potential TikTok ban, questions regarding its constitutionality arise. Some are concerned that banning TikTok would violate the First Amendment, which asserts that:
Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.
U.S. Constitution, Amendment I
Proponents of the bill argue that Congress’ actions are justified under the common defense and foreign commerce clauses of the U.S. Constitution. These clauses state:
Congress shall have power to…provide for the common defense…of the United States.
U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1
[The Congress shall have power]…to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states. U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3
Reactions to a Ban
Most TikTok users don’t buy these clauses as legitimate reasons for a ban. In fact, after TikTok pushed notifications to some of its users to contact their representatives, House staffers reported an influx of calls from high schoolers expressing their frustration with Bill H.R. 7521. The push notification invited users to “speak up now- before your government strips 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.” While Gen Z might not be the most informed of constituents (some callers didn’t even know what a Congressman was), that doesn’t mean their concerns aren’t correctly targeted.
Liz, a university student in Utah and a regular user of TikTok, expresses similar feelings. She recognizes that there are other social media platforms that could continue acting as the ‘public square’ should a ban occur, but she still agrees that TikTok is such an important platform that restricting access to it would be an infringement on her first amendment rights.
A ban would also strip ‘influencers’ of their jobs. Although politicians sitting in their cushy government offices might not view “influencer” and “creator” as legitimate job categories, the very real demand for their services says otherwise. “With TikTok, a lot of content creators are able to create videos that are very easily digestible for everyone to listen to,” Liz explained. TikTok offers a unique opportunity, more so than other platforms, for influencers to promote brands they have made deals with. This opportunity comes in the form of the platform’s global reach and distinctive focus on entertainment and promotion, which, with its aggressive and advanced algorithm, it has practically perfected.
Two such influencers, Lynda Truong and Paul Tran, say a ban would be devastating for their company, with TikTok being the source of 95% of their beauty brand’s sales. Their influence extends beyond TikTok into other apps; any avid social media consumer knows that most of the videos that populate Instagram and Facebook feeds originate on TikTok. As the most popular app in the world with over 672 million downloads in 2022, TikTok is clearly unique from other platforms and a first choice for many creators. Lynda and Paul are only two of millions of creators and consumers out there that Bill H.R. 7521 would negatively impact.
The Future of TikTok
Beyond the financial ramifications, Lynda and Paul highlight the political ones: Americans should be able to use the apps of their choice freely. It isn’t the government’s place to regulate how 170 million Americans spend their time or what products U.S. companies can provide on their devices. In addition, Bill H.R. 7521, if it passes, could provide precedent for that ‘trigger-happy’ government to abuse Americans’ freedom of expression in the future. Only a very high risk would justify a restriction of this freedom, and a careful review of the evidence doesn’t point to such a risk.
It’s easy to get caught up in the details trying to track down a link from the dog videos that someone watches on their couch to a malicious manipulator in some Chinese government office. If the threat was that imminent, this link wouldn’t be so difficult to trace. Even though the CCP could potentially gain access to data, there is no sure evidence that they are currently or plan on ever doing so. Just as the government shouldn’t violate someone’s liberty by throwing them in jail just because they think they will commit a crime in the future, the government shouldn’t violate freedoms in any other sense based solely on conjecture.
And that’s all that’s currently available: conjecture, though that has not stopped Congress from plugging away with Bill H.R. 7521. The result of this struggle will impact over 170 million TikTok users in the United States, their families, and the companies that distribute TikTok on their devices. Although it is difficult to decipher all the conflicting testimonies surrounding TikTok, one truth spoken by Chinese President Xi Jinping is important:
“Whoever controls big data…will have the upper hand.”
Xi Jinping, China Development Portal, “Scientific big data – the cornerstone of the national big data strategy,” translated by Apple’s Translate App
While there is no hard and fast evidence that China is “stealing U.S. data,” there is enough evidence for it to remain a possibility. This truth should guide Congress’ future decisions if new evidence comes out.
Conclusion
As the issue stands now, to ban TikTok would be a significant violation of constitutional freedoms without enough proof to justify it. As the experience of users like Liz, Lynda, and Paul manifest, TikTok has carved out a unique corner of the public square. Americans deserve the freedom to occupy that corner. TikTok could be channeling CCP propaganda, just like Saturday morning cartoons in the 80s could have, hypothetically, channeled Russian misinformation. The reality is there just isn’t enough evidence to know. What we do know is that Americans have a right to watch those cartoons should they choose to do so. This right should remain central to any future discussions regarding a TikTok ban. Although there are many threats to American freedoms out there that are out of our control, we can, at the very least, ensure that the government isn’t one of them.
