TikTok, if compelled by China’s communist government, would be required to share its users’ data — and most Americans don’t seem to mind one bit.
Only 32% of Americans are in favor of the U.S. government banning TikTok, according to a Pew Research Center survey in September of 10,678 respondents aged 18 and older. That’s down from 50% who supported a ban in March 2023 — and TikTok’s users are even less inclined to support a ban, with 61% of U.S. users opposing it. (Among those surveyed, 51% leaned towards Democrats politically, while 46% said they were Republican-leaning.)
“I don’t support the TikTok ban,” Mila Jenkins, a 28-year-old TV producer, told TheWrap. “In terms of data security, yes, it’s scary. But in this day and age, it’s already common knowledge that we’ve all sold our souls — and our data — to any which government. It’s like the wild west out here.”
She’s not the only user who feels that way. Earlier this year, TikTok — which doesn’t share information on its daily user base — said it had 170 million monthly users in the United States. That marked a 13% year-over-year increase, and a 70% boost from 2020, when the company said it had 100 million U.S. users.
What TikTok is less forthcoming about is its relationship with China’s government. ByteDance, TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, is obligated by multiple Chinese laws to share user information if the government asks for it.
For years, TikTok denied that was the case. CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress in March 2023 that ByteDance is “not an agent of China” and has never shared American user data with China’s government. U.S. user data, he said, is stored on Oracle servers in the United States.
“The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil, by an American company, overseen by American personnel,” he said.
That turned out to be not true.
Only a few months later, Forbes reported the “sensitive financial data” of some of TikTok’s biggest U.S. creators had been stored in China and was accessible by ByteDance employees, including social security numbers and tax IDs. TikTok eventually conceded that some U.S. users had their data stored in China after all.
TikTok has taken its fight to the courts
In April, President Joe Biden signed a bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. operation to a non-Chinese company or face a ban. The ban would go into effect on Jan. 19, 2025 — nine months after the bill was signed, and two months after the 2024 presidential election.
Since then, ByteDance has been putting up a big fight to overturn the new law.
The company has argued the ban would “trample” First Amendment rights to free speech. The U.S. government, according to ByteDance, cannot block users from expressing themselves on their social media platform of choice. (TikTok, if it were booted from the U.S., would still be available in more than 150 countries.)
ByteDance sued the U.S. government in May, and the two sides are now battling in court as the ban date grows closer. Lawyers for both sides, according to The New York Times, have asked for a ruling by Dec. 6 to allow for enough time for a potential appeal.
(In August, the Justice Department sued TikTok and ByteDance in a U.S. District Court in California contending the companies had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act for knowingly collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under the age of 13. TikTok has denied the claims.)
“You can spy on me, I don’t care”
Despite lawmakers’ concerns, most U.S. users seem to shrug off any concerns about their information being turned over to China’s government. To Jen Sengbe, a 29-year-old from Atlanta who uses both TikTok and Lemon8, another ByteDance-owned social app, there’s not much difference between the Chinese government and U.S. government having her info.
“Yes, the thought has occurred to me that China is stealing our information,” Sengbe said. “But that does not bother me, because I’m pretty sure my government has more access to information about me than China. So no, the Chinese getting ahold of our information has not really been a concern of mine.”
Reno Prezio, a 45-year-old TikTok user from San Diego, said he’s not worried about any data breaches, either.
“You can spy on me, I don’t care. I have nothing to hide — I’m Joe Schmoe,” Prezio said.
And he’s definitely not in favor of banning the app, which helps his business pursuits. Prezio runs his mom’s cooking account, “That Lady Anna,” which has 221,000 followers checking out her latest Italian dishes. He also runs an account dedicated to his profession, hair styling. His personal account helps drive business, and his mom’s account brings in thousands of dollars each month.
“I obviously don’t want TikTok banned because we’re monetizing it,” he said. “I don’t feel it’s any different than an American app having our data.”
While citizen support for banning TikTok is waning, some Washington politicians from both the left and the right are still hoping it goes through.
Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called TikTok “a spy balloon in Americans’ phones” earlier this year. At the same time, Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said he was alarmed by “how rivers of data are being collected and shared in ways that are not well-aligned with American security interests.”
Their position seems to grow less popular by the day. Even Donald Trump, who spearheaded the campaign to ban TikTok when he was president in 2020, has changed his tune. In June, Trump joined TikTok and said it was an “honor” to be on the app.
“Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Trump told CNBC earlier this year.
And even if TikTok is keeping their data, users like Jenkins say the entertainment trade-off is worth it. She said she likes to scroll TikTok videos — clips on current events, pop culture, and educational facts, in particular — at the end of her workday as a way to unwind.
“We don’t live that long,” she said. “Might as well live it up and enjoy a little TikTok here and there.”
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