Op-Ed: The Imposing Threat of TikTok on National Security

TikTok has, in the past few years, grown to be one of the most popular apps in the world, especially for teens. The app is expected to grow to 1.8 billion users by the end of 2022, one of those users being the Dedham Mirror. And now, I am about to bite the hand that feeds me and talk about why TikTok needs to go—because TikTok is a major threat to our national security that must be addressed.

But to start, I must provide some background information about TikTok. The app provides short-term content and allows users to create their own content. Less well-known is the fact that TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance who also operate Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. ByteDance is a company that operates under Chinese Laws even when operating abroad. This includes China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, requiring Chinese companies to cooperate with state intelligence work. This means that if the Chinese government wants TikTok's user data, ByteDance is obliged to give it up.

And this isn’t just speculation. In June, 2021, TikTok employees told CNBC that ByteDance had almost total control over the app, and that Chinese Bytedance employees are able to access US user data. Dot.la reported that TikTok can collect names, ages, phone numbers, keystroke patterns, and biometric data from users. Just a few months ago, Buzzfeed reported on leaked audio recordings from TikTok internal meetings in which TikTok executives acknowledged that data is accessed from China. And. most significantly, within the last 24 hours before this was written, TikTok executives refused to commit to stop sending user data to China.

And not only can the Chinese Government collect Americans' user data, they can also control what is allowed to be shared on TikTok. In fact, Tiktok has been reported to censor post related to the Tiananmen Square Massacre and other sensitive topics to the Chinese Government. The BBC has reported on censorship within TikTok of things such as criticism of China’s policies, under the guise of bans of general criticism of other country’s economic systems.

Given these facts, it has become clear that TikTok is a subject of the Chinese Communist Party using its power to spread Chinese propaganda in the Western Hemisphere to control the conversation about China’s policies and to collect data on American Citizens that is valuable to the Chinese Government. It is for this reason that the TSA and other branches of the US Military as well as the entirety of India have banned the app. Trump tried to ban TikTok for these same reasons, but Biden reversed those plans. And while I have NO QUALMS WITH THE CHINESE PEOPLE, the Chinese Government--an authoritarian regime that has been known for suppressing the rights of their people and for fighting to grow their influence worldwide--should not be allowed to exert such a powerful influence in the United States. The US must reconsider allowing TikTok to operate within our borders due to the danger it poses to the free spread of information and to US national security.