No app is more popular than the video-sharing platform TikTok. It has surpassed 3 billion downloads globally, and there are approximately 85 million active users in the United States. However, its close nexus with Beijing-based parent company ByteDance and mounting evidence that the app harvests American user data for China have triggered fresh scrutiny from regulators. Most Americans seem unconcerned as they continue dancing away, but they should think twice.
Kai-Fu Lee refers to China as the “Saudi Arabia of Data” in his New York Times bestseller A.I. Super-Powers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order. The Chinese Communist Party collects troves of data because it is crucial for controlling their population of 1.4 billion people. For example, Da-Jiang Innovations, a Beijing-backed company that is the world’s largest civilian drone manufacturer, is engaging in the biometric surveillance of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province in order to repress the population, aiding what many consider a genocide. Technology is the backbone of the communist regime’s strategic push to control the mainland and exert influence overseas.
TikTok was launched in 2016, and 63% of downloads are by persons between the ages of 10 and 29. The company has long denied accusations that its American user data are accessed in China, despite paying a $92 million settlement resulting from class action lawsuits brought by children and young adults claiming just that. A recent BuzzFeed report containing leaked audio from 80 internal TikTok meetings quotes employees as saying that “everything is seen in China” and that an engineer based in Beijing was referred to as “Master Admin.” Further, the Chinese government maintains a direct financial stake in TikTok parent company ByteDance. With persistent data sharing established, the better question is, why does China want the information?
China has been engaged in “unrestricted warfare” with America for years, leveraging economic, political, and social tools in order to undermine U.S. interests. FBI Director Christopher Wray warned two years ago that Beijing was silencing Chinese-born critics of its regime in the U.S. by resorting to cyber theft, espionage, and threatening their families in an attempt to get dissenters to return home as part of operation “Fox Hunt.” Enter TikTok, which gathers information such as browsing history, geolocation data, financial data, phone numbers, social contacts, clipboard data, biometric data, draft videos, and much more. That information can be extrapolated using artificial intelligence technologies to develop sophisticated user profiles leaving persons exposed to possible manipulation, such as filing a false tax return.
Remember, over 60% of TikTok users are children and young adults, which means Beijing is compiling dossiers on at least 50 million Americans. An entire generation of our future leaders and influencers may be exposed to possible coercion. As a senior staffer in the U.S. Senate, I studied the data collection practices of Beijing-backed technology companies. The Chinese communists are obsessed with technology and data because they see them as crucial to controlling populations and stifling dissent.
Sound far-fetched? Consider the use of technology in the Uyghur genocide in Xinjiang and in COVID-19 lockdowns requiring quarantined residents to wear electronic wristbands that track body temperature and movements.
TikTok is a technological honey trap that has been deployed as a tool of espionage in China’s unrestricted warfare against the U.S. Future generations of American leaders are being profiled by Beijing in order to leverage them when it becomes necessary. There is a saying that the best indicator of future intent is past behavior. China’s domestic actions are a dry run for the global surveillance state it hopes to create. We must ban TikTok immediately.
Chuck Flint is an attorney and former U.S. Senate chief of staff.
