The United States (US) is increasingly determined to block TikTok after their House of Representatives passed a bill calling for the Chinese-origin app developer, ByteDance, to divest from the company on Wednesday (13/3). If not, TikTok will be removed from app stores in the US.
The Protecting Americans from Foreign Enemies Apps Act was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, receiving 352 votes in favor and only 65 votes against.
Many US lawmakers argue that the TikTok app allows the Chinese government to access user data and influence American citizens through the algorithm of the short-video platform.
The White House has backed the bill, and President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if the bill passes through Congress.
However, lawmakers and the White House are at odds with many of the 170 million TikTok users in the US, as well as civil liberties and digital rights groups who say the ban would violate freedom of speech.
On the other hand, this bill still has a long journey ahead, including passing through the US Senate, the upper house of the US legislature.
Push for ByteDance Divestment
The battle with TikTok is the latest chapter in the US-China rivalry and Washington’s efforts to thwart potential foreign influence campaigns.
In the case of TikTok, US lawmakers are concerned that ByteDance may be covertly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. The company has denied accusations of sharing sensitive user data with the Chinese government.
“ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government. It is a private company,” said TikTok CEO Shou Chew in his testimony before Congress in March 2023, quoting Al Jazeera, Friday (15/3).
However, Chinese regulators have a long history of cracking down on domestic technology companies. China is also known for censoring politically sensitive content and restricting users’ access to Western social media and websites with its massive firewall.
Marco Rubio, the vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee from the Republican Party, voiced these concerns during this week’s annual session on “global threat assessment” by stating, “Every company in China is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” including ByteDance.
“They happen to control the company that has one of the best artificial intelligence algorithms in the world. This algorithm is used in this country by TikTok, and it uses Americans’ data to read your mind and predict what videos you want to see,” he said.
The White House and many US lawmakers believe that selling TikTok to “qualified buyers” will sever China’s influence.
No Evidence So Far
Nevertheless, several studies have yet to find sufficient evidence linking TikTok and the CCP.
Pellaeon Lin, a researcher based in Taiwan and the Public Lab of the University of Toronto, revealed in his 2021 analysis that TikTok collects information in nearly the same amount as Facebook or Twitter.
Lin also assessed that TikTok gathers a significant amount of data, including information on watched videos, written comments, sent private messages, exact geolocation, and user contact lists.
TikTok’s privacy policy also claims the company collects email addresses, phone numbers, ages, search and browsing history, and information about what is in the photos and videos users upload.
If agreed upon, device clipboard contents can also be copied and pasted into the app.
In theory, Lin explained that TikTok could have “hidden privacy features” that can be toggled on and off by tweaking its server code and that may be unknown to the public.
However, the limitations of reverse engineering experiments make it impossible to determine whether these configurations or features actually exist.
Lin stated that US concerns could be legitimate if there is evidence of using unencrypted communication protocols, attempting to access contact lists or geolocation data without permission, or if TikTok bypasses system-level privacy protections built into iOS or Android.
So far, Lin has not found such evidence.
“We haven’t found any open vulnerabilities regarding their communication protocols, nor have we found any open security issues within the app,” Lin said.
“As for privacy, we also haven’t seen the TikTok app exhibiting behavior similar to malware,” he added.
TikTok has also been accused of tracking user keyboard entries through their browser within the app, a behavior type known as keylogging that can pose security risks.
Privacy researcher Felix Krause, in his 2022 analysis, said that keylogging is not inherently malicious activity. !!!!!!!!
In theory, if true, TikTok could collect passwords, credit card information, or other sensitive data that users might send to websites when they visit them.
However, Krause noted that there is no public evidence of such activity. TikTok said that the keylogging function is used for “debugging, troubleshooting, and performance monitoring,” as well as for detecting bots and spam.
