Commentary: Potential US TikTok ban shows many still struggle with real concerns

PARANOIA OR APPROPRIATE CAUTION?

The questions ultimately focus on ByteDance, which has its own management in Beijing. Based in Singapore and Los Angeles, TikTok may be insulated from its parent company by its corporate structure, as the company asserts. TikTok often cites its efforts to store American users’ data in Texas at facilities overseen by American company Oracle.

Still, a parent company is a parent company, and some coordination and control are expected. Both Google and its parent Alphabet share a CEO, Sundar Pichai. As the CEO of parent company Meta, Mark Zuckerberg oversees Facebook and its other platforms. Elon Musk owns the holding company of X Corp (formerly Twitter), whose CEO, Linda Yaccarino, few believe really calls the shots.    

It strikes me as rash for outside observers to be too confident about what TikTok could or could not do, given that ByteDance is subject to Chinese national security law.

Can TikTok data not, under any circumstances, end up in the hands of Chinese intelligence? Or could the platform be turned against American users if US-China tensions escalate?

With TikTok’s algorithm trained on the preferences and vulnerabilities of so many of us, there are concerns about whether the app could be weaponised to spread propaganda. Questions abound about whether such manipulation is already happening. Rutgers University researchers found a relatively low number of stories about China’s Uyghur population on TikTok compared to Instagram, for example.