So like... does the US actually have any proof that TikTok is a "national security threat?"

Seems to me it's only guilty of the same data scraping for marketing purposes that Meta is... maybe even less so as I always found TikToks advertising less gross than Instagrams.

Both suck but TikTok is slightly less suck.

Is it really a security thing or is it a "We are getting pressure from US companies to remove competition" thing?

27 comments

No, it's not about security.
The US government forced TikTok to use a US state friendly company to handle all its US data as well as have influence in US operations. That company was Oracle, the infamous InQTel (CIA) backed, Washington connected, defense contractor. They hosted, monitored, and managed all US TikTok data in a deal with the government & TikTok worth about $1bn.
This is entirely about two things:
Anti-competitiveness demands by other US social media companies (who also happen to be defense contractors / key parts of the US surveillance state).
The inability for the US government to directly censor content via the algorithm, certainly not without that being publicly known. This process escalated as the US struggled to contain its foreign policy narratives in '22 onwards and accelerated again immediately after Israel identified TikTok specifically as being a problem for their genocidal project in Gaza.

The campaign to ban TikTok started immediately after Israel blamed TikTok for young people hating genocide.
An article from March 2024 pointing to the leaked phone call as the source of the ban: Leak shows pro-Israel lobby chief blaming TikTok for pro-Palestine youth. Now the US is banning the app.

The "threat" is they can't purge dissent and promote divide and conquer manufactured consent, and use the platform as a giant warantless secret dragnet, which the government holds leverage over.
I think this is a good time to remind people of Qwest Communications refusal to play along with unwarrented wiretapping of American citizens. It is important Orwellian context along with the pre-post history of 9/11 and inevitable PATRIOT ACT which shredded the constiution to bits. The founder is a rich fuck land oil media yadda. Another exeutive took the fall and eventually the company was bought out / merged wit Citylink. An example had to be made.

https://fair.org/home/theres-no-public-evidence-of-the-kind-of-manipulation-tiktok-is-accused-of/

Similar to what others said, it is about control. The US state has complete control over how the "algorithm" feeds people the narratives that the US wants to feed them when it comes to the major social media platforms. But not with TikTok. It is not a national security threat in the way they want people to think it is, but it is a national security threat in that they can't force their curated propaganda through it as they see fit, like they can with the other platforms. It's a propaganda liability.

No. "National Security" is designed to be a discussion-terminator.

everything is a threat when you're this fragile and stupid.

Think of it like an abusive partner who sees every in interaction their victim has with the outside world as a threat to their position.

Actually yes. The know for sure that socials they control are definitely national security risk for other countries, as they used them many times to incite color revolutions and generally influence said countries; so they assume tiktok is the same risk for them. Every accusation is a projection, remember.

There are some legitimate concerns like if someone in the military or DoD has it on their phone it can be used as an attack vector. But so can any Chinese app like Temu and it is mostly handled already by banning them on site. Maybe there were too many grunts posting vids showing off the hardware.
The bulk data they collect can provide all sorts statistical data on the general population but only as a supplement to some other strategy. I wouldn't be surprised if China was collecting this and trying to figure out what to do with it later.
The real reason though - as others have said - is its not subject to the same surveillance and censorship programs as US apps are and that is a very real national security concern for the state. They don't know how many Luigi memes are getting reposted. TikToks data isn't getting fed into prism. If another BLM protest kicks off, TikTok will just let it burn. They could manipulate their algorithm to turn up the heat but its not really necessary.
- Your comment makes the most sense to me. Surveillance seems like the bigger issue. Maybe I'm naive, but censorship and State propaganda seems to give the US government too much credit. US politicians can't even protect their own constituents from systems that spread misinformation. The best they can do is exploit those systems to get elected. People can call that propaganda, but it gives me a coordinated central-power vibe and seems to miss a more obvious, individualistic, self-interested, capitalistic framing.
  The ban is probably because politicians only want American companies exploiting American data for American profit. Not for increased tax revenue-- as they never pay their fair share-- but increased donations/lobbyist/campaign financing/perks, etc.
  A US company can probably participate and benefit more easily than a Chinese company. Hence why they're going after tiktok when they should've been going after meta, google, amazon, etc this whole time. That's my 2 cents anyways. I'd be curious what the donations of each company looked like.
  
  Maybe I'm naive, but censorship and State propaganda seems to give the US government too much credit.
  I never said anything about state propaganda. The "state" doesn't spread propaganda directly through social media like it does through mainstream media. US propaganda does exist on these platforms though but it comes from different interest groups, PR firms, etc.
  US politicians can't even protect their own constituents from systems that spread misinformation.
  They're not really trying to because a lot of that comes from in-house and isn't seen as a threat to the state. Something like ivermectin disinfo isn't perceived as a threat to the state but too many Luigi memes are. "Protecting US citizens" is not a priority. US censorship regimes on social media however, absolutely do exist but they take the form or cooperation of the business with the state to deprioritize certain content.
  The ban is probably because politicians only want American companies exploiting American data for American profit.
  Yeah that's probably the main reason for the ban but that's not why it's being given the "national security" excuse. If Temu was actually capable of competing with Amazon in the US then there would absolutely be talks about banning it too and probably come up with other excuses.

The national security threats:

It's so much not a security threat that its board was (probably is now as well but the investigation is years old) to be full of former NATO shills: https://www.mintpressnews.com/nato-tiktok-pipeline-why-tiktok-employing-national-security-agents/280336/

Tbh it's all just a result of Facebook lobbying of the same variety that killed Vine. Lawmakers just had an additional sinophobic angle to grandstand on this time but the material origin has nothing to do with natsec.

I'm sure it's only seen as a security threat because they can't lean on them the way they can U.S. based companies to control narratives and only push approved propaganda.