By: Jingwei Zhao

The Chinese government may be spying on people’s information through TikTok, leading the U.S. government wanting to ban it from all of its devices.

The U.S. government is concerned with the possibility of the Chinese government accessing sensitive user data through their popular social media platform TikTok, which has led to them passing legislation banning the app unless it is sold to a buyer approved by them. President Joe Biden signed into law legislation that gives TikTok’s parent company ByteDance up to a year to sell from the app, so ByteDance sued the federal government in a case that will likely go to the Supreme Court.

Lawmakers and regulators outside of China have expressed their concerns that TikTok and Bytedance have been giving valuable user data, like location information, straight to the Chinese government. These lawmakers have also noticed that the Chinese government had laws that let them secretly receive data from their citizens and Chinese corporations, although only for intelligence-gathering uses.

They also worry that China can easily spread misinformation through their app, which escalated during the Israel-Hamas war and the presidential election. Critics also believe TikTok has contributed to the spread of antisemitism. TikTok has been denying these allegations, and has been trying to distance itself from ByteDance.

Other countries have also banned TikTok. In 2020, India claimed that Chinese-owned apps were secretly transferring data to different servers across the world. Many other countries such as Australia, France, and Canada have banned the app across devices. Recently, Taiwan also declared TikTok dangerous and a national security threat.

The U.S. ban works by targeting app stores, such as the ones by Apple and Google. The government could impose civil penalties on them if they distribute TikTok. Other internet hosting companies would also be banned using similar methods.

The push to have TikTok bought by an American company has also brought many business opportunities for companies. However, these efforts have raised concerns that the U.S. could be undermining its role in making the internet free and not controlled by individual countries.

As of now, TikTok has yet to be banned. There are issues with the ban that could take up to years to resolve. First Amendment experts claim that justifying the ban would be a huge challenge. Many Americans, including elected officials, use the app on a daily basis. Major news organizations such as the Washington Post also use TikTok to produce videos.

TikTok also will not yet be removed from people’s phones. Apple can delete apps on people’s phones and remove apps from the app store, but privately owned ones are unclear. The current ban in Montana made it so that companies and app stores would be fined if residents used TikTok. Proposals for the ban on the U.S. have taken similar approaches.

Over 30 states have banned TikTok on government-issued devices. Many colleges also banned the app on their Wi-Fi, but most students just use cellular data to access it. TikTok has criticized lawmakers for trying to censor Americans, and sued the United States government, saying that it violated the First Amendment. They also tried to convince their users to oppose the ban.

If you want to keep using TikTok without your information being leaked, you can take the normal precautions on other apps, which includes no access to contacts, or you can browse without an account. This is what TikTok is headed to in the future.