Voters ‘split on TikTok ban’ as Biden campaign joins the app
US President Joe Biden’s campaign is embracing TikTok to court young voters ahead of the November election, but American adults have mixed views about whether the video-sharing app should even operate in the country.
A new poll by Associated Press and NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research finds a three-way split when it comes to banning the app, with 31 per cent of US adults saying they would favour a nationwide ban on TikTok use, while 35 per cent said they would oppose that type of action.
An additional 31 per cent of adults said they neither favoured nor opposed a ban on the social media platform, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. Among those who use TikTok at least daily, a national ban would possibly be highly unpopular: 73 per cent said they opposed it.
Talks of a TikTok ban reached a fever pitch in the United States early last year after a series of Western lawmakers, governments and regulators raised concerns that a set of Chinese laws could force the company to share user data with the country’s authoritarian government.
Specific evidence of such an incident has not been provided by the US government or TikTok critics, who also posit the platform could be used to spread propaganda beneficial to Beijing’s interests or be used to bury or amplify certain topics.
TikTok has vigorously defended itself, saying in part that it has never shared data with the Chinese government and will not do so if asked. The company also has promised to wall off US user data from its parent company through a separate entity run independently from ByteDance and monitored by outside observers.
TikTok said new user data was currently being stored on servers maintained by the software company Oracle.
The White House is expected to announce later this month new efforts it would take aimed at protecting Americans’ sensitive personal data from foreign adversaries, including China, according to a person familiar with the administration’s planning.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plan that has yet to be formally announced by the White House.
The Biden administration also reaffirmed this week there was an ongoing review of the platform by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which last year reportedly threatened to widely ban the app if its Chinese owners did not divest their stakes.
Meanwhile, congressional efforts to enact a broader ban – including bipartisan legislation that does not mention TikTok by name but would give the Commerce Department the power to review and potentially restrict its use – was stalled last year amid opposition from industry and digital rights groups, as well as some lawmakers, influencers and small businesses who use the platform.
The AP-NORC poll shows TikTok users – about 170 million in the US, most of whom skew younger – are less likely to be worried about the app sharing American users’ data, reflecting a previously felt generational divide. About a quarter of daily users said they were “extremely or very concerned” about the idea of the Chinese government obtaining the personal information of users, compared to about half of US adults overall.
“For politicians, it’s like a hot potato,” said Dan Ives, a tech analyst at the financial advisory firm Wedbush Securities.
“Because in one way [they] want to sound tough in front of the microphone. But then the reality is, it could backfire.”
A majority of adults, 56 per cent, said they would favour a more limited TikTok ban on government devices, such as government employees’ computers and phones. Such bans have been implemented by at least 36 states, the federal government and some other countries, as well as the European Union. About a quarter of US adults are neutral on blocking TikTok from government devices, while 17 per cent are opposed.
The Biden campaign has said it is using a separate mobile phone for TikTok to isolate the app from other communications and was taking additional steps for protection.
Some Republicans have criticised the decision.