In recent months we have seen a boycott of TikTok by the US government which is providing TikTok with an ultimatum, either have ByteDance sell their shares in the company or risk facing a nationwide ban. The overarching concern is that because TikTok is owned by the Chinese firm ByteDance that this could open US TikTok users to high risk for the Chinese government to gain access to US user data.
But does the American government have a leg to stand on when the country is still without a clear set of federal laws when it comes to data protection and in recent months they have been caught spying on their allies?
The US is not the only country to be considering placing a ban on the social media platform. For example, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, France and the Executive arm of the EU (European Union) have banned the use of the app on all government devices this year.
This could just be a stepping stone on the way to a full national ban in the US.
On the 1st of March, a House committee voted in favour of a more intense step to advance legislation that would give President Biden the power to impose a nationwide ban on all personal devices.
Is US user data safer in the hands of a US company?
How can a government that does not currently have any strict laws for data security and privacy, say that they are worried about the safety of US user data? In most US states companies can gather as much data about you as they want without notifying you that they are doing this. Furthermore, they are in complete control of how they distribute the data they gather and who they give it to and don’t have to notify you about any of it.
So, in theory, any database across the world that wanted access to US user data could gain access to it.
The Biden administration wants Byte Dance to sell their shares in TikTok to a US company because they are concerned about the Chinese government gaining access to sensitive US user data. But, if the US doesn’t have any federal data security laws how will the data be any more secure with a US company?
On April 12 Vice reported that the US had been accused of spying on its allies. After dozens of Pentagon documents were leaked online the US was accused of spying on South Korea. Matthew Fuhrmann a Texas A7M University professor whose research focuses on international relations told Vice World News that countries often spy on allies to preempt the future of their relationship with the country.
It's interesting to watch a country that, as far as laws go, has made little to no effort to protect US user data. The US is struggling to keep their classified Pentagon documents exposing themselves for spying on ally countries such as South Korea from being leaked. How will they prevent user data from falling into the wrong hands?
All of this may seem a little familiar. This would be because in 2020 the Trump administration tried to get ByteDance to sell their stake in the company to a US firm such as Oracle and Walmart. The Biden administration eventually scrapped the Trump executive order which specifically targeted Tim Tok. But, they then replaced it with an executive order of their own which had a broader focus on technology that was linked to a list of counties which includes TikTok. It wasn’t until a report was released which suggested that US user data had been accessed by the Chinese government on multiple occasions, that the US lawmakers began raising further security concerns.
TikTok denies these reports and CEO Shou Chew said at a Harvard Business Review conference, “The Chinese government has never asked for US data” “and we’ve said this on the record, that even if we were asked for that, we would not provide that.” He added “All US user data is stored, by default, in the Oracle Cloud infrastructure” and “access to that data is completely controlled by Us personnel.”
CNN reported that privacy and security researchers who have looked into the data TikTok collects say that as far as they can see TikTok isn’t far different from any other social media platform regarding what data they collect.
That’s why it’s TikTok and ByteDance’s link that is under scrutiny and why the Biden administration wants ByteDance to sell their shares.
The fate of TikTok in the US is still up in the air and the Biden administration doesn’t have a set deadline on when they have to make a decision. But if they decide to implement a national ban on the app then this could be a reality within a year. The final say lies with President Biden. Congress could choose to pass on the bill the Biden administration could still choose to act and try to implement a ban using the legal authority that has been granted to them.
This could be a risky move for the Biden administration, they would likely need to defeat the ban in court, which is something Trump failed to do in 2020. It could also affect public opinion of the Biden administration and could hurt his re-election campaign in 2024.
It is hard to see what may be the final decision on the matter and it is hard to understand who is the reliable source between TikTok and the US government on how large a threat the platform is to public security.
Is TikTok opening the US users up to being targeted by the Chinese government or is this just the US government trying to bring control of the platform to the US?