TikTok’s like Chinese spy balloon in your phone, say Republicans

REPUBLICANS are fighting to ban TikTok across the United States, describing the social media app as like having a “Chinese spy balloon in your phone”.

The short-form video platform is popular among young people, but with a growing distrust of China, the app owned by Bytedance, the Chinese company, is being targeted by lawmakers in the US and across the world.

It has been banned from government devices in America, Canada and the EU, but House Republicans, who hold a majority, want to see it wiped off 100 million phones across the nation.

This week, the foreign intelligence committee approved a bill to give Joe Biden, the US president, the power to ban TikTok, but it still faces significant legislative hurdles. Would he do it?

“Ban TikTok? I’m not sure. I know I don’t have it on my phone,” he told reporters.

Republican lawmakers have made countering China’s influence a priority, with Tiktok in the crosshairs.

“TikTok is a national security threat … It is time to act,” said Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the committee who sponsored the bill, this week. “Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the CCP [Communist Party of China] a backdoor to all their personal information. It’s a spy balloon into their phone.”

There are real concerns about Beijing using the app to track or spy on Americans or even to manipulate its algorithm to promote Chinese government narratives. The firm has denied all the allegations but came under further scrutiny when it admitted to spying on journalists as part of an internal investigation into leaks about the company.

Shou Zi Chew, the chief executive of ByteDance, said several employees “misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data”.

Among TikTok’s most vociferous critics is Christopher Wray, the FBI director, who said that the app could pose an unprecedented threat to US national security.

“We do have national security concerns, at least from the FBI’s end, about TikTok,” Mr Wray told members of the House Committee on Homeland Security during a hearing about worldwide threats.

“They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users, or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so choose.

“Or to control software on millions of devices, which gives it the opportunity to [compromise] personal devices.”

‘Anyone with TikTok on their device has given the CCP a backdoor to all their personal information’