Banning TikTok won’t solve social media’s foreign influence, teen harm and data privacy problems

By Sarah Florini, Arizona State University

When President Joe Biden signed a US$95 billion foreign aid bill into law on April 24, 2024, it started the clock on a nine-month window for TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app. The president can extend the deadline by three months, and TikTok has indicated that it plans to challenge the law in court.

If the law stands and the company fails to sell the app, TikTok will be blocked from any U.S. app store or web-hosting service. This would affect TikTok’s over 170 million U.S. users, including 62% of Americans ages 18 to 29.

It would also alter the news and information landscape. Unlike its competitors, TikTok has been annually increasing its proportion of users who regularly seek news on the platform. Nearly one-third of Americans under 30 use TikTok as a news source.

The main arguments against TikTok under ByteDance’s ownership include that it enables foreign influence of U.S. public opinion, promotes harmful behaviors among minors, and undermines Americans’ data privacy. However, none of these concerns are new or unique to TikTok among social media platforms.

Foreign influence and propaganda

Lawmakers have expressed concern that the Chinese government could influence U.S. public opinion, and thereby politics, by exerting control over what content TikTok users see. Rep. Mike Gallager (R-WI), co-sponsor of the House bill on TikTok, warned that allowing TikTok to establish itself as the dominant news platform in America is placing control of information in the hands of ByteDance and, by extension, the Chinese Communist Party.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) referred to TikTok’s role in challenging ConocoPhillips’ Willow oil drilling project in Alaska as a possible Chinese influence operation meant to undermine U.S. energy dominance.

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