Why TikTok Should be banned

TLDR

TikTok and other Chinese Owned Social media companies not only pose a threat to our nation’s national security but also set a scary precedent for Chinese dominance of the internet at large. Allowing hostile foreign governments to play a role in the information age opens the United States up to a new attack vector not seen before in modern history. An attack of misinformation and control. With apps such as TikTok growing in popularity (especially with younger demographics), their data, and more importantly their flow of information is being more and more controlled by a government that does not have their best interests in mind.

TikTok and the War for Information

TikTok and other Chinese Owned Social media companies not only pose a threat to our nation’s national security but also set a scary precedent for Chinese dominance of the internet at large. Chinese owned tech companies like TikTok pose a threat to western democracy, and the freedom of our digital world. China functions as a sudo capitalist nation. Where most functions of a capitalistic market are allowed to take place as long as they don’t interfere or come into competition with the power of the state. This being so, China mandates that companies over a certain market cap must instate a member of the Chinese socialist party to their board of directors (Wei, 2023). The sway that this member holds is immense and what they say goes. Any opposition to them is met with fast and swift action by the Chinese government. This in practice gives the Chinese government effective control of the largest corporations within its borders (Wei, 2023). And it’s this practice that has the rest of the western world worried about the potential to do harm to an app like TikTok has. With effective control of TikTok, China can weaponize it and use it as a platform to spread misinformation and sow the seeds of doubt in our democracy into the American people’s mind.

The rise of TikTok has been historic. With it becoming one of the most popular social media platforms within just a short few years. Especially among younger demographics, with it being the second most popular social media website among teens (13-17) according to the Pew Research Center. (Atske, 2022)

App downloads are not the only thing rising for this up-and-coming social media giant, as controversy surrounding the app has also followed suit. Unlike other domestic social media companies, TikTok is owned by the Chinese based company ByteDance. The ownership of TikTok by ByteDance has fueled concerns over data privacy, national security, and content regulation. As a Chinese company ByteDance is subject to the Chinese government’s jurisdiction and policies. Which have historically not been the best for human rights. This connection to an adversarial government has led to growing unease among users, lawmakers, and security experts.

There are only two solutions to this growing issue, ban the App and others like it, or regulate it to the point where it can be guaranteed there isn’t any interference from the Chinese government. Apps and other websites collecting large swaths of user data is not new, companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have been catching flack for this since their inception. What is new is who controls this data. With this data companies can learn all about you as a user, what your preferences are. Where you go in the day. Who you talk to. And much more, these companies are doing this to serve ads that are most relevant to your daily life, purely for financial gain. Now imagine if all this data being collected was also being used by a foreign government that was actively using this data to gain intelligence into the American psyche. From this they can learn about millions of American’s daily lives, preferences, fears, desires and who they talk to. There are imaginable strategic uses for data like this. This is why an app like TikTok should be banned. It would be too easy for the Chinese government to shift the algorithm to show the most vulnerable users ill-informed content which could lead to civil unrest and at worse violence. Just imagine if they targeted mentally unstable individuals and served them content on how to build and use firearms, now that may be an extreme example but it brings my point across. No one could stop them and no one can tell that this would be happening inside the app, because the app and the algorithm itself is a black box. This is just one VERY direct example on how all this data and information can be used against the United States. 

It is impossible to separate TikTok from the country in which it originates. No matter what ByteDance wants us to believe. The Chinese government has already stated that they are unwilling to decouple the app and sell it off to a domestic company (Che, 2023). This means the best way to solve this issue is to simply ban the app outwrite. We don’t negotiate with terrorists and China should not be an exception. They do not allow any of our largest social media companies to operate within their country, No Facebook, No Youtube, No Google, all have been banned within China’s borders. Why should we let them do the same to us? Information is power and as more and more citizens use TikTok on a daily basis more of their information flow can be controlled and  manipulated by a foreign government, I have had a direct experience with misinformation on the platform. This is purely anecdotal and I wish I would have documented it at the time it happened. But I was served a very strange video by the algorithm that stated China had the most female billionaires in the world. I instantly knew this wasn’t true so I researched it. And it turns out it’s not remotely true. The United States has nearly double the amount (Peterson-Withorn, 2023). The only source that could back up this claim was a Chinese owned newspaper. This in my eyes shows the danger that mis-information can cause. Was it a coincidence that I was shown that video? Maybe, but the fact that it tried to paint China in a good light as an economic leader has me highly suspicious. From this experience I have been extremely skeptical of the platform and its true intentions. Think of all the damage a platform like Fox News has done when it comes to mis-information (Coster, 2023), now times that by 10 and that is the threat the TikTok is to the American public. Fox News is purely motivated by profit and viewership, The Chinese government is not so transparent with their intentions. This is why there needs to be swift action and banned immediately.

Some others have offered a compromise on this issue. It was tried and tribulated several times during the Trump administration to spin off TikTok to a domestic company (Allyn, 2020). Specifically to Oracle and Walmart. This deal fell apart for a myriad of issues, not the least to say that the Chinese government won’t permit this entity to be sold (Che, 2023). It is purely to valuable a tool for them. This course of action would be great. All parties could walk away happy. ByteDance could walk with an upwards of a couple billion dollars that they very rightfully deserve, they have built a fantastic, wonderful, and additive product. That is what has led it to being so successful in the first place. But the elephant in the room is China. They stand in the way of this solution coming to fruition. In a perfect world this deal would go through and TikTok could live on to be another highly successful social media company. But one party in this transaction has made it very clear that this will not happen.

References

Allyn, B. (2020, December 7). U. S. Judge halts trump’s tiktok ban, the 2nd court to fully block the action. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/944039053/u-s-judge-halts-trumps-tiktok-ban-the-2nd-court-to-fully-block-the-action

Atske, S. (2022, August 10). Teens, social media and technology 2022. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/

Che, C. (2023, March 23). China says it will ‘firmly oppose’ forced sale of tiktok. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/business/china-forced-sale-tiktok.html

Coster, H. (2023, April 25). Tucker Carlson leaves Fox News days after Dominion lawsuit settlement. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/fox-news-media-tucker-carlson-part-ways-2023-04-24/

De Leyn, T., De Wolf, R., Vanden Abeele, M., & De Marez, L. (2022). In-between child’s play and teenage pop culture: Tweens, TikTok & privacy. Journal of Youth Studies, 25(8), 1108-1125.

Kaye, D. B. V., Chen, X., & Zeng, J. (2021). The co-evolution of two Chinese mobile short video apps: Parallel platformization of Douyin and TikTok. Mobile Media & Communication, 9(2), 229-253.

Maheshwari, S., & Holpuch, A. (2023, April 12). Why countries are trying to ban tiktok. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/article/tiktok-ban.html

Peterson-Withorn, C. (n.d.). Forbes’ 37th annual world’s billionaires list: Facts and figures 2023. Forbes. Retrieved April 29, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2023/04/04/forbes-37th-annual-worlds-billionaires-list-facts-and-figures-2023/

Roush, T. (n.d.). Montana passes tiktok ban: Here’s why it’s probably unenforceable. Forbes. Retrieved April 15, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2023/04/15/montana-bans-tiktok-heres-why-its-probably-unenforceable/

Silver, L., & Clancy, L. (n.d.). By more than two-to-one, Americans support U.S. government banning TikTok. Pew Research Center. Retrieved March 31, 2023, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/03/31/by-a-more-than-two-to-one-margin-americans-support-us-government-banning-tiktok/

Wei, L. (2023, March 8). China’s new way to control its biggest companies: Golden shares. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-jinpings-subtle-strategy-to-control-chinas-biggest-companies-ad001a63