Is TikTok a National Security Threat?

On March 7th, 2023, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill to empower the Department of Commerce to ban the popular short video app TikTok. Over the past two years, the Federal Government has beleaguered TikTok, owned by the China-based company ByteDance. TikTok is the target of investigation because of concerns that the company provides some American users’ data to the Chinese government. In July 2020, President Trump issued an executive order requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company or end TikTok’s presence in the States. The U.S. division of TikTok challenged the executive order in federal court and received a preliminary injunction, preventing the Trump administration from banning the app in September 2020.

Five months after Trump left office, President Biden signed a subsequent executive order to revoke the previous ban on TikTok. President Biden backtracked and now agrees that the Trump administration was right to demand TikTok be sold or banned. Despite the United States’ strong protections for free speech and promotion of a free and open internet, the national security community is in agreement that the service used by more than 150 million Americans must be outlawed, despite a lack of evidence to justify such a measure.

TikTok’s corporate structure is important to understanding why it is not a weapon of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The app TikTok is a product of ByteDance, a multinational company incorporated in the Cayman Islands that was started by Chinese technology entrepreneurs and Western investors. ByteDance was incorporated in the Cayman Islands to evade Chinese restrictions on foreign investment while complying with Chinese law. Down one step, ByteDance owns a holding company also incorporated in the Cayman Islands, TikTok Ltd. TikTok Inc. is a U.S.-based company owned by TikTok Ltd. This U.S.-based company was incorporated in California and Delaware and employs thousands of Americans. Of course, if the CCP wanted TikTok to steal Americans’ data, it would not have chosen this corporate structure that is designed to insulate TikTok from Chinese influence. Yet, there are still arguments that TikTok is beholden to the Chinese government.

In 2021, National Review’s John Mac Ghlionn argued that TikTok is a Trojan horse for the CCP to harvest Americans’ data but did not provide evidence that TikTok threatens American users’ security. Fortunately, Baptiste Robert, a French cybersecurity researcher who examined the app, found that TikTok’s data collection practices are mundane, and the company does not gather unusual data when compared with similar social media companies like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. Likewise, researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab concluded that TikTok’s code does not pose a security threat to the U.S. If an American military or intelligence official uploads videos of bases and weapons, that would be a national security issue. However, officials can leak classified information on every social media platform, so this concern is insufficient to justify banning TikTok for all Americans.

Mac Ghlionn also has a related concern that even if the data TikTok gathers is prosaic, the company may still relinquish this data to the Chinese government to spy on Americans. However, TikTok claims it does not share American user data with the Chinese government and would refuse if asked. Since last summer, TikTok has stored American user data on the servers of U.S.-based Oracle, with backup servers based in Virginia and Singapore. TikTok’s U.S. operations are separate from its Chinese counterpart, Douyin. TikTok’s incentives as a business are to not share data with the Chinese government because TikTok wants to keep its users happy and stay profitable. To be sure, TikTok’s incentives are not enough to stop the Chinese government if the company is collecting unique, sensitive data, but there is no evidence of this.

First, China has little incentive to spy on ordinary Americans since most data has no national security relevance. Second, the Chinese Communist Party does not need to subjugate TikTok to spy on the social media of powerful Americans. Chinese state intelligence can obtain valuable information by monitoring users’ behavior and posts on TikTok and other social media applications. Banning TikTok would not solve the problem of foreign intelligence agencies gathering social media data.

If the federal government bans TikTok, the prohibition will harm millions of American users who have created videos and attracted followers to the app. American TikTok creators would lose the income they generate from making videos, and American users would lose a product that they enjoy using. Moreover, the government would expropriate TikTok’s investors and erase thousands of Americans’ jobs by forcing TikTok out of business. For policymakers concerned with a concentration in the social media market, outlawing a competitor will only worsen the situation by strengthening the large, established players.

In response to a TikTok ban, China could retaliate against American companies that offer apps in China including Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, and many other software companies. Notably, these costs do not include the concerns raised by the ACLU, that removing access to a federally disfavored platform violates users’ free expression rights. A ban would create a harmful precedent that the government can limit access to any app Americans use to express themselves and communicate. For example, if the U.S. can ban TikTok, there is little stopping Congress from banning other social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, and it is unclear how that is different from government censorship.

There is no denying that the United States and China are political rivals, but the two countries’ economies are integrated. In 2022, the U.S. and China set a new two-way trade record of $690 billion, and Americans benefit from this integration through investments in China and innovative Chinese products. However, given that concern about TikTok will not disappear, policymakers could consider less severe restrictions on TikTok, such as banning TikTok on federal and state government devices. The White House already banned TikTok on federal government devices, and at least 32 states have enacted bans on state government devices. Since many agencies already took this prudent security measure, an additional step could include banning TikTok on the work devices of defense and other government contractors with access to confidential information of national security concern. Once the government implements these less austere restrictions, ordinary Americans could still express themselves on whichever social media app they desire. Ultimately, Americans’ First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and the economic benefits from trade with China weigh heavily against perceived national security concerns.