Will TikTok Actually Get Banned This Time Around? A Look at Some Key Considerations

8 Mar 2024

Is TikTok going to get banned in the U.S. for real this time?

Well, first off, it’s important to get the details straight.

Earlier in the week, a bill proposed by Rep. Mike Gallagher and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, aimed at addressing national security concerns posed by foreign ownership of social media apps, sought to push TikTok owner ByteDance to sell TikTok into American ownership, in order to ensure that U.S. user data is not being shipped back to China, where the C.C.P. can, at least theoretically, access that info and use it as intel for political purpose.

That bill was passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and will now be voted on by the House, then the Senate, before it could be enacted by the President.
Now, data access of this type may not be a major concern for most TikTok users, but as an example, in theory, Chinese Government operatives could access TikTok user data, and could identify government employees, and their kids, and then use that as leverage to try and persuade said users to implement beneficial actions.

That’s why TikTok has already been banned on government devices in virtually every Western nation, but as an example, what if the son/daughter of a high ranking diplomat was posting controversial content, and the C.C.P. had access to such?

With this in mind, bans on Government devices make sense, but really, if you agree with that as a concept, then there are similar risks for many more users by extension, and you would then effectively be agreeing that a full ban of the app makes sense.

Yet, at the same time, there’s nothing to suggest that the Chinese Government has ever directly accessed TikTok data, and TikTok itself maintains that it operates separately, and would not have to share such info at any stage.

But actually, it would.

China’s cybersecurity laws stipulate that Chinese officials can access user logs, messages and comments on social media platforms in order to investigate legal cases as required. The technicalities of such also mean that the C.C.P. can access such in matters of national security, and that’s a fairly broad umbrella, which could effectively validate the monitoring of TikTok user data by any nation that China sees as a potential threat.

Which, given its geopolitical standing, could be a lot of regions.