TikTok has been under scrutiny for a few years now. Since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was on its highest peak and the political sphere was swamped with health-related issues, the U.S. Department of Justice issued documents that rose concerns about chinese owned companies that collected data from Americans and the possibility that they would transfer this information to the CCP (The Chinese communist party) Read the whole 2020 document here.
In light of these statements, the then president Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok all accross the U.S. unless its chinese parent company, Bytedance, sold its assets to an American corporation. TikTok gained some time when a federal court decided in the company’s favor, even though the app was due to be taken down from app stores earlier in September 2020.
2 years later, it was known by the public that the DOJ concerns were right after all. According to an exclusive report from Forbes, in an internal email, TikTok acknowledged that the company had spied on journalists using its own app in an effort to identify their sources.
The report stated the following:
According to materials reviewed by Forbes, ByteDance tracked multiple Forbes journalists as part of this covert surveillance campaign, which was designed to unearth the source of leaks inside the company following a drumbeat of stories exposing the company’s ongoing links to China. As a result of the investigation into the surveillance tactics, ByteDance fired Chris Lepitak, its chief internal auditor who led the team responsible for them. The China-based executive Song Ye, who Lepitak reported to and who reports directly to ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang, resigned.
After the report, several senators, representatives, journalists and political analysts have raised concerns about the reach of the platform, the amount of data that it might be collecting from its over 100 million users in the United States and even the algorithm manipulation that allegedly allows to massively show harmful & toxic content to american citizens while it bans the same content for the chinese users in “Douyin” the app version that is available in China.
In January, it was known that TikTok’s CEO would testify to congress in March. According to Reuters, the news came after the House Foreign Affairs Committee prepared to vote on a measure on February that would prohibit the use of TikTok in the US due to security concerns.
The U.S. Energy and Commerce Committee statement said at the time:
“Big Tech has increasingly become a destructive force in American society. The Energy and Commerce Committee has been at the forefront of asking Big Tech CEOs — from Facebook to Twitter to Google — to answer for their companies’ actions. These efforts will continue with TikTok. ByteDance-owned TikTok has knowingly allowed the ability for the Chinese Communist Party to access American user data. Americans deserve to know how these actions impact their privacy and data security, as well as what actions TikTok is taking to keep our kids safe from online and offline harms. We’ve made our concerns clear with TikTok. It is now time to continue the committee’s efforts to hold Big Tech accountable by bringing TikTok before the committee to provide complete and honest answers for people.”
Chew will testify at a full committee hearing of the Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23, 2023.
Now, in a new development on this case, Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) urged Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to compel TikTok to separate from its Chinese parent firm, ByteDance.
Beijing-based company ByteDance has come under fire for allegedly keeping strong links to the Chinese Communist Party. Blumenthal and Moran recommended in a letter to Yellen on Thursday that ByteDance cease operations for TikTok in the US under pressure from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a group of nine cabinet-level officials tasked with examining the national security implications of foreign investments in American businesses.
In the letter, it was mentioned that four years prior, during the Trump administration, CFIUS had demanded that Beijing Kunlun Corporation sell its shares in the LGBTQ dating site Grindr and the healthcare portal PatientsLikeMe.
Blumenthal and Moran also referred to ByteDance’s admission at the end of the previous year that employees spied on journalists. The information validated the previous Forbes story that claimed ByteDance intended to track the whereabouts of certain people of the United States.
However, we need to bear in mind that as of today, TikTok has always denied that it passes on user information to the Chinese government and has stated that the CCP has no information on the company internal data.
TikTok released a statement responding to the allegations of the U.S. Energy and Commerce Committee, and specifically addressed to the chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA):
“…there is no truth to Rep. McMorris Rodgers’ claim that TikTok has made U.S. user data available to the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party has neither direct nor indirect control of ByteDance or TikTok.”
These Senators are the most recent from opposing political parties to consider how allowing American users to use TikTok may affect national security. Earlier last month, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook to remove the website from their respective app stores.
While some states, including Nebraska, Alabama, and Iowa, have already prohibited the site from government devices, President Biden signed a legislation banning TikTok on devices owned by the federal government.
Also and finally, according to a recent report from The New York Times, the White House is now anticipated to release an executive order that would prohibit American funds from supporting the development of Chinese advanced semiconductors, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies with surveillance and military applications.
The decision, Axios reported, was long revised by several government officials, including Janet Yellen, who spoke with a number of industry leaders, examining the implications for the U.S. economy.
Independent Writer. Marketing and communications strategist for politicians, artists, public figures & corporate brands for more than 10 years. Contact: @alejandrosbasso (Twitter)
Escritor independiente. Consultor en marketing y comunicaciones de políticos, artistas, figuras públicas y marcas por más de 10 años. Contacto: @alejandrosbasso (Twitter)