TikTok’s threat to America is in a category by itself, it must be heavily regulated

This month, TikTok effectively shut down the phone lines of several dozen congressional offices, demonstrating both its power to manipulate people and the fervor with which its users will defend it. When the House Energy and Commerce Committee called a vote on a bill to force ByteDance to divest from TikTok, effectively removing Chinese ownership of the app and its data, constituents of those representatives suddenly found they could not use TikTok— until, that is, they had clicked through a prompt that forced them to call their representative and complain. This effort flooded offices with calls, overwhelming staff and preventing any other constituents from getting through. Sadly, many of these phone calls featured teenagers threatening to harm themselves if TikTok goes away. That incident alone is cause for grave alarm, but there is far more bad news. 

TikTok should be heavily regulated, just like any product that is simultaneously fun and bad for you. But we must go further: TikTok should be banned because it is also bad for the country.  

TikTok is obviously fun. TikTok’s website received more visits last year than Google’s. Approximately 100 million Americans — one-third of the population — use TikTok, with the average user spending more than 80 minutes per day on the platform, more than on Facebook and Instagram combined. TikTok’s addictive qualities are likely why China has banned its own teenagers from spending too much time on the app.  

TikTok carries all the dangers of any social media app—if you are not paying for the product, you are the product, and companies like Meta are making millions off gathering data on our preferences, locations and desires. There are growing calls for regulation of this kind of data gathering, but Congress is far from reaching consensus.

Meanwhile, a bill targeting TikTok specifically is moving to the Senate, leading some to argue that Congress addressing TikTok is hypocritical, or fear mongering — why single out one, when all are guilty of theft and exploitation?

That argument ignores what makes TikTok uniquely dangerous and the main reason Congress must intervene: The app is a ready tool for a hostile foreign power to both spy and manipulate. It may be the best influence operation ever constructed. For all ByteDance’s protestations that TikTok’s data is safe from Beijing, it is not. By law, any Chinese company must hand the Chinese security services any data they request, whenever they request it. It is not a question of if U.S. data goes to China, but when, and to what end.

China has sought to undermine the U.S. at home and abroad, censoring negative commentary and pursuing Chinese dissidents inside the U.S. with the “police stations.” Where it controls the airways, only one, approved version of events comes through the firewall.  

That makes the argument that TikTok should be treated the same as Meta or Google or Twitter/X nonsensical. Meta has not questioned the value of democracy, threatened to invade a neighbor or waged economic warfare because it didn’t like a tweet. Twitter, for all its flaws, has yet to install a great firewall around the United States. “Don’t be evil” Google has not enslaved minority populations — on the contrary, it provides additional protections to political dissidents.  

TikTok’s potential damage comes in two categories: a push and a pull. When they pull your data, it is monetized just like at Meta, but with a key difference: It becomes a strategic asset for Beijing. China has undertaken a strategic policy of gathering as much data as possible in the last few years. Beijing likely is using the data to train its own AI algorithms.

For example, America’s strength is our diversity, but that diversity also makes our data highly valuable to a comparatively homogenous population like China. Further, if China can exploit that data to thoroughly understand how Americans think and laugh and absorb news, they can weaponize that information in their continuing campaign of information warfare.

Does it matter if China has one person’s viewing preferences? No. But aggregated data is powerful. Because TikTok’s algorithm absorbs data points on how you scroll, when you move on, what you like and what you don’t, it can paint a sophisticated picture of which messages and concepts resonate with Americans and which don’t. It can intersperse cooking videos with political messages, so subtle you don’t realize what you’re absorbing as you mindlessly scroll.  

Second, TikTok presents a push problem. It is an easy and highly effective platform for pushing messages, as seen by the recent congressional influence campaign. One-third of U.S. adults under 30 say they regularly get their news on TikTok. That means they are seeing a Chinese Communist Party-approved version of information about the 2024 election, Taiwan, sports teams or the health of the U.S. economy. If President Biden argues to the American people that China is a threat, TikTok users won’t see it. If there is a safety warning about Chinese-made pajamas, TikTok users won’t see it. And when it comes to commentary about the 2024 election, TikTok users will only see what China wants them to see. 

It is true that the American people have been far too lackadaisical about the security of their data. That is finally changing, and Congress should seriously debate regulations on social media companies. But TikTok’s threat is in a category by itself, and with an election looming, that threat must be addressed immediately.

A ban on TikTok is likely unenforceable and too controversial, but regulations aimed at social media would not be fast enough or strict enough. Forcing a sale to a U.S. ownership group is the best of both worlds — it cuts off China’s ability to manipulate 100 million Americans and lets the fun roll on.    

Emily Harding is director of the Intelligence, National Security, and Technology Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.