It’s Time to Get Real About TikTok’s Risks

Amid a flurry of talking points and takedowns as the United States midterm elections loom, lawmakers and regulators have reheated claims about TikTok, a social media app they say poses a threat to personal privacy and US national security. Now, the Biden administration is reportedly readying its own action. But the exact scope of the problem and goals remain fuzzy. Owned by the Chinese tech giant Bytedance, TikTok has more than a billion users, including an estimated 135 million in the US, and some lawmakers, including former president Donald Trump, have warned over the past two years that the Chinese government could use the app to collect data on Americans or launch influence operations through the platform.

The US military banned its members from using TikTok on government devices or at all in late 2019 and early 2020, as did the Transportation Security Administration and some other federal agencies. Just last month, the chief administrative officer for the US House of Representatives warned lawmakers against installing TikTok due to the data it can collect. This followed a June 17 BuzzFeed News report, which found that ByteDance employees can and do gain access to US TikTok users' data in some situations. But for the general public, warnings from legislators and regulators this summer have continued to be vague and amorphous, underscoring broader ambiguity about where lawmakers' precise concerns lie.

With so many users, TikTok is clearly a potentially rich source of personal data and could be exploited in the way other social platforms have been to spread disinformation or promote influence operations. But the reason TikTok has been singled out is less clear. Huge quantities of sensitive data about people living in the US are already available in various forms for purchase or the taking through other public social media platforms, the digital marketing industry, data brokers, and leaked stolen data troves. And long before the rise of TikTok, China was already notorious on the global stage for stealing massive quantities of data about Americans and others from governments and companies around the world. So, is it protectionism? Xenophobia? Special insight into US national security?