The swift passage of the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” by the House of Representatives on March 13 has again drawn attention to TikTok’s impact on the United States and its relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
TikTok and the CCP
Currently, TikTok has 170 million users in the United States, an increase of over 20 million compared to 2023. The app’s global user base reached approximately 1.7 billion in 2023, with over 700 million monthly active users. Around 40 percent of TikTok’s adult users in America consider the app their primary source of news and information.
Although TikTok has repeatedly claimed to be unrelated to the CCP, much evidence suggests that the platform is controlled by the CCP and serves as a tool for propaganda, suppressing dissent, and surveillance, even monitoring users’ private messages.
Mr. Gallagher made it clear during a hearing last November that China’s top priority is to conquer the minds of Westerners and that TikTok is a perfect weapon, disguised and hidden in plain sight.
He reiterated the relationship between TikTok and the CCP at a press conference on March 7. “In China,” he said, “there is no such thing as a private company. The ruling authority, the Chinese Communist Party, and its leader Xi Jinping have their hands deep in the inner workings of the company with devastating consequences for our personal freedoms.”
In China, all companies must comply with regulations related to security, intelligence, counter-espionage, and cybersecurity set by the CCP. Additionally, in August 2022, the Cyberspace Administration of China required 30 Chinese tech giants, including Sina, Weibo, and ByteDance, to submit their algorithms for applications and websites for easier regulation.
During the presidential election in Taiwan in Jan., it was discovered that the CCP used TikTok to attack and suppress anti-China voices and presidential candidates. The platform was used to spread disinformation about election fraud in an attempt to disrupt Taiwan’s democratic process.
The reason ByteDance tracked the three BuzzFeed journalists may be related to a BuzzFeed report in June 2022 alleging that ByteDance’s Chinese employees could fully access TikTok’s server in the United States and could also access the personal data of American users.
Although ByteDance admitted to this incident afterward, it denied that TikTok was used to target journalists, U.S. government officials, or activists, claiming that the incident was “the poorly conceived acts of a few people.”
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) released a report in September 2020 stating that the CCP monitors, censors, and propagandizes the public outside of China through WeChat and TikTok, including censoring and banning content that the CCP dislikes, such as Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, and Falun Gong.
TikTok’s Harm to Young People
Apart from disinformation, TikTok continuously promotes toxic and harmful behaviors to young people, including various “chroming challenges.”TikTok’s chroming challenge involves inhaling toxic chemicals such as paint, gasoline, and cleaning products to achieve a temporary state of “getting high.”
An 11-year-old boy from the UK, Tommie-lee Gracie Billington, suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and died on March 2 after participating in this challenge. In response, his family called for TikTok to be removed and urged the government to take more measures to protect children and prevent such tragedies.
Another dangerous social media craze, “death diving,” was popular on TikTok. This challenge involves divers doing a “belly flop” from terrifying heights, which is extremely risky.
In Italy, the country’s consumer watchdog launched a safety probe due to TikTok’s “French scar” challenge, which encouraged young people to pinch their faces to create red lines and scars. Many parents condemned such content as it induces teenagers to attempt various self-harmful challenges.
In a study in 2022 on how TikTok affects teenagers, the UK nonprofit organization Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that when users search for content related to eating disorders or suicide, they become vulnerable users, and TikTok’s algorithm identifies and exploits their vulnerability by continuously pushing a large number of videos related to self-harm and suicide.
Independent Chinese writer Zhuge Mingyang said, “Regardless of how TikTok portrays or whitewashes itself, its destructive impact on society and harm to adolescents are obvious. Those who developed this social media platform may not have malicious intentions, but it has become a major tool for the CCP to forward its agenda.”
