TikTok is hardly a model social media platform, but it鈥檚 also far from an outlier when it comes to threats to Americans.
By
Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies
Introduction
When President Joe Biden into law on April 24, 2024, it started the clock on a nine-month window for TikTok鈥檚 China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app. The president can extend the deadline by three months, and TikTok has indicated that it plans to .
If the law stands and the company fails to sell the app, TikTok will be blocked from any U.S. app store or web-hosting service. This would affect TikTok鈥檚 over U.S. users, including .
It would also alter the news and information landscape. Unlike its competitors, TikTok has been annually who regularly seek news on the platform. Nearly use TikTok as a news source.
The main arguments against TikTok under ByteDance鈥檚 ownership include that it enables foreign influence of U.S. public opinion, promotes harmful behaviors among minors, and undermines Americans鈥� data privacy. However, none of these concerns are new or unique to TikTok among social media platforms.
Foreign Influence and Propaganda
Lawmakers have expressed concern that the Chinese government could influence U.S. public opinion, and thereby politics, by exerting control over what content TikTok users see. Rep. Mike Gallager (R-WI), co-sponsor of the House bill on TikTok, warned that allowing TikTok to establish itself as the dominant news platform in America is and, by extension, the Chinese Communist Party.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) referred to TikTok鈥檚 in Alaska as a possible Chinese influence operation meant .
But U.S-based social media platforms have been and continue to be exploited by a range of foreign governments, including China, and their proxies who use them to attempt to . Beginning with its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, Russian intelligence has long used platforms like , the platform formerly known as Twitter, .
These influence campaigns create and . Researchers assert that Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube necessary to track or prevent such activities.
Hazardous to Minors
Some lawmakers also caution that TikTok feeds children , like eating disorders and self-harm. However, .
For example, from revealed that Meta has known since 2019 that its platforms are likely hurting U.S. minors鈥� mental health and well-being. The company鈥檚 internal research found that the platform contributed to body image issues and eating disorders among teen girls and exposed teens to other harmful behaviors, such as bullying, drug abuse and self-harm.
Currently, 41 U.S. states and the District of Columbia for the damage allegedly done to minors.
At the same time, there has been little outcry about how time spent on social media increases young people鈥檚 or that platforms such as YouTube .
Data Security and Privacy
Proponents of the TikTok sale-or-ban law also claim that the app constitutes an unacceptable threat to data privacy. Rep. Gallagher asserted that the Chinese government to 鈥渇ind Americans, exfiltrate data and .鈥�
Yet, there is little reason to believe Americans鈥� data is safer with U.S.-based companies. Meta has had a . Last year, showed that even Meta engineers themselves have minimal understanding or control over how people鈥檚 data is used.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), co-sponsor of the House bill on TikTok, invoked a case involving the dating app Grindr as a successful . In 2020, the Chinese company that owned Grindr following security concerns similar to those surrounding TikTok. But, just last year, a fringe in Denver purchased location and usage data from Grindr and other dating apps to track LGBTQ+ priests.
Additionally, the Chinese government hardly needs control of TikTok to access the troves of data that apps, devices and smart appliances collect from Americans. Much of this data can be , regardless of who owns it.
Data freely available for purchase on the open market has been shown to include the location data for people visiting and mobile device that can be deanonymized to reveal the whereabouts of the president of the United States.
The Need for Regulation
Concerns about TikTok are not unfounded, but they are also not unique. Each threat posed by TikTok has also been posed by U.S.-based social media for over a decade. I believe that lawmakers should take action to address seeking profit as well as by foreign companies perpetrating espionage.
Protecting Americans cannot be accomplished by banning a single app. To truly protect their constituents, lawmakers would need to enact broad, far-reaching regulation.
Originally by , 04.25.2024, under the terms of a license.