With the White House still mulling its decisions on the app, some regions have decided to move on their own and broaden their restrictions on TikTok. Montana is the latest state to jump on the whole ‘Ban TikTok’ bandwagon, with its lawmakers recently passing legislation that would effectively outlaw the app in the state.

Montana Nights

To be clear, the bill hasn’t been approved yet, so TikTok is still accessible in Montana for the time being. Even so, it’s the most significant action taken against TikTok thus far, still banking on the idea that the app is being used as a surveillance tool by the Chinese government.

These concerns have been on the rise again in recent weeks, amid China’s continued aggression towards neighboring nations, most especially Taiwan, which recently met with US officials to discuss the future of their regional partnership, further straining the relationship between China and the US. In the past, the US has also publicly supported autonomy for Hong Kong and opposed to the expanding Chinese military presence in the South China Sea. The whole China x Russia team-up doesn’t make its position any better.

Also worth noting is that China-based groups are constantly seeking to use Social Media platforms as a means to push pro-China propaganda in the US. Google, for example, removed more than 50,000 accounts in 2022, including thousands of YouTube channels that were created by Chinese influence operations.

That’s why the ban on government-issued devices makes sense, as these people could have access to sensitive information, and any information that a foreign spy agency could access via the app, using them to influence policy or gather intel. What officials fear is how the same capacity can be expanded to regular users, potentially influencing users or their networks and connections. It all depends on how big a threat this poses.

So, how does the intelligence sector respond? The current FBI director has called for a full ban of TikTok, as has the Commissioner of the FCC, along with various US Senators that have been briefed on the app. All of these do form a solid basis for a ban, which does point out that TikTok may not be as harmless as you think, especially when you consider that there are people who fully understand the scope of the concern.

TikTok has, of course, attempted to deflect these accusations, even going so far as to note Facebook as an example, which has pleaded guilty to misusing their data in the past. But this is seen mainly as a red herring because, in Facebook’s case, it didn’t pass on US user info to a potentially hostile foreign entity.

The Wrap

By using this as a counter, TikOK’s also acknowledging that it needs to update its data-sharing policies – something that it can’t do, so long as it remains under Chinese ownership. This remains a critical breaking point, and without TikTok being sold into US ownership, there isn’t much of a way around it. All it will take is for one state to do it before all the others follow suit.

So, should TikTok be banned? There’s a strong case for action. The final decision likely rests on China’s foreign policy actions and what steps it’ll be willing to take to avoid elements of conflict. Here’s one thing- China sure isn’t going to back down anytime soon.

Sources

https://bit.ly/41kgLJB