The writers address whether Tiktok should be banned in the United States.

Point: Brooke Taylor

Tiktok is a weapon of social destruction. Created by Bytedance, a Bejing-based company, Tiktok is a platform of the Chinese Communist Party and a national security threat to America. Unlike what Tiktok developers and the Chinese Communist Party would like users to believe, the social media application is not designed merely for virtual connection and entertainment.

Tiktok stores user data, including speech and movements, and creates a digital footprint for each user. Tiktok archives this information, which can then be used to develop harmful national and personal security risks such as, but not limited to, the creation of deep fakes. Deep fakes manipulate words and movements, mirroring an individual’s speech patterns and gestures. Tiktok developers can craft propaganda and other misrepresentations of an individual through the application’s stored archives of each user.

Montana recently set America’s national precedence with the ban on Tiktok. While Gov. Greg Gianforte’s decision is being called controversial, the governor made the right decision. More states should follow Montana’s direction and ban using Tiktok to protect citizens’, especially minors’, personal information and data being collected by the Chinese Communist Party.

One of the roles of a democratic government is to protect its citizens from national security threats and vulnerabilities. Elected officials are responsible for legislating policy decisions to ensure citizens’ safety. In addition to creating a national security risk, Tiktok is a gross overreach of the Chinese Communist Party and a daily violation of millions of Americans’ personal data. Citizens should be protected from their personal likeness and digital footprint being available as a resource of the Chinese Communist Party. On the state and/or federal level, government bans on Tiktok are saying “no” to a weapon of social destruction.

While innocent users of the Tiktok application might be disappointed in adjusting platforms to virtually and socially connect, a unified national ban of Tiktok would create a pathway for American innovation in creating safe social media applications that protect the user and the United States. New, American-based companies and social media developers should rise to this occasion to draw users to their platforms in response to an increased ban on Tiktok.

Leaders and champions of a strong national defense must be prepared for the backlash of banning Tiktok. The application is just one piece of the Chinese Communist Party’s long-term strategy, and a rising China will not simply give up data collection of Americans. If national or state leadership does not enforce bans on Tiktok, adults should foster conversations with minors to educate them about the importance of disregarding the use of and deleting Tiktok from devices.

The Nextgeneration movement is a critical voice in garnering the attention of state and federal leadership in supporting the ban of Tiktok. For example, the Athenai Institute is a bipartisan organization present on campuses across the nation and is providing students a platform for standing up against the Chinese Communist Party’s influence.

Banning the use of Tiktok is one way for Americans to empower and protect themselves and their families from an adversarial China that is intent and determined to surpass our national interests.

Counterpoint: Will Duffield

The popularity of Tiktok, a Chinese-owned short-form video-sharing app, has provoked concerns among American policymakers and proposals to ban the platform. Although data exfiltration concerns are hard to dispel, the costs of banning Tiktok far outweigh benefits to national security.

Tiktok isn’t a particularly unique or valuable source of American data, but it is a potent distributor of American culture. Banning Tiktok would quash the voices of Americans who favor the platform and undermine the open internet that has served America so well.

Concerns about Tiktok fall into two categories. Critics fear that Tiktok’s algorithm could be manipulated to serve Chinese interests and that user data could be collected and misused by the Chinese Communist Party. The first concern is ably addressed by Tiktok’s Project Texas, a deal with Oracle to host Tiktok in America on Oracle servers, where its algorithm can be audited. The second is harder to dispel.

Like other apps, Tiktok collects user information such as location and stored media. Tiktok needs this data to host and serve user speech, but it can be misused. Unlike other apps, Tiktok’s parent company, Bytedance, has its headquarters in China, where it is subject to China’s National Intelligence Law. Under the law, China can require its citizens and corporations to provide data relevant to state intelligence work.

There isn’t evidence that Tiktok is spying for the CCP. Bytedance’s only demonstrable misuse of user data was to track employees leaking information to journalists. But data is leaky, and employee access is hard to police. Under the National Intelligence Law, there is always a risk that Bytedance will be compelled to share Tiktok user data with the CCP.

Further, there is little reason to believe Tiktok is a unique intelligence goldmine. Other apps collect similar information, Tiktok is not the only Chinese app used by Americans, and much of the more sensitive information Tiktok collects, such as user location, can be purchased from unscrupulous data brokers.

America has benefited tremendously from the open, international internet, which brought Tiktok to our shores. Tiktok’s unique success is no reason to upend a system that continues to serve us well.

Indeed, the rest of the world has long tolerated the risk that American tech firms might be compelled to share data with our government via National Security Letters. This Patriot Act authority allows the FBI to demand data from private firms and prevents recipients from disclosing that they have received such demands.

Banning Tiktok or forcing Bytedance to divest it will invite opportunistic demands for local subsidiaries, data localization and other digital protectionism abroad. This won’t just hurt American companies but American speakers and listeners, too.

Globally successful American platforms such as Instagram and Youtube, and, now, Tiktok, are powerful conduits of American culture and ideas. This is why China bans Tiktok at home, limiting Chinese users to a heavily censored alternative called Douyin.

Proposed federal legislation targeting Tiktok, such as the RESTRICT Act, would give the government new powers to control Americans’ use of foreign web services.