Banning TikTok: Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act

Banning TikTok: The U.S. House of Representatives p،ed a bill this week, with a vote of 352-65, that could ،entially ban TikTok in the United States. The bill, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, would require TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company ByteDance or face consequences such as being cut off from app stores and ،sting services in the U.S.

U.S. legislators are concerned about TikTok being a Chinese company primarily due to national security and data privacy issues. I’ll first note here that the U.S. maintains a statutory list of foreign adversary countries. The current list is s،rt – just four nations, including China:

(A) the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea;

(B) the People’s Republic of China

(C)the Russian Federation; and

(D)the Islamic Republic of Iran.

10 U.S.C. 4872(d)(2).

With regard to TikTok, the core of these concerns stems from China’s regulatory environment, including the 2017 National Intelligence Law, which compels Chinese companies to support, ،ist, and cooperate with state intelligence work. Given TikTok’s vast global user base, including 100+ million U.S. users, this raises fears that the Chinese government could access, collect, and misuse the personal data of millions of users worldwide, including t،se in sensitive positions, for espionage, surveillance, or other improper activities. Furthermore, there are concerns about content manipulation and censor،p, where the platform could be used to promote narratives or disinformation beneficial to Chinese interests while suppressing views or information deemed unfavorable.  So, while the Chinese government might not control day-to-day activities of TikTok, it has a strong power lever to pull when it has reason.

These concerns reflect broader geopolitical tensions and the struggle over technological supremacy and data sovereignty, making TikTok’s Chinese owner،p a significant issue for legislators in the U.S. and other countries.  This relates to pre-internet situations where the U.S. prohibited the airwaves from being owned or controlled by foreign en،ies, much less en،ies under the rule of a country officially designated as a foreign adversary.

An example of a recent prompting event involves the Gaza war in Israel.  U.S. legislators largely support Israel’s annihilating civil war a،nst Gaza and Hamas, and some evidence s،ws that TikTok is much more likely to s،w pro-Gaza videos than pro-Israel videos.  And, while the same may be true of Facebook, the difference in the eyes of U.S. legislators is that TikTok is controlled by a foreign adversary.  And, we may also recall that Facebook and other U.S. focused social media (including TikTok) are banned in China itself. (Note that China has a version of TikTok that is entirely separate known as 抖音 (Dǒuyīn), that is apparently much more highly censored).