More Evidence Suggests TikTok Is a National Security Risk

Governments are under pressure to ban the app

If you’re a big user of TikTok, think twice. It has long been known that employees of ByteDance, owner of TikTok, have access to private data belonging to users of the video application. Now, recordings of ByteDance staff meetings show that some of these data were passed on to the Chinese government.

Pursuant to the Chinese National Intelligence Law of 2017, any national company or individual can be called upon to spy for the benefit of Beijing if required. What makes things easier for TikTok and ByteDance is that more than 300 employees of the two companies previously worked for Chinese state media, as reported by Forbes magazine.

To add a layer to this sensitive issue, TikTok, still according to Forbes, served as a platform for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which meddled in the midterm elections through accounts disseminating Chinese propaganda. Among those accounts, several of which have amassed millions of followers, is @NewsTokss, which specializes in U.S. politics. In the run-up to the midterm elections, @NewsTokss attacked Republican candidates and favored Democrats with the obvious aim of manipulating the vote.

Another obscure account belonged to MediaLinks TV, which is an “outpost” of the Chinese Communist Party’s main TV news channel, China Central Television, according to Forbes. What may seem alarming is that MediaLinks TV is based in Washington, therefore in the foothills of the decision-making power in the United States.

ByteDance owns another app called Douyin with which it employs the same offensive tactics in favor of the CCP. According to Financial News, Beijing has long paid for influencers to spread its propaganda on Douyin, where videos range from pro-CCP short films to tourism clips. Douyin, however, is only available in China.

A third application owned by ByteDance but now defunct, TopBuzz, was the subject of a BuzzFeed article regarding its ties to the CCP. Former TopBuzz employees claimed that ByteDance instructed the platform staff to place specific posts promoting China and the CCP. Censorship operations were also on the menu, like all stories related to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

Governments Are Finally Taking Action

Since the Biden administration remains silent in the face of the threat posed by TikTok, a few states have decided to take matters into their own hands. This is the case in Texas, where Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered a ban on the use of the application among state employees and agencies.

“TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices — including when, where, and how they conduct Internet activity — and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government”, the governor stated. “While TikTok has claimed that it stores U.S. data within the U.S., the company admitted in a letter to Congress that China-based employees can have access to U.S. data. It has also been reported that ByteDance planned to use TikTok location information to surveil individual American citizens.”

Abbott is not the only one to go forward with banning TikTok among state employees. South Dakota, Oklahoma, Maryland and South Carolina did the same. In Arkansas, State Senator Gary Stubblefield (R) introduced a bill to that effect, while in Wisconsin, lawmakers sent a letter to Democratic Governor Tony Evers calling for similar legislation.

At the FBI, Director Christopher Wray recently warned about the national security concerns surrounding TikTok. “The Chinese government has shown a willingness to steal Americans’ data on a scale that dwarfs any other,” Wray said.

The alarm also went off in Europe. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has confirmed that multiple investigations into TikTok were ongoing. According to Engadget, the probes concern the transfer of EU citizens’ data to China and targeted advertising aimed at minors.

Sources

BuzzFeed, Engadget, Financial News, Forbes, Governor Kevin Stitt, The Blaze, The Daily Wire, The Telegraph