Americans split on TikTok ban as Biden campaign joins platform: Poll

Americans are split over whether TikTok should be banned in the United States amid national security concerns about the video-sharing app’s connections to the Chinese government, a new poll has found.

The app is already banned on federal government devices and some state government devices — a move that is supported by most adults surveyed in the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.

In the AP-NORC poll, 31 percent said they would support a total TikTok ban, 35 percent said they would oppose a ban and 31 percent said they had no opinion on the matter.

Nearly half of people aged 18 to 25 said they would oppose a ban.

The findings come after President Biden’s reelection campaign joined TikTok on Sunday with a Super Bowl-themed 30-second video featuring Biden answering questions.

Deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty described the move as an effort to continue “finding new, innovative ways to reach voters in an evolving, fragmented, and increasingly personalized media environment.”

The moves have led to some criticisms of Biden from critics of TikTok.

Lawmakers have voiced concerns about privacy and safety on the app and have accused Chinese company ByteDance of potentially misusing or sharing data with the Chinese government. TikTok officials have denied the allegations and sought to distance the app from the Chinese government, including in testimony during a Congressional hearing last month.

“TikTok provides the [Chinese Communist Party] with the ability to weaponize the platform by suppressing, magnifying, and otherwise constructing narratives to target specific audiences abroad,” a bipartisan group of members of Congress wrote in a Feb. 8 letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

The AP-NORC poll also found a majority of adults are concerned about the amount of time children and teens spend on TikTok.

About 21 percent of adults surveyed said they use TikTok daily, but the number jumps to 44 percent for people aged 18 to 29. Daily TikTok users were found to be less likely to be concerned about the dangers of the app compared to those who use it less often or never.

About a third of Americans younger than 30 regularly turn to TikTok for news, according to a Pew Research Center survey last fall that also found the percentage of Americans using TikTok has been steadily growing across all age groups.

The AP-NORC poll was conducted Jan. 25-29 and included online and telephone interviews with 1,152 adults. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.