TikTok, It Don't Stop

The US House last week voted in favor of a Bill which could see the Chinese-owned video/ social media app TikTok banned in America, unless it is sold to a US company. China accused America of “bandit logic”, trying to “take” TikTok by force, but the Bill passed in a landslide. It remains to be seen who could afford to buy the app, (even if China would sell) which is currently valued at over $250bn.

The problem of TikTok has plagued Western lawmakers for years now, both the worrying fact of its Chinese ownership but also its effect on the mental health of young people. Arguably, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States should have been able to wrangle TikTok’s presence in America, but for some reason, it has not done so. Now Congress has jumped into the scrap.

Lawmakers have rarely been able to agree on what to do about TikTok. During his term, President Donald Trump had attempted to ban the app. Governments and universities in various parts of the world have banned it from officials’ phones out of fear that the China’s Communist Party could harvest sensitive data. Calls for transparency about how TikTok’s algorithm works to make it so addictive were heeded for a bit and TikTok has so far dodged political action by promising to hold American data on American servers. But the storms always seemed to blow over.

The conversation about the dangers of TikTok had almost disappeared from public attention so this vote seemed to come out of nowhere. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), lead author of the Bill said the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party had been working on HR 7521 for a number of months but urgency to take action may have been revived due to a campaign launched by TikTok itself, as The Verge notes. TikTok sent notifications to American users urging them to call their Representatives. Offices of Reps were overwhelmed with calls from sobbing teenagers, some threatening violence or to harm themselves if TikTok was banned. This display of TikTok’s sway over America’s youth may possibly have tipped the House to vote decisively against the app: “I can’t tell you how many people had the ‘aha’ moment just because of that particular push notification,” Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) said.

Fifteen Republicans and fifty Democrats voted against the Bill, which does not mention TikTok directly. There are a number of reasons to be concerned, including the complaint that restricting what Americans can and can’t access on the internet is an infringement on free speech. Many Americans work for TikTok or make their livings from it. President Trump who supported restrictions on TikTok in the past has modified his position somewhat, argued that one less contender in the social media space gives more power to Facebook which he calls the “enemy of the people.”

But the main concern is that language in the Bill is overly broad with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) tweeting that the Bill is a Trojan horse “that would give the President the power to "ban WEB SITES," not just apps.” Since the wording is not tied to TikTok specifically, critics argue that it could be used to shut down many other businesses that are partly owned by foreigners. Hopefully more debate will ensue before the Senate votes, as President Biden has said he will sign it if it passes.

More libertarian types I listened to wondered what value Chinese intelligence could glean from teens watching and posting videos. Maybe the best answer is that China plays a long game. As one analyst put it: “The CCP collects data in bulk and worries about what to do with it later. Even if it’s not all immediately usable, the Party anticipates better technical ability to exploit the data later on.” Collecting one person’s data in this internet-connected age also enables data to be gathered from those around too, as I wrote a couple of years ago.

The harsh reality is that nations spy on each other. Reuters reported just last week that the Trump administration had been operating an influence operation on Chinese social media to portray China’s elite as greedy and wasteful. It’s not clear what effect the campaign had, but let’s say, spying is a two-way street. However, China’s goals conflict with many of those of the USA:

”The CCP’s methods are not that different from what we see in the global advertising industry. But instead of trying to sell a product, the CCP is trying to exert authoritarian control. It’s using capitalism as a vehicle to access data that can help it disrupt democratic processes and create a more favorable global environment for its power,” says Samantha Hoffman a China expert from the Australian Strategy Policy Institute. China’s takes an “all of state” approach to espionage and expects businesses to hand information to the state if they are asked.

In some ways, TikTok is one potential espionage tool among many. An investigation recently found that Chinese-made ship-to-shore cranes were equipped with communications devices “with no clear purpose or record of their installation.” Last month, President Biden expressed concerns that Chinese “smart cars” could possibly be used to collect data on Americans. What about the Confucius Institutes in many US universities? Or Chinese-owned businesses next door to military bases? Not to mention spy balloons which occasionally fly overhead.

I’m not suggesting that lawmakers should not try to disentangle what they can from Communist influence, but the singular focus on TikTok leads to the question: is this just about Chinese spying? How would TikTok in the hands of American company be any different? The Federalist’s Sean Davis went to far as to say, the Bill has only come about because the US government doesn’t like competition:

“It’s not that the U.S. government wants to protect you from spying and data theft and manipulation. If only. No, the people behind the Russian collusion hoax, and the Kavanaugh hoax, and the natural origin COVID hoax, and the illegal warrantless spying, and the forced transing of your children—they want to be the ones spying on you and stealing your data and poisoning the minds of your children.”

That certainly holds up to some scrutiny if you remember that American social media companies surveilled regular Americans in the last couple of years, at the behest of the intelligence apparatus. So far as damage to youngsters, lawmakers have had plenty of opportunities to make changes but have been unable to agree. Whistleblowers have claimed that Instagram and other apps know the addictive nature of their products but don’t seem to do anything about it. They know there is child pornography and exploitation on their platforms but wait for government pressure to avoid having to make hard calls themselves.

So, if it is not obvious, this whole situation is more and more complicated the further you zoom out. That’s not a call to throw up our hands but it is a call for prayer. We can pray that lawmakers make wise decisions, however regardless of whether TikTok lives or dies, there’s never a bad time to review what influences we allow in our own homes; not because we fear the machinations of men, near or abroad but because we seek to live wisely in the days Jesus Christ grants to us.

While it remains, for those brave enough to join the fray, TikTok is a potential mission field where young people are being fed all sorts of hellish messages. Why not use it as a tool for good? Maybe the CCP watchers will hear the Gospel too!

This situation right in our backyard reminds us that each age comes with its own poison chalices (to lend a dramatic air!) For all of our sophisticated tech, humanity still faces age-old problems – trading off free speech against safety, foreign relations against national security, and mental and moral wellbeing against information or even, convenience. As one observer put it: “The debate around TikTok looks like an early test of what it means to be a sovereign state in the 21st century…We’re still also grappling with what it meant to be a sovereign state in the 20th century, as borders continue to blur behind a bewildering network of alliances, rivalries, dependencies, ambitions, and grievances.”