While there’s been much debate about the reasoning behind the U.S. government’s moves to force TikTok out of the reach of the Chinese government, what we don’t have is the actual reasoning, and the information that’s been presented to U.S. senators relating to the TikTok security threat, which is why they voted to ban the app if it can’t be separated from its Chinese ownership.
Various possible reasons have been speculated. TikTok’s trying to steal data on U.S. citizens, in order to pass that onto the CCP. TikTok’s trying to seed pro-China stories, to create more sympathy for the Chinese government. The Chinese government is trying to manipulate American youth with dangerous, harmful trends.
All of these concepts have some level of potential merit, yet the U.S. government has remained tight-lipped on what was actually presented to senators in secret, closed-door cybersecurity briefings. We’ve had glimpses, and allusions to possible information presented in these sessions. But we don’t have a real breakdown on what the core logic is behind the TikTok ban push.
That’s led to a lot of ill-informed speculation, and claims that the U.S. government doesn’t know what it’s doing.
“Meta’s also stealing our data, so why is TikTok being banned?”
This is the justification that I see most often, with people under the impression that the data transfer element is still the key aspect that’s driving the U.S. government’s thinking (or what it was thinking before Trump came back into power).
But I would posit that the manipulation element is far more significant, and remains an ongoing threat, considering the constant Chinese-backed information warfare efforts that we see in other apps.
This week, for example, Microsoft has published a new overview which outlines how it’s detected ongoing attacks against vulnerabilities in SharePoint.
As per Microsoft:
“As of this writing, Microsoft has observed two named Chinese nation-state actors, Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon exploiting these vulnerabilities targeting internet-facing SharePoint servers. In addition, we have observed another China-based threat actor, tracked as Storm-2603, exploiting these vulnerabilities.”
Microsoft has regularly highlighted the threat posed by CCP-backed operatives, which are looking to exploit system vulnerabilities, however they can.
Last April, Microsoft reported that Chinese-based groups had been seeking to influence voters in other nations through coordinated social media activity.
“Deceptive social media accounts by Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-affiliated actors have started to pose contentious questions on controversial U.S. domestic issues to better understand the key issues that divide U.S. voters. This could be to gather intelligence and precision on key voting demographics ahead of the U.S. presidential election.”
Google has also uncovered similar programs, with its latest Tag Bulletin noting that Google has terminated more than 7,700 YouTube channels linked to coordinated influence operations run by Chinese state actors in the last three months alone.
Yes, 7,000 YouTube channels. In three months.
“The coordinated inauthentic network uploaded content in Chinese and English about China and US foreign affairs.”
Based on these discoveries, it’s clear that China-backed influence operations remain a priority, and that the CCP is always looking for ways to reach foreign audiences, in order to influence how they think about certain subjects.
And given that TikTok is a Chinese-owned app, with over a billion users outside the Chinese mainland, it seems highly likely that TikTok would be an even more significant vector for such initiatives.
It would also be harder to detect, because algorithmic personalization means that what I see on TikTok is completely different to what you see, so there’s no definitive means to measure what each user is being exposed to in the app.
And while data gathering could also be a factor (and there have indeed been incidents of such reported), I suspect that this is a far more significant concern, which is why the U.S. government, and other regions, remain wary of the app.
But TikTok’s still in operation in America, with U.S. President Donald Trump continuing to grant extensions to its sell-off deadline. Which means that any threat of this type is also still active, and again, it stands to reason that TikTok would be the most obvious platform for CCP operatives to target with such initiatives.
Does that mean that TikTok should be banned? Well, it depends, again, on the specifics being presented to U.S. senators by cybersecurity pros. But it does seem like the CCP is constantly looking for more ways to infiltrate and influence, and that TikTok could be a key connector for such.
