Call to act on TikTok threat
App ‘risk to democracy’
Social media giant TikTok poses a “very serious threat” to Australians and will remain unsafe unless its relationship with Beijing is “severed”, opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson says.
Speaking on Sunday, Mr Paterson said that while the Coalition wasn’t yet supportive of an outright ban on the platform, the government should support growing efforts by US lawmakers to split TikTok’s US operations from its Beijingbased parent ByteDance.
“If the United States successfully removes TikTok from ByteDance, Australia should seek to do the same,” the Victorian senator told the ABC’s Insiders program.
Calling on the government to “take action”, Mr Paterson said the app was a risk to Australia’s democracy and national security.
“The end that I hope for is that Australians can continue to use TikTok, but just without the risk that their data is abused and without the risk that the Chinese Communist Party can put its thumb on the algorithm to pump disinformation into our democracy.
“I know for a fact intelligence agencies are not saying to the prime minister: ‘There’s nothing to worry about with TikTok – there’s no concerns at all.’”
The short video sharing service, which has about 8.5 million domestic users who are predominantly teenagers and young adults, is among Australia’s most downloaded apps.
But politicians and security analysts in Australia and abroad have grown increasingly wary of the platform, citing concerns that the Chinese government could force TikTok’s Beijing-based parent ByteDance to hand over user data, or use the platform to sow division and promote propaganda.
TikTok says it will not hand over data to China, and seeks to remove misinformation from its platform.
In recent days, legislation that would force the sale of TikTok’s US-based segment from ByteDance, or shut down the platform across the country entirely, has gathered significant backing among US lawmakers, being overwhelmingly passed by Congress’s lower house.
Blindsiding TikTok at first, the app has since mobilised considerable support from its users, urging some to contact their local representatives via an in-app notification.
Should the bill pass the Senate, where legislators appear less supportive, President Joe Biden has indicated he will sign the legislation into law.
Chinese government officials have also voiced their opposition to the US’s push to force TikTok’s sale, signalling to ByteDance they would rather see a ban enforced, according to media reports.
An outcome where ByteDance refuses to divest from the $160bn app, forcing its prohibition and consequently reducing its value, would be “revealing”, Mr Paterson said.
“That would be a very irrational choice, but it will be quite an illustrative choice because I suspect ByteDance would operate as an extension of the Chinese government, not as a commercial entity.”