TikTok Banned in the USA? Donald Trump and the War on TikTok.

Saturday August 1st, 2020

Donald Trump plans to ban TikTok in the United States: Here’s why.

Around 11pm on Friday, July 31 a swarm of Twitter posts took over the famous platform after President Trump stated “as far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States”, answering a question aboard Air Force One. The China-based TikTok owner, ByteDance, has not commented on the subject.

For those that use TikTok, this may be a bummer to hear; however, EAR News has been investigating this interest in TikTok when it first started getting popular in the United States in September 2019. The US government first started getting interested in TikTok after noticing that current events such as the Tiananmen Square protests, the Tibetan independence, and the religious group Falun Gong, were being censored from the app.

This sense of “control” that is very much in line with the Chinese government’s policies on censorship, which made some US senators concerned with national security. By October, Senator Marco Rubio requested an investigation into TikTok to prove or disprove if the app could be considered a national security risk to the United States. Following almost immediately, were senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton expressing an immediate concern with the possibility of the app sharing data with the Chinese government. Based on Chinese law, at any given time the government has permission to any and all access to the data of private companies. This includes any information stored on their servers (user data, content uploads, location tracking, and more).

Finally in November 2019, all three comments were addressed by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) stated that they would be conducting an investigation of their own. One major interest was in the ByteDance acquisition of musical.ly on November 9, 2017 and the app merger between musical.ly and TikTok in 2018.

Article 7 of the National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China (2017) states “any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law, and keep the secrets of the national intelligence work known to the public.” 

During December of 2019, the Pentagon made a warned the military to avoid the TikTok platform due to it being a national-security landmine. 

TikTok is a cybersecurity threat. Users are instructed NOT to install the application on their mobile device. DO NOT install TikTok on your Government furnished mobile device. If you have this application on your device, remove it immediately.

In addition to security risks, TikTok has also been under investigation by both the US Federal Trade Commission and the British Information Commissioner’s Office for violating underage data privacy practices. In early 2019, the FTC filed a complaint (which was settled by TikTok for $5.7 million) that violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This act requires websites to direct users under the age of 13 to gain parental consent before the site can collect any personal information on the user.

Back in early July 2020, the TikTok company announced that they will be stopping app support in Hong Kong after requests for information on users. This move by the company followed suit to protect their users after Facebook, Twitter, and Google also halted app support in Hong Kong. TikTok has never admitted to sharing user data with the Chinese government, and has stated on a multiple accounts that they do not intend to follow through with these requests.

Today millions of people worldwide use TikTok on a daily basis, without even knowing about the privacy permission they give to the application. When signing up, most users are asked to either “agree” or “disagree” to a lengthy terms and conditions agreement which is usually safe, but should always be read. In the case of TikTok, the terms were not similar to applications we are familiar to such as Instagram and Twitter for example. While this is only one concern, the other is with their company being based in China. As mentioned before, TikTok is bound by the National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China, and by not complying with the law to provide user data, the company could face legal repercussions with the country. TikTok has stated “we are committed to protecting our users' privacy and safety as we continue working to bring joy to families and meaningful careers to those who create on our platform.”

While there is no current publicly known action by the US government to stop the use of the widely spread application, there is substantial evidence that there will be proper action coming forward over the next few weeks.