Banning TikTok Won’t Solve Social Media’s Foreign Influence, Teen Harm and Data Privacy Problems

For example, leaked internal documents from a whistleblower revealed that Meta has known since 2019 that its platforms are likely hurting U.S. minors’ mental health and well-being. The company’s internal research found that the platform contributed to body image issues and eating disorders among teen girls and exposed teens to other harmful behaviors, such as bullying, drug abuse and self-harm.

Currently, 41 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have filed lawsuits against Meta for the damage allegedly done to minors.

At the same time, there has been little outcry about how time spent on social media increases young people’s exposure to hate-based content or that platforms such as YouTube funnel users into pipelines for radicalization.

Data Security and Privacy
Proponents of the TikTok sale-or-ban law also claim that the app constitutes an unacceptable threat to data privacy. Rep. Gallagher asserted that the Chinese government could use TikTok for espionage to “find Americans, exfiltrate data and track the location of journalists.”

Yet, there is little reason to believe Americans’ data is safer with U.S.-based companies. Meta has had a wide range of data privacy scandals. Last year, leaked documents showed that even Meta engineers themselves have minimal understanding or control over how people’s data is used.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), co-sponsor of the House bill on TikTok, invoked a case involving the dating app Grindr as a successful precedent for forcing ByteDance to divest TikTok. In 2020, the Chinese company that owned Grindr sold the app to a U.S. company following security concerns similar to those surrounding TikTok. But, just last year, a fringe Catholic group in Denver purchased location and usage data from Grindr and other dating apps to track LGBTQ+ priests.

Additionally, the Chinese government hardly needs control of TikTok to access the troves of data that apps, devices and smart appliances collect from Americans. Much of this data can be purchased, completely legally, from commercial data brokers, regardless of who owns it.

Data freely available for purchase on the open market has been shown to include the location data for people visiting Planned Parenthood and mobile device location pings that can be deanonymized to reveal the whereabouts of the president of the United States.

The Need for Regulation
Concerns about TikTok are not unfounded, but they are also not unique. Each threat posed by TikTok has also been posed by U.S.-based social media for over a decade. I believe that lawmakers should take action to address harms caused by U.S. companies seeking profit as well as by foreign companies perpetrating espionage.

Protecting Americans cannot be accomplished by banning a single app. To truly protect their constituents, lawmakers would need to enact broad, far-reaching regulation.

Sarah Florini is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Arizona State University. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.