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TIKTOK’S TROUBLES TREND — Lawmakers from the United States and the European Union are imposing new restrictions on TikTok over concerns its Chinese parent company could be spying on Western users.
More than 30 states in the U.S. have restricted access to TikTok on government devices and this week Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced legislation that would ban the app nationwide. The measures are the latest push against the China-owned platform, a move that risks upending delicate relations between Beijing and the West, Ari Hawkins reports for Nightly.
Most social apps collect data like names and IP information, but lawmakers have warned that TikTok, owned by Beijing-headquartered ByteDance, may be forced to divulge information from Western users to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
“We do have national security concerns,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in November. “They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users.”
Hostilities toward the short-form video app intensified outside the U.S. after TikTok admitted to using IP data to spy on journalists, including from the British Financial Times.
French President Emmanuel Macron called TikTok “the most disruptive” outlet for younger generations at an event on mental health last month. European Union regulators warned the app will need to adhere with EU privacy regulations or risk being banned from the bloc entirely.
Dutch ministries also advised public authorities this week to “suspend the use of TikTok” until the app has “adjusted its data protection policy."
Robert Daly, the director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, told Nightly that “recently with the law restricting free movement in Hong Kong, China has aggressively built out a digitally dependent surveillance state in Beijing.”
“People are becoming wary of that, they’re more cautious and there is a growing sense that China is not the partner that it has been for much of the last 40 years,” he added.
TikTok, which has long denied reports that its parent company taps into the private information from Western users, has revved up a lobbying campaign to address Western security concerns. The initiative, which is known as Project Texas, was instituted after former President Donald Trump issued two executive orders that attempted to restrict the app.
Shou Zi Chew, the company’s CEO, is reportedly engaging in a similar charm offensive in Europe. The company’s leader spoke with members of the European Commission earlier this month after a report outlining privacy concerns was published by EU regulators.
“TikTok has gone from having a relatively low public profile, to quite actively engaging in lobbying efforts, because they realized their old approach didn’t work. In both the United States and the EU, the company realizes lawmakers are not just letting this go,” Daly added.
James Lewis, a director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warns TikTok could be the source of legal battles for years to come.
“The app is considered protected under free speech, making TikTok difficult to ban in either bloc … It’s a delicate situation with implications on how technology companies in Europe and the U.S. are treated.” |
