This NYTimes story excerpt might be a helpful addition to this conversation. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/23/briefing/tiktok-hearing-ban.html
Dated 3/23/23 by Lauren Jackson. The Threat of Tik-Tok
The federal government and more than half of the states have banned TikTok from government devices and networks. Britain, Canada and Belgium have done the same. India banned the app entirely. Now the U.S. is threatening a nationwide ban, too....
"The platforms are so powerful, their names are verbs: Google, Uber, Instagram, Netflix.
For years, the dominance of American tech companies has brought economic benefits to the United States. It has also offered an advantage in a less obvious area — national security.
Tech companies gather incredible amounts of data about their users. They know where we travel, who our friends are and what we watch. Governments want to use this data for surveillance, law enforcement and espionage. So they hack, hoard, steal and buy it. For years, the U.S. has had an edge over other countries. With court approval, the government can demand that social media giants, based in the U.S. and subject to U.S. law, hand over data about users.
“We had this advantage that we thought would just go on forever,” Bruce Schneier, a security expert and Harvard fellow, said.
Then TikTok came along. The social media app, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has more than a billion users. TikTok says that includes about 150 million Americans. Under China’s authoritarian state, the government has sweeping control over tech companies and their data. U.S. officials are worried that China will use TikTok to promote its interests and gather Americans’ personal information. One Republican called it a spy balloon in your phone.
TikTok is the latest flashpoint in the two countries’ struggle for supremacy. Last week, TikTok said U.S. officials had given its Chinese ownership two options: Sell the app or risk a nationwide ban. This morning, lawmakers will question TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Chew, about the app’s ties to China.
Today, I will explain the fight over TikTok and how the U.S. is trying to use the app to its advantage.
The concerns
This fight is ostensibly about data: who controls it and determines how it appears on TikTok. The U.S. has two main reasons for concern.
First is the threat of Chinese espionage. BuzzFeed found that ByteDance engineers in China had accessed American users’ private data. ByteDance also admitted that employees, including two based in China, spied on journalists and obtained their IP addresses, but said that company leaders had not signed off and that the employees were fired. Despite ByteDance’s close ties to China, TikTok has denied that it has given data to the government.
Second, ByteDance could use TikTok’s algorithms to influence Americans. TikTok has been accused of censoring videos about politically sensitive subjects for China, like Tibetan independence and the Tiananmen Square massacre.
“A Chinese company owns what has become America’s number one culture maker right now,” Sapna Maheshwari, a Times reporter who covers TikTok, said. In the future, lawmakers say, it’s easy to imagine how China could use TikTok to shape American attitudes about Taiwan — or an American presidential campaign.
The U.S. is escalating efforts to limit TikTok’s power. The federal government and more than half of the states have banned TikTok from government devices and networks. Britain, Canada and Belgium have done the same. India banned the app entirely. Now the U.S. is threatening a nationwide ban, too....
The power of a threat
Even if a ban never happens, the threat of one still matters. The Biden administration is using the specter of further restrictions to communicate a hard line on China. Lawmakers in both parties will likely make that point clear in the hearing today.
“If you can control data, you can have influence,” Joseph Nye, a political scientist, said.
China has known this for years. The country has banned apps like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and operated a tightly controlled internet, isolating its citizens from the rest of the world. The U.S. is now threatening to use China’s playbook against it, effectively leveraging private companies as a national asset and limiting information access as a form of sanctioning...