Why Trump wants to ban TikTok in the US

As he flew aboard Air Force One last Friday, President Donald Trump made an announcement stemming from his competition with China that will have a noticeable impact on the social media use of millions of Americans.

“As far as TikTok is concerned we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump told reporters flying with him from Tampa.

The decision, he said, would come soon, in the form of an executive order or emergency economic powers.

The reason for doing so? Concerns over national security, specifically the potential for China to acquire the personal data of millions of Americans.

What happened

Trump’s announcement Friday to ban TikTok in the US comes amid growing bipartisan concern in Congress and an investigation into the national security implications of the app.

Last Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Munich confirmed that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) was conducting a national security review of TikTok and that it would present recommendations on a course of action to the president by the end of the week.

Faced with the possibility of shutting down TikTok operations in the US, ByteDance, the Chinese parent-company of TikTok behind the national security concerns, negotiated with the White House to sell the app to an American firm. On Sunday, Microsoft announced that it was looking at purchasing TikTok from ByteDance. The announcement followed a series of contradicting reports on the status of ByteDance's efforts to divest TikTok. If a deal moves forward, Microsoft would take possession of all American user data. Prior to the announcement, some reports had stated that talks had been put on hold, and that ByteDance executives believed Trump's threat to be a negotiating tactic to land a better deal for Microsoft.

A brief history of TikTok and its security concerns

Concerns over TikTok are not new.

TikTok’s origins can be traced back to its Chinese counterpart, Douyin, which was launched in 2016 as a short-form video app. The idea behind Douyin wasn’t new to China, but its popularity still exploded. Within a year, it had 100 million users and one billion daily video views. With its wild success, ByteDance expanded Douyin to international markets under the name TikTok.

A few years before Douyin’s creation, another popular short-video app called Musical.ly emerged in the US. It too was successful and came to be noticed by ByteDance, which purchased it for $1 billion in 2017. At first, Musical.ly remained separate from TikTok, but a year later ByteDance merged Musical.ly under TikTok. Since then, TikTok’s popularity in the US has skyrocketed.

In 2019, a report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics examined the security risks posed by TikTok. It warned that China could use data gathered from American users for intelligence purposes or to bolster surveillance software, and that western authorities were not paying close enough attention to these security risks. The report also noted that China could use TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps to spread information and influence western audiences.

Several months later, Marco Rubio asked CFIUS to investigate ByteDance’s purchase of Musical.ly. Prior to the 2017 acquisition, ByteDance did not seek approval from CFIUS when buying Musical.ly. CFIUS reviews potential national security risks posed by foreign investment.

Rubio’s request came after an investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian, which found that TikTok banned videos about the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, a bloody incident in which hundreds of protestors were killed by the Chinese military that the Chinese government has tried to sweep under the rug. The investigation found that TikTok’s guidelines were written in broad terms that seemed meant to block any material that could be sociopolitically offensive and to allow for the censorship of videos critical of the Chinese government. ByteDance said the guidelines reviewed by the Guardian were outdated and that its rules now cater to the specific nuances of individual markets.

In October, US Senators Chuck Schumer, democrat, and Tom Cotton, republican, called on US intelligence agencies to investigate TikTok over concerns about how it could be used for Chinese spy operations. A month later, Schumer sent a letter to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy urging him to assess the security risks posed by TikTok. He noted that the data obtained by TikTok included “user content and communications, IP addresses, location-related data, metadata, and other sensitive personal information.”

Following deadly border clashes that left 20 Indian troops dead in June, India banned TikTok and other Chinese apps, purportedly over national security and privacy concerns.

On July 22, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously approved a bill to ban TikTok on government devices. The legislation still needs to be passed by the Senate and conciliated with a House of Representatives approved version before it can be signed into law.

Munich’s confirmation of CFIUS' review of TikTok followed an announcement by Australia in July that it too was reviewing the app and a push by US senators to investigate ties between the Chinese government and TikTok and the video teleconference app Zoom.

Last week, Republican Senators also wrote a letter to multiple high-level officials alleging that TikTok was censoring videos critical of the Chinese government and that Beijing was using social media to influence political discussions.

Why Trump wants to ban TikTok

The national security concerns surrounding TikTok stem from the user data that it collects. US officials are worried that Chinese law could require the company to hand over data to the Chinese government.

TikTok says that it would never do so and that access to that data is strictly controlled. Furthermore, it says it stores user data in the US, with a backup in Singapore.

For years, China has sought to obtain the data and personal information of Americans through cyber operations that are also aimed at acquiring research and technology. As such, cyberspace has emerged as one of the fiercest domains in the US-China competition, especially under the Trump administration.

Last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that Chinese counterintelligence and economic espionage posed the most serious long-term threat to American information, intellectual property and economic vitality.

“If you are an American adult, it is more likely than not that China has stolen your personal data,” he said.

Cyber operations are not the only method China uses for obtaining personal information, research and technology from US citizens, institutions and companies, but it has proven to be one of the most effective. In 2017, Chinese hackers broke into credit reporting agency Equifax and stole the personal information of 150 million Americans. Other instances include the hacking of the health insurance company Anthem in 2015 and the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management in 2014, both of which led to the total theft of 101 million Americans' personal information.

In July, two Chinese nationals were indicted in connection to cyber espionage operations to gather information on COVID-19 research and treatments, defense contractors, and activists. Some operations were carried out for personal financial gains, while others were in support of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), an intelligence apparatus akin to America's National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. China dismissed the coronavirus related allegations as “absurd,” stating that China was leading the world in vaccine research efforts and had no “need to secure an edge by theft.” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying also noted reported US cyber operations conducted against China.

Wray said that China uses the information it obtains to develop its artificial intelligence and determine targets for intelligence gathering. Both, Wray said, are part of “a whole-of-state effort (by China) to become the world’s only superpower by any means necessary.”

In addition to user data risks, some US lawmakers are also concerned China could use TikTok to influence and shape American political discussions and elections, similar to Russia’s operations in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election. Taiwan and Australia have accused China of conducting such influence campaigns against their own political systems. In June, the home of an Australian lawmaker, who had praised China’s president for his response to the coronavirus, was raided as part of an investigation into Chinese political influence operations.

American officials have also pushed back against Chinese companies, most notably the telecom giant Huawei, citing security risks that these companies also pose. As the US seeks to form a global coalition against China, it has asked other nations to ban Huawei technology from its emerging 5G networks. Those efforts have had some success, with allies like the UK and Australia towing along. In the case of Australia, a series of cyber attacks against the government and industries were believed to be conducted by China in retaliation. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson dismissed the claim as fictitious.

Data theft and acquisition has been just one of the many friction points between the US and China. With disagreements over everything from human rights to sovereignty to trade, cyberspace is sure to see further activity. How it continues to shape US-China relations waits to be seen.