It would be an exaggeration if a video sharing app for mobile phones is “simple” application – Was he “suddenly” seen as a threat to national security?

Exaggeration or not of this or that appropriate decision depends on many things: on the owner of the application and his profile, on the “end” of the personal data of users held by the administrators of the application, on the content of the messages they usually send, but also receive the same users on the global digital screen of a video projection platform that could be considered “neutral” as a medium, but probably isn’t.

If, according to Marshall McLuhan, in the 1960s the media was the message, now, almost 60 years after the first edition of McLuhan’s Understanding the Media: Human Extensions, the new media is the message and more: means of propaganda, (dis) information and promotion of interests (political, financial), geopolitical means of exerting pressure on the international arena, means of monitoring and extracting information, “weapon” and “keyhole” combined, which expands opportunities, but also creates vulnerabilities.

tik tak — a Chinese-owned mobile phone app that allows users to create and display their own videos online — appears internationally “harmless” at first glance. Short videos of young people dancing or singing in front of a mobile phone camera may be considered “dangerous” in Iran, but not in Western democracies.

However, the American leadership is of a different opinion. “It is clear that TikTok creates national security issues.“, says Karen Kornblu, managing director of digital technology at the American think tank GMF (German Marshall Fund of the USA), in an interview with The Information website.

In the face of increased international competition

The issue has been discussed for a long time, already in the last months of the term Trump to the White House in 2020. Meanwhile, Trump can leave, giving way to Biden, but the point is tik tak and its final ban in the US remains.

“Is TikTok really a threat to US national security? Concerns about the role of the Chinese government should not be overlooked, experts say. But banning TikTok would be a last resort, ”wrote the American Wired magazine in the summer of 2020 amid the crisis in US-China relations and threats from high-ranking US officials regarding a possible ban on Chinese applications in the United States. borders.

Two and a half years later, the Sino-American crisis not only persists, but also escalates against the backdrop of Taiwan on the one hand (after the “episodic” visit of Pelosi) and the world market microchip on the other hand (in the shadow of the US introduction of new relevant restrictions).

Hundreds of millions of users

In this context of intensifying geopolitical rivalry (and although the active US military even sees the possibility of war between the US and China in 2025), the very popular TikTok (a product of the Chinese ByteDance) continues to be shared by no more than 100 million people (mostly younger) who continue to use it in the US, and politicians and national security officials seeking lines of defense against Chinese threats in the face of increased international competition and the globalization of threats through technology.

Different dimensions of “threat”

For critics, TikTok is China’s Trojan horse, empowering its state apparatus. China (an apparatus under tight control of all aspects of Chinese business): “spy” within American borders, collecting personal information and data, misinform, propagandize in favor of Chinese positions, increasing Chinese influence, and influence the way to negatively influence users with through the “For You” content it provides to them based on an algorithm. According to the same view, TikTok will be added as a “threat” to the Chinese-originating cyberattacks that have taken place in recent years against US targets. Those who doubt are also suspicious of another element: the fact that TikTok, although Chinese, is not available in China (where, however, it should be noted that another similar platform from ByteDance called Douyin is available). Taking it a step further, some argue that TikTok’s popularity threatens U.S. technological dominance internationally…

However, there is also an opposite view, according to which those who see the application in question as a threat to national security are exaggerating, an application that should continue to offer its services internationally in conditions of freedom to buy “non-intervention”.

“The era of liberal globalization is over, and this case (like TikTok) shows it,” says Karen Kornblu of the German Marshall Fund in the US, referring to the informational website.

line of defense

However, the TikTok side has repeatedly stated that it has nothing to do with it. Communist Party of China that doesn’t affect her. He also argued that the data and personal information of US users of the app are stored in the US (see “Project Texas”) and that they are not subject to Chinese law, although it should be noted that, in accordance with the privacy policy that users are asked to accept, TikTok leaves reserves the right to share user data with other organizations of the ByteDance Chinese group of companies. In addition, as noted in the relevant terms, there is also a window for the provision of data in cases where there are “legitimate interests” that do not override the interests, fundamental rights and freedoms of the users themselves.

Two and a half years after Trump threatened to ban him tik tak in the United States, the threat has returned. “TikTok is now facing an increasingly clear prospect of being banned in the United States.“, the Vox website notes in its analysis. It is recalled that Congress has banned the installation of the TikTok application on all telephone devices owned by the federal government since the end of 2022, while the same restriction was previously in effect, but at the level of individual government agencies.

Vote

As it became known last week, House Foreign Relations Committee is due to vote on a bill in February that will pave the way for a TikTok ban in the US. As was also known, Show ChiuCEO of TikTok, was called to testify (March 23) in front of her House Energy and Commerce Committee in Washington, providing convincing answers to American concerns.

Lobbying and negotiations

TikTok itself (which officially hosted more than 13 million dollars for lobbying in Washington in the period 2020-2022) however, at the same time, has recently been in talks with Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States – CFIUS), which is still unknown where they will lead …

“It looks like 2023 will finally be the year we find out if ByteDance can convince an increasingly hostile public that TikTok is not a threat to US national security, or where we will see what happens to TikTok if it is in ultimately fails to convince. , – American Vox notes in its analysis.

And what about the rest of the world?

However, it is noted that tik tak already banned in India, Indonesia And Bangladeshat the same time in Europe (where it has about 275 million monthly active users, according to measurements from Sensor Tower) there are growing voices calling for the Chinese app in question to be placed under stricter controls under a new digital services law (Digital Services Law – DSA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).