Why are politicians taking TikTok’s promises at face value?
Zachary Faria
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Politicians and U.S. intelligence agencies have finally decided how to address the threat of TikTok serving as Chinese spyware: Just trust the spyware app and the Chinese Communist Party sympathizers who run it.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), while detailing how Congress and state governments have banned the app on government devices, said that we should just “go directly to the company” with concerns about its ties to China. TikTok is “now working with U.S. intelligence folks to try to make sure that the proper precautions are taken so the Chinese cannot get access and use it for spying,” Booker said.
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Well, that solves everything, doesn’t it? The app has intentionally circumvented protections on the Google and Apple app stores to log users’ keystrokes and copy their clipboards. It is required by law to share any and all data with the Chinese Communist Party. But sure, just go ahead and trust TikTok to police its own behavior and not let China use its data to spy on people.
It’s the equivalent of allowing the Taliban to be in charge of the security of a city during an American evacuation. Which Biden also did.
TikTok is currently inseparable from the Chinese Communist Party. The app’s parent company, ByteDance, pledged in 2018 to “further deepen cooperation” with the party. ByteDance has used data from TikTok to spy on American journalists. The app is Chinese spyware. The only “proper precautions” that can be taken to prevent China from using TikTok to spy on people is to shut it down.
Booker thinks it’s enough just to ask the company nicely. TikTok has supposedly been working out a deal with lawmakers to “fully satisfy all reasonable U.S. national security concerns” without ByteDance having to sell it off.
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Not only would the app remain under the control of CCP supporters who are required by law to share all data with the party, but while politicians and national security officials work out that deal, the app functions as a connection for the Chinese Communist Party to the devices of 80 million Americans.
Such a deal solves nothing, but it keeps politicians such as Booker from having to make tough decisions to confront China’s brazen national security threats.