All you need in order to understand whether TikTok’s security threat is serious is to consider that the U.S. Senate voted unanimously last week to ban its use on any government device. The measure also prohibits any government employee, including members of Congress, from downloading the app on such devices.
Unanimity seldom happens in Washington if a matter is being pursued purely for political reasons, which this clearly is not.
Yes, President Donald Trump’s order to impose a 45-day deadline to ban TikTok and the Chinese social media giant WeChat from doing business with U.S. firms, unless purchased by a U.S. company, may be a bargaining chip in future talks with China. After all, China already bans Facebook and Twitter within its borders. But intelligence officials believe more is at play here.
They think the Chinese companies may be gathering sensitive information on Americans that could be shared with the Chinese government. While the companies deny this, private ownership doesn’t exist in mainland China as it does in the United States. The government always retains rights that are supreme.
The bigger issue here, however, may be the need to protect American society from itself. Apps like TikTok target young people and exploit an innate American trait — the desire to express oneself freely and creatively. Facebook and Twitter appeal to older audiences, but the lure is the same. They are platforms for expression, and often that expression is political.
Foreign adversaries apparently are finding it profitable to turn American free expression against itself. The only real defense is critical thinking and a savvy skepticism.
Intelligence agencies have compiled evidence that foreign influence campaigns have flourished in recent elections. Many social media users willingly repost falsehoods that reinforce and confirm their own biases without bothering to check for accuracy.
Writing for the New Yorker a few years ago, Stephen Marche explained it this way: “Social media gives everybody their own little world of self-selected meaning, the tools for a truly abstracted, self-determined universe; you can look at anyone or anything the way you want to look at it.”
Social media can seem so private and trivial that its users often can’t conceive of their post as having an impact on national politics or global concerns. And yet social media can form powerful echo-chambers of misinformation that reverberate beyond the sphere of friends. Or perhaps the trivial can be a lure that makes personal information, trends and preferences easy to cultivate for those who would aggregate and exploit them on a grander scale.
Either way, it’s easy to understand why the nation’s enemies would want to exploit such open forums.
Angus King, a senator from Maine, told Voice of America that children are growing up with powerful electronic devices, but they are “not necessarily taught how they can be manipulated by their devices.
“I think there ought to be standardized courses in high school called ‘digital literacy’ and increasing the public’s awareness that they are being conned.”
The answer may not necessarily be to further overburden teachers with another curriculum, but to emphasize critical thinking and analytical skills as part of every subject. Given the scope of the internet and the rapid expansion of technology, those skills are going to be essential for national security, the health of democracy and self-protection in the future. That’s true even if the medium in question is as seemingly innocent as a TikTok video.