In early March, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a bill to potentially block the short video service TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, for American users, marking the latest development in the ongoing U.S.-China confrontation. The final decision hinges on the congressional vote, while ByteDance plans to protest against U.S. lawmakers’ decision, potentially complicating the blocking process. Thus, the fate of this popular Chinese product remains uncertain. Simultaneously, the ban has become a topic of pre-election debates among U.S. presidential candidates, with Donald Trump, the initial advocate of the block, surprisingly opposing the idea. Furthermore, advocates of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution have joined the discussion, arguing against the app’s restriction.
The bill against “unfriendly” states
The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act targets TikTok and other IT products from countries considered unfriendly to the U.S., such as China and Russia, including Baidu, Alibaba, AliExpress, Yandex, and VK. This legislation requires the owner of TikTok to sell its American assets to a U.S. company, giving the service about six months to find a buyer. The bill’s sponsors clarified they are not against TikTok itself but concerned about potential harm to American citizens. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan highlighted the decision’s importance in deciding whether TikTok should belong to an American company or China and where user data should reside. However, the bill’s outcome remains uncertain, pending investor approval and potential reactions from the Chinese government.
The bill passed in early March follows a similar one from last year known as the RESTRICT Act, aiming to change the future of TikTok and other tech products from the so-called unfriendly countries. The RESTRICT Act, or the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology, is focused on combating threats to American security. It empowers the Secretary of Commerce to review dealings with foreign tech providers impacting critical infrastructure or election integrity, with a mandate to sell such “dangerous” products to American entities.
Last year, the RESTRICT Act did not proceed to a vote, unlike the recent bill introduced in March 2024, which took about a week to reach the first-instance vote. These measures to limit China’s access to American technologies extend beyond TikTok. Recent efforts include attempts to block Chinese car imports, prevent China from purchasing vital AI development chips, and exclude Chinese-made port cranes from U.S. ports.
The long saga of confrontation with TikTok
The battle against TikTok in the U.S. began under President Trump, who initially blocked its use on military and government devices, eventually seeking a complete ban. His executive order mirrored the 2023 and 2024 bills, demanding TikTok’s purchase by an American entity, though talks with tech giants like Microsoft and Oracle did not yield a deal. Trump’s order was later stopped by a federal court, citing a hypothetical national security threat. Upon assuming office, Biden revoked Trump’s order but prompted a CFIUS investigation into TikTok’s potential security risks. Despite the lifted threat, concerns about TikTok persist, with the U.S. government questioning if American data is truly secure from the app’s Chinese employees.
To defend against these and other accusations, TikTok implemented “Project Texas,” aiming to isolate American data from other users’ information to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens. This $1,5 billion project also involved transferring TikTok’s U.S. operations to TikTok US Data Security and inviting Oracle to audit its code. In Europe, a similar effort, “Project Clover,” was launched. However, in June 2023, reports surfaced of TikTok employees accessing and discussing user data in private chats, including sensitive details like geolocation. The American media was particularly abuzz with discussions about Chinese company employees accessing the data of several American journalists who were authors for BuzzFeed, Forbes, and the Financial Times.
Trump, Biden, and the First Amendment
The discussion about banning this app took a surprising turn when presidential candidate Donald Trump opposed the idea. This was unexpected, considering Trump was the first to suggest blocking the service in 2020 and had long accused the video project of collaborating with the Communist Party of China, thus failing to safeguard Americans’ data. This shift in the presidential candidate’s stance might be due to his rival, Joe Biden, choosing TikTok as a key platform for his election campaign.
Adding to the unexpected turn, arguments against the ban highlighted concerns about violating the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The ACLU – American Civil Liberties Union – made this statement, joined by experts from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), an organization focused on defending digital rights. According to ACLU experts, the First Amendment safeguards Americans from government censorship of their opinions or restricting access to information. The EFF underscores that the TikTok situation vividly demonstrates the urgent need for a federal data protection law in the United States.
The final decision on blocking TikTok will only come after Congress votes. Then, it will take months for the company to either go to court or seek a buyer. Interested investors and tech giants are in the mix, suggesting a sale of the project is more likely than a ban.
Local restrictions
Despite the bill targeting TikTok and similar products from “unfriendly” countries, there haven’t been any official federal-level claims against the service in the US. Instead, numerous individual American states and some countries have imposed restrictions on TikTok. Initially, the app was banned on official devices of Congress, the Senate, the State Department, and various ministries. Over 30 states implemented different levels of restrictions, from outright bans on official devices to blocking TikTok servers on Wi-Fi networks in American schools and universities. The United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other countries also joined in blocking the service, deeming it unsuitable for the official devices of European Commission employees. However, TikTok has successfully contested some of these bans, such as when a federal judge ruled against Montana’s attempted ban in 2023, stating that such actions exceeded the state’s authority and violated users’ constitutional rights.
TikTok and Ukraine: fertile ground for leaks and propaganda?
Discussions surrounding the potential risks of TikTok for Ukrainian users haven’t been as heated as those concerning the popularity and warnings associated with Telegram. However, the ongoing scrutiny from the American government regarding TikTok has sparked some conversation about the app’s dangers for Ukrainians. This has led to the emergence of several petitions on the President of Ukraine’s website, with some calling for the app to be banned. Over the past year, there have been multiple such petitions, indicating a growing concern among Ukrainian users.
Experts from the CyberLab company, specialising in cybersecurity, conducted a thorough analysis of the risks associated with TikTok as a digital tool. In their report, they outlined the app’s dangers, particularly focusing on its policies regarding the collection and transfer of user data. Concurrently, journalists from the Texty media platform explored how propaganda and pro-Russian content circulate within the platform, shedding light on this aspect of TikTok’s operations. Yet, the most compelling demonstration of the actual peril posed by the Chinese platform in disseminating particular narratives came from an experiment conducted by Norwegian journalists. In April 2022, they crafted two TikTok profiles for fictional characters supposedly hailing from Kharkiv and Belgorod, showcasing the sophistication and, at times, manipulative nature of the service’s recommendation algorithms. While the first profile swiftly began displaying videos related to the war, the second profile, even when actively seeking war-related content, remained devoid of any information regarding the war in Ukraine. This experiment vividly illustrates how TikTok can distort reality for its users by curating specific videos and pushing particular narratives.
