US Ban TikTok in Government-issued Phones

How did we get to this point?

US security concerns regarding TikTok exist for many years. Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok for the first time in 2020. However, bipartisan efforts to regulate and restrain its use reached fever pitch in 2022 after news outlets reported that employees of ByteDance had accessed US TikTok user data.

Christopher Wray, the FBI director, warned that the Chinese government could access US users’ devices using the app. This raised national security concerns. Many Republican-led states, including Texas and South Dakota, have recently banned TikTok from state-issued devices.

In April, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley introduced a ban similar to the one currently in effect. He called TikTok “a Trojan horse for the Chinese Communist Party”. The Senate unanimously approved the measure earlier in December.

Are there any other countries that have taken similar steps against TikTok as well?

India is the largest country to ban the use of TikTok. Other countries, such as Indonesia, have placed temporary bans on the app. After a fatal border dispute with China, India banned TikTok and more than 50 Chinese apps. This was due to national security concerns. Other countries’ national bans have only been in place for a few months.

Do we need to be more concerned about TikTok apps than the other apps?

It all depends on who you ask. Many digital privacy and civil advocacy organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future, say that while China’s potential to exploit TikTok is concerning, other apps, and services, offer similar access to user data to government entities, even those in the US.

This is absurd unless we ban Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Uber, Grubhub and YouTube.
Evan Greer, Fight for the Future

Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, stated that “unless we’re also [going] to] ban Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Uber, Grubhub, and YouTube, this is pointless.” Although TikTok is a bit more convenient than other apps for accessing data, there are still many options available to governments to get data via apps.

However, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle introduced bills and praised efforts to limit TikTok’s use. Hawley’s bill was not the only one. Senator Marco Rubio, Florida, introduced a bill that would ban TikTok from operating in the United States. Rubio stated in a press release that the bipartisan bill was not about creating videos. “This isn’t about creative video – this is about an application that is collecting data about tens of millions of American children and adults each day.”

Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner has encouraged TikTok bans on government devices. He also called for more states “to take action to keep our government tech out of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party’s] reach.”

What are the geopolitical implications?

Over the past few years, the US has intensified its efforts to address possible national security concerns from China. This includes adding more China-based entities and companies to a blacklist by commerce department that limits exports to these firms. While TikTok is a part of this wider campaign, some groups warn that similar moves by China could result from a ban on TikTok.