Tag: TikTok

How TikTok built a ‘team of Avengers’ to fight for its life

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With the 2020 election approaching, the company seemed to want to hedge its bets on the outcome. CFIUS had reportedly begun an investigation into the company. Early that year, ByteDance succeeded in hiring David Urban, a prominent Republican lobbyist who was also an adviser to Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Urban first worked as an outside consultant and then later as an executive vice president at ByteDance. (He is now an outside consultant again.)
But the company needed Democratic help, too, since the party figured to have significant power on the Hill after 2020 even if Trump were reelected.
Fears about TikTok’s foreign ownership were growing, not receding, as the campaign advanced. Not only did SKDK, the Biden campaign-linked firm, reject an overture to work for TikTok, but in the summer of 2020 it instructed employees to delete the app from their phones as a security precaution. Memories of foreign cyber-intrusion in the 2016 campaign, when Russian hackers breached the Democratic National Committee, were still fresh in the minds of Democratic campaign operatives.
Around 2020, the second Washington lobbyist, who was then in touch with the company, said that TikTok was in search of someone who could push back on the narrative that they were collecting data and giving it to China.
In 2021, a third Washington lobbyist, who is a Democrat, recalled being approached by a TikTok consultant with the message that the company was willing to put a lot of money on the table for Democratic talent.
Since the 2020 presidential election, TikTok has had considerably more success enlisting lobbyists and firms with close ties to the Democratic Party. In addition to SKDK’s recent about-face decision to work for TikTok, the company has enlisted FGS Global, another PR agency with ties to Biden’s political network. It also retained the public relations giant Edelman, a powerhouse firm with relationships across both parties. Jamal Brown, former national press secretary to the Biden campaign who more recently was deputy press secretary at the Pentagon, is now a company spokesperson.

Many of those working for TikTok and ByteDance, including SKDK, FGS, Edelman, Crowley, Denham, Gordon, and Leiter, the former counterterrorism official, did not respond to inquiries or declined to comment on the record.
ByteDance’s lavish spending goes beyond generous salaries and retainer fees for lobbyists. It also extends to schmoozing, particularly in Europe where there is less fear among politicians about being seen as cozy with Chinese companies.

Indeed, in Brussels, lawmakers in the European Parliament and officials of the EU Commission, the EU’s executive arm, describe TikTok’s team as articulate and ingratiating, and careful to strike a more conciliatory tone than the representatives of American companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google. They had an agenda to push, but they would not make aggressive threats about EU laws like the Digital Services Act.
“Their lobbying was not confrontational compared to American companies,” one official said. “They always said they wanted to cooperate.”
Interesting meeting with CEO Shou Zi Chew about how to strengthen the safety of #TikTok users, especially minors, and how to moderate content online. TikTok will have to work hard to meet #DSA rules soon. pic.twitter.com/shBzz8D9O4
— Dita Charanzová (@charanzova) January 11, 2023
In Europe, at least, TikTok has used the aversion toward American Big Tech to its advantage. Bertram, the vice president of government relations and public policy for Europe, told POLITICO the question of TikTok’s ownership “feels like a red herring … As Europeans, I don’t think we share the belief that every big company needs to be a Silicon Valley tech company.”
Earlier this year, Chew, the TikTok CEO, appeared at the World Economic Forum in Davos and toured Brussels to meet with European policymakers. In Belgium, he met with around two dozen European lawmakers and policy officials from the EU Commission in a closed-door session at De Warande, an elite members-only club located near Belgium’s Royal Palace and the American embassy. He snapped pictures with tech-focused politicians like Dita Charanzová, a vice president of the European parliament, and Andreas Schwab, a German member who negotiated the Digital Markets Act, a law to limit the market power of large tech companies.
The TikTok executive tried to send a reassuring message at the event. Even as the company has confronted growing political hostility in the U.S., many European lawmakers have continued to see the company in less adversarial terms — as a social media goliath that needs to be regulated, but perhaps not a uniquely problematic one.
Chew was “very clear about the strong concern in the U.S. about China,” said Schwab, adding: “They wanted to explain a bit about their legal structure, their precaution measures, knowing that there might still be doubts.”
After doing a speech about TikTok’s business model, the CEO wanted to listen, said Charanzová. “He wanted to understand concerns in Europe.”

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 30, 2023
TikTok is a necessary evil for Democratic campaigns

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Last week, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress for the first time, where he faced a barrage of criticism from lawmakers. Both Republicans and Democrats raised security concerns about the Chinese-owned tech platform, which collects data from users. Officials are pushing ByteDance, the company that owns the app, to sell the app or risk an outright ban.
It’s unclear if a nationwide ban could be enacted. But as long as TikTok exists, strategists say it’s necessary for campaigns and candidates on the app.
They acknowledge that a presence on TikTok comes with some risks, but as long as campaigns are implementing safeguards — like using a separate phone for the app and not linking it to official campaign emails — it’s one of the best ways of reaching a core demographic. TikTok is not the only security concern a campaign may face, but is one that’s increasingly in the public eye.
Even if a campaign is wary of having an account on the app, there are still other ways to engage. Kasey O’Brien, director of social and texting at Democratic firm Middle Seat, said that tapping influencers to share the campaign’s message could be effective. That’s a strategy that addresses some security concerns, but also practical ones, especially if campaigns lack the resources or knowhow to produce content for the app.
“It’s not so much that you the candidate needs to be on TikTok, but you need to have people who are speaking about you on TikTok and sort of spreading your message,” she said. “If you want your message to get across and to become part of popular discourse, it needs to be where the popular discourse is being created.”
The prospect of a ban is one that has the potential to impact Democratic candidates and campaigns in a substantial way, as Republicans have been less inclined to engage with TikTok.
In last year’s midterm elections, there were more than twice as many Democratic candidate accounts on TikTok compared to Republicans in Senate, House, governor and secretary of state races, according to a study from the Alliance for Securing Democracy.
Much of that has to do with Republicans being more vocal about China’s ownership of the app, said Lindsay Gorman, senior fellow for emerging technologies at the group and co-author of the study. But after last week’s hearing showing bipartisan concerns, Democrats could find themselves “in a tough spot.”

“The longer this uncertainty drags out, especially as it potentially bleeds into the 2024 election season, that’s when we’ll see hard choices among politicians that they’re going to have to make, of if there are voters still on this platform — but we still haven’t resolved the national security concerns, they’ll probably still continue to use it in some fashion,” she said.
The app is critical to a broader strategy, strategists argue, to reach voters who don’t normally consume political content. A recent poll conducted by SocialSphere found that just one-third of Gen Z and millennial users of the app regularly view content about current events or politics. A majority are instead there for entertainment.
“The fundamental goal of all of our digital strategies across these platforms is to get in touch with voters, entice them to think about your campaign and your candidacy, the platforms, the issues that you care about, and then engage them offline,” Bell said. “Voting doesn’t happen on TikTok.”
Eric Wilson, a GOP digital strategist, said Republicans who choose to not engage with TikTok out of principle are missing out on a core demographic.
A post-election survey conducted by the Center for Campaign Innovation, which Wilson is director of, found that 18 percent of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 49 use TikTok daily. That’s compared to 12 percent in that group who use any conservative social media, including Truth Social, Rumble, Parler, Gettr or Gab. Wilson said that the gap of not being on TikTok can be filled by relying on content creators who are. He pointed to influential media personalities like Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro, whose clips from their podcasts are circulated on TikTok.
“If Republicans don’t engage there at all, we run the risk of missing out on shaping narratives and reaching younger voters and I think that will be a mistake,” Wilson said. “You need to have a presence there. Now, whether it’s the core of your strategy, it shouldn’t be. But at least having positive information flow is a minimum.”
The SocialSphere poll also found that more than half of respondents are concerned about the app’s Chinese ownership, but there’s less of a consensus when it comes to supporting a ban unless the company sells its shares to U.S. operators. Sixty-six percent of Gen Z-ers have a favorable view of the app, as do 46 percent of millennials.
Still, strategists say they’re doubtful the increased governmental scrutiny on the app will change TikTok’s dominance among young people — and thus campaign strategies likely won’t change. What they do hope will change, however, is how digital communications are regulated.
“This also just really points to the need for a much broader set of regulations around data governance and privacy of America where we’re having these conversations about one off apps like Tiktok, because we don’t have an overarching platform as a country, and that’s something that our lawmakers really need to focus on,” said Mark Jablonowski, president of DSPolitical, a digital advertising firm that works with Democratic candidates and causes.
And some lawmakers agree. At last week’s hearing, House Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) called for Congress to pass privacy legislation that establishes baseline data minimization requirements and provides privacy protections for young people. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), who recently created her own TikTok account, said that banning the app is “putting the cart before the horse because our first priority should be” passing such legislation. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who’s been outspoken about not banning the app, also discussed legislation to deal with social media comprehensively.
Campaigns are reevaluating their balance of spending on platforms as they enter the 2024 cycle, but so far there’s not a massive move away from TikTok — yet.
“That’s the challenge: Youth are still out there using it,” Bell said. “We need to continue to find avenues to engage people who are not engaged in the political process, traditionally, and bring them on to the campaign.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 28, 2023
Will TikTok be banned? Some Dems say ‘not so fast.’

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But Democrats remain far from united about what to do. As powerful senators push for aggressive action, some of the more tech-savvy Democrats — particularly in the House — are calling for restraint when it comes to a ban. And they’re instead pushing solutions that would also address the privacy and security risks posed by U.S.-based apps.
“TikTok has become a proxy in the escalating tensions with China,” said Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), a House E&C member who is wary of an outright ban on TikTok. Trahan said Congress “has a responsibility not to fall prey to tribalism or nationalism when it comes to tech policy” — and, she added, “we know there are companies in the U.S. that want TikTok to be banned.”
Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the top Democrat on E&C who peppered Chew with tough questions on Thursday, is also reluctant to back a nationwide ban on the Chinese-owned app. He’d prefer to talk about data privacy legislation instead.
“A lot of the abuses that I see with TikTok stem from the fact that they abuse the data that people have,” Pallone said on Wednesday. “I haven’t said that I’m for or against a ban. But I do think that if you only ban TikTok, you’re just going to see this happen on some other site.”
The Democrats’ divide might not matter in terms of legislation passed by the House, where Republicans hold the majority. But a fracture on TikTok complicates efforts to present a united front against China, and could provide cover for the small number of influential Senate Democrats who are less gung-ho about a ban. It could also elevate the concerns being raised within Biden’s cabinet. In an interview with Bloomberg News earlier this month, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo worried a TikTok ban would cause Democrats to “literally lose every voter under 35, forever.”
That argument was made explicit on Wednesday by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), who emerged this week as TikTok’s top champion on Capitol Hill. Flanked by two of his fellow House Democrats and roughly two dozen TikTok “creators” flown to Washington by the social media giant, Bowman accused Senate Democrats who back a ban of stoking xenophobia and hurting the estimated 150 million Americans who use the app each month. And because TikTok users tend to skew younger, he warned against provoking a backlash that could land disproportionately on the Democratic Party.
“What if those young voters stay home or go Republican?” Bowman said. “Young voters are the reason why we were able to keep things decent — almost even — in 2022 in terms of the House.”
Senate Dems shrug off TikTok’s politics
Bowman’s argument — which has become the conventional wisdom in some circles — has far less traction with Democrats in the Senate.

“I think the politics of a TikTok ban are to do the right thing and protect our national security,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). He added that the Biden administration’s new plan to force TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell the app or be banned “ought to be welcomed by everyone — regardless of their age.”
Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said young voters will always be able to find another app — and that national security always trumps politics. “TikTok is owned by our largest rival, who is right now consorting with Vladimir Putin and the so-called Russian Empire,” Hickenlooper said. “We have to treat them as a serious rival, and that means you don’t let them have access to all our young people are thinking and doing.”
Some Senate Democrats remain skeptical of a TikTok ban, especially if it comes at the expense of broader privacy reforms. “I’m fine with the idea of restricting government phones, not making TikTok available,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “I do think that this highlights, again, that what’s necessary [is] a comprehensive privacy policy. Because if all you do is TikTok, then you’re giving a huge win to these private data brokers.”
Others appear to be keeping their powder dry. That includes Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who declined to answer questions this week on the wisdom of a TikTok ban. Spokespeople for Cantwell also did not respond to questions on whether Washington should ban the app.
But many Democratic senators are taking a decidedly different approach. After months of relative silence, a growing cadre have joined Republicans in claiming it’s only a matter of time before Beijing uses TikTok to spy on Americans and peddle propaganda.
“The sooner that we ban this, the better,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said during a Thursday appearance on MSNBC.
The national security argument against TikTok is deceptively simple: TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing. Chinese law requires any company based within China’s borders to comply with requests from Beijing’s security and intelligence services. And even if no evidence of collusion exists today, Democratic senators increasingly believe nothing TikTok says or does can lessen their fears that the app will one day be weaponized.
Sen. Ben Ray Lújan (D-N.M.) said TikTok’s popularity among young voters shouldn’t dissuade Democrats from taking decisive action against the app. “If someone was serving poison to people in a popular meal, does that mean we should not act on that?” he asked.
Luján also criticized Raimondo for her suggestion that a TikTok ban could spark political blowback. “It’s unfortunate that that’s an observation by one of the secretaries of the United States responsible for keeping people safe, and looking at actions that must be taken to ensure that people are not going to have their privacy and their data dismantled,” he said.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he believes Raimondo still shares his concerns about the threat posed by TikTok. And despite the political risk, he said he’s had no trouble getting Democrats to sign onto his bipartisan RESTRICT Act, which would give the Biden administration enhanced authority to ban TikTok.
“We’re up to 10 and 10 [Democratic and Republican cosponsors],” Warner said on Wednesday. “And we pick up more every day.”
House Dems still skeptical
It’s a very different story for the DATA Act, a bill introduced earlier this year by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas). While that legislation would also enhance the White House’s power to restrict TikTok, it passed out of committee last month with no Democratic support.
McCaul mused that some Democratic lawmakers may be hesitant to attack the app when many of them use it to reach younger voters. And he said he’s noticed a split in how Democrats in the House and Senate have approached the perceived threat.
“At least on my committee, I didn’t see one Democrat in favor,” he said. “On the other hand, you’ve got Warner — he’s trying to do something about it. He knows it’s a threat. I think even [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer does too.”
While McCaul said he hasn’t thought much about the politics of a ban, he is aware of the impact it could have on youth voters. “My daughter told me I’d be very unpopular with the younger generation,” the Republican lawmaker said.
A recent poll commissioned by The Washington Post found 41 percent of Americans support a nationwide TikTok ban — nearly double the percentage of Americans who oppose that plan. But those numbers are reversed among monthly TikTok users, with 45 percent opposing a ban.
Naomi Hearts, a TikTok creator from Los Angeles who the company flew out to Washington to help make the case against a ban, said she wouldn’t “solely” blame Biden or congressional Democrats if the government nuked the app. But given TikTok’s popularity with Generation Z, she said a ban “could have possible repercussions for our party.”
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), another Democrat on the House E&C Committee, said “no one wants a ban” — on her side of the aisle, at least. While Clarke said there’s a need for more “transparency” in how TikTok handles U.S. user data, she stopped short of the aggressive measures that Republicans and many Senate Democrats are now proposing.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), who joined Bowman and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) at Wednesday’s pro-TikTok press conference, suggested Senate Democrats pushing for a ban are out of touch with their constituents.
“We’re a little closer to the people,” Pocan said. “We’re the ones who talk to folks that are content creators and small businesspeople and all the rest.”
Bowman struck a similar tone. “There’s always a split, it seems, between Democrats in the House and Senate,” he said. “We all come from different places. We have different experiences. We’re different demographically, in terms of age. I think that’s part of it.”
Bowman — who claimed on Wednesday that Republicans are pushing a TikTok ban because they “ain’t got no swag” — didn’t mince words when asked about the growing support for a ban among Senate Democrats.
“They ain’t got no swag either,” the congressman said.
Rebecca Kern contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 24, 2023
It’s not just TikTok: French also warn against WhatsApp, Instagram

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PARIS — In a typically French move, France’s top lawmakers are refusing to side with the United States and single out China’s TikTok.
This week, top members of France’s National Assembly strongly encouraged fellow MPs to “limit” their use of social media apps and messaging services, according to a damning internal email seen by POLITICO. The recommendation does include Chinese-owned TikTok — at the heart of a storm on both sides of the Atlantic — but also features American platforms such as Snap and Meta’s WhatsApp and Instagram, alongside Telegram, founded by Russian-born brothers, and Signal.
“Given the particular risks to which the exercise of their mandate exposes MPs using these applications, we wish to appeal to your extreme vigilance and recommend that you limit their use,” wrote Marie Guévenoux and Eric Woerth from Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party and Eric Ciotti from conservative Les Républicains.
France’s narrative of putting Chinese and American companies in the same basket is in stark contrast to moves by other European countries, including the Dutch government, which decided to target apps from countries that wage an “offensive cyber program” against the Netherlands, such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
But refusing to pick sides and follow the United States’ geopolitical lead is a long political tradition in France, which is often accused of anti-American bias. During the Cold War, French President Charles de Gaulle tried to position his country as an alternative between the U.S.’s capitalism and the Soviet Union’s communism.
“France has not mourned the loss of its power and is trying to resurrect the so-called third way, also carried by [European commissioner] Thierry Breton,” said Asma Mhalla, a tech geopolitics lecturer at Columbia University and Sciences Po. “This will serve as a political argument to put French sovereignty and French tech back on the table,” she added, arguing that the next step will likely be to promote French apps instead.
And indeed, the top lawmakers’ letter encourages members of parliament to use French software WIMI for project management and collaborative work.
Their main issue with foreign social media apps is that Chinese and American laws are extraterritorial. The personal data gathered via the platforms — including contacts, photos, videos, and both professional and personal documents — could be used by foreign intelligence services, they argued in their email.

During Macron’s tenure, France has fought tooth and nail against the U.S. Cloud Act, a piece of legislation that allows American authorities to seize data stored on American servers even if they’re located abroad. Paris has even come up with a specific set of rules for cloud services to try and shield European data from Washington’s extraterritorial reach.
In China, an intelligence law also requires domestic technology companies to hand over data to state authorities on subjects anywhere in the world.
“The U.S. are well aware that all their arguments used against TikTok — namely that Chinese law is extraterritorial — awkwardly echo what the Europeans have been reproaching them for some time,” said Mathilde Velliet, a researcher in tech geopolitics at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).
“On the other hand,” she added, “the U.S. also believes they cannot be put on the same footing as China, because they’re a European ally with a different political and security relationship, and because it’s a democracy.”
Washington and EU capitals including Paris and Brussels also engage in dialogue on data security issues and cyber espionage, which is not the case with Beijing.
In the National Assembly’s corridors, however, the top lawmakers’ decision to call out foreign platforms from both the U.S. and China was very much welcome. “It’s all starting to look like a third way, which would be European sovereignty,” said Philippe Latombe, an MP from Macron’s allied party Modem. “And that’s good news.”
Océane Herrero contributed reporting.
This article has been updated.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
What the hell is wrong with TikTok?

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Western governments are ticked off with TikTok. The Chinese-owned app loved by teenagers around the world is facing allegations of facilitating espionage, failing to protect personal data, and even of corrupting young minds.
Governments in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and across Europe have moved to ban the use of TikTok on officials’ phones in recent months. If hawks get their way, the app could face further restrictions. The White House has demanded that ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, sell the app or face an outright ban in the U.S.
But do the allegations stack up? Security officials have given few details about why they are moving against TikTok. That may be due to sensitivity around matters of national security, or it may simply indicate that there’s not much substance behind the bluster.

TikTok’s Chief Executive Officer Shou Zi Chew will be questioned in the U.S. Congress on Thursday and can expect politicians from all sides of the spectrum to probe him on TikTok’s dangers. Here are some of the themes they may pick up on:
1. Chinese access to TikTok data
Perhaps the most pressing concern is around the Chinese government’s potential access to troves of data from TikTok’s millions of users.
Western security officials have warned that ByteDance could be subject to China’s national security legislation, particularly the 2017 National Security Law that requires Chinese companies to “support, assist and cooperate” with national intelligence efforts. This law is a blank check for Chinese spy agencies, they say.
TikTok’s user data could also be accessed by the company’s hundreds of Chinese engineers and operations staff, any one of whom could be working for the state, Western officials say. In December 2022, some ByteDance employees in China and the U.S. targeted journalists at Western media outlets using the app (and were later fired).
EU institutions banned their staff from having TikTok on their work phones last month. An internal email sent to staff of the European Data Protection Supervisor, seen by POLITICO, said the move aimed “to reduce the exposure of the Commission from cyberattacks because this application is collecting so much data on mobile devices that could be used to stage an attack on the Commission.”
And the Irish Data Protection Commission, TikTok’s lead privacy regulator in the EU, is set to decide in the next few months if the company unlawfully transferred European users’ data to China.
Skeptics of the security argument say that the Chinese government could simply buy troves of user data from little-regulated brokers. American social media companies like Twitter have had their own problems preserving users’ data from the prying eyes of foreign governments, they note.
TikTok says it has never given data to the Chinese government and would decline if asked to do so. Strictly speaking, ByteDance is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, which TikTok argues would shield it from legal obligations to assist Chinese agencies. ByteDance is owned 20 percent by its founders and Chinese investors, 60 percent by global investors, and 20 percent by employees.
There’s little hope to completely stop European data from going to China | Alex Plavevski/EPA
The company has unveiled two separate plans to safeguard data. In the U.S., Project Texas is a $1.5 billion plan to build a wall between the U.S. subsidiary and its Chinese owners. The €1.2 billion European version, named Project Clover, would move most of TikTok’s European data onto servers in Europe.
Nevertheless, TikTok’s chief European lobbyist Theo Bertram also said in March that it would be “practically extremely difficult” to completely stop European data from going to China.
2. A way in for Chinese spies
If Chinese agencies can’t access TikTok’s data legally, they can just go in through the back door, Western officials allege. China’s cyber-spies are among the best in the world, and their job will be made easier if datasets or digital infrastructure are housed in their home territory.
Dutch intelligence agencies have advised government officials to uninstall apps from countries waging an “offensive cyber program” against the Netherlands — including China, but also Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Critics of the cyber espionage argument refer to a 2021 study by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which found that the app did not exhibit the “overtly malicious behavior” that would be expected of spyware. Still, the director of the lab said researchers lacked information on what happens to TikTok data held in China.
TikTok’s Project Texas and Project Clover include steps to assuage fears of cyber espionage, as well as legal data access. The EU plan would give a European security provider (still to be determined) the power to audit cybersecurity policies and data controls, and to restrict access to some employees. Bertram said this provider could speak with European security agencies and regulators “without us [TikTok] being involved, to give confidence that there’s nothing to hide.”
Bertram also said the company was looking to hire more engineers outside China.
3. Privacy rights
Critics of TikTok have accused the app of mass data collection, particularly in the U.S., where there are no general federal privacy rights for citizens.
In jurisdictions that do have strict privacy laws, TikTok faces widespread allegations of failing to comply with them.
The company is being investigated in Ireland, the U.K. and Canada over its handling of underage users’ data. Watchdogs in the Netherlands, Italy and France have also investigated its privacy practices around personalized advertising and for failing to limit children’s access to its platform.
TikTok has denied accusations leveled in some of the reports and argued that U.S. tech companies are collecting the same large amount of data. Meta, Amazon and others have also been given large fines for violating Europeans’ privacy.
4. Psychological operations
Perhaps the most serious accusation, and certainly the most legally novel one, is that TikTok is part of an all-encompassing Chinese civilizational struggle against the West. Its role: to spread disinformation and stultifying content in young Western minds, sowing division and apathy.
Earlier this month, the director of the U.S. National Security Agency warned that Chinese control of TikTok’s algorithm could allow the government to carry out influence operations among Western populations. TikTok says it has around 300 million active users in Europe and the U.S. The app ranked as the most downloaded in 2022.
A woman watches a video of Egyptian influencer Haneen Hossam | Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images
Reports emerged in 2019 suggesting that TikTok was censoring pro-LGBTQ content and videos mentioning Tiananmen Square. ByteDance has also been accused of pushing inane time-wasting videos to Western children, in contrast to the wholesome educational content served on its Chinese app Douyin.
Besides accusations of deliberate “influence operations,” TikTok has also been criticized for failing to protect children from addiction to its app, dangerous viral challenges, and disinformation. The French regulator said last week that the app was still in the “very early stages” of content moderation. TikTok’s Italian headquarters was raided this week by the consumer protection regulator with the help of Italian law enforcement to investigate how the company protects children from viral challenges.
Researchers at Citizen Lab said that TikTok doesn’t enforce obvious censorship. Other critics of this argument have pointed out that Western-owned platforms have also been manipulated by foreign countries, such as Russia’s campaign on Facebook to influence the 2016 U.S. elections.
TikTok says it has adapted its content moderation since 2019 and regularly releases a transparency report about what it removes. The company has also touted a “transparency center” that opened in the U.S. in July 2020 and one in Ireland in 2022. It has also said it will comply with new EU content moderation rules, the Digital Services Act, which will request that platforms give access to regulators and researchers to their algorithms and data.
Additional reporting by Laura Kayali in Paris, Sue Allan in Ottawa, Brendan Bordelon in Washington, D.C., and Josh Sisco in San Francisco.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
MEPs cling to TikTok for Gen Z votes

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It may come with security risks but, for European Parliamentarians, TikTok is just too good a political tool to abandon.
Staff at the European Parliament were ordered to delete the video-sharing application from any work devices by March 20, after an edict last month from the Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola cited cybersecurity risks about the Chinese-owned platform. The chamber also “strongly recommended” that members of the European Parliament and their political advisers give up the app.
But with European Parliament elections scheduled for late spring 2024, the chamber’s political groups and many of its members are opting to stay on TikTok to win over the hearts and minds of the platform’s user base of young voters. TikTok says around 125 million Europeans actively use the app every month on average.

“It’s always important in my parliamentary work to communicate beyond those who are already convinced,” said Leïla Chaibi, a French far-left lawmaker who has 3,500 TikTok followers and has previously used the tool to broadcast videos from Strasbourg explaining how the EU Parliament works.
Malte Gallée, a 29-year-old German Greens lawmaker with over 36,000 followers on TikTok, said, “There are so many young people there but also more and more older people joining there. For me as a politician of course it’s important to be where the people that I represent are, and to know what they’re talking about.”
Finding Gen Z
Parliament took its decision to ban the app from staffers’ phones in late February, in the wake of similar moves by the European Commission, Council of the EU and the bloc’s diplomatic service.
A letter from the Parliament’s top IT official, obtained by POLITICO, said the institution took the decision after seeing similar bans by the likes of the U.S. federal government and the European Commission and to prevent “possible threats” against the Parliament and its lawmakers.
For the chamber, it was a remarkable U-turn. Just a few months earlier its top lawmakers in the institution’s Bureau, including President Metsola and 14 vice presidents, approved the launch of an official Parliament account on TikTok, according to a “TikTok strategy” document from the Parliament’s communications directorate-general dated November 18 and seen by POLITICO.
“Members and political groups are increasingly opening TikTok accounts,” stated the document, pointing out that teenagers then aged 16 will be eligible to vote in 2024. “The main purpose of opening a TikTok channel for the European Parliament is to connect directly with the young generation and first time voters in the European elections in 2024, especially among Generation Z,” it said.
Another supposed benefit of launching an official TikTok account would be countering disinformation about the war in Ukraine, the document stated.
Most awkwardly, the only sizeable TikTok account claiming to represent the European Parliament is actually a fake one that Parliament has asked TikTok to remove.
Dummy phones and workarounds
Among those who stand to lose out from the new TikTok policy are the European Parliament’s political groupings. Some of these groups have sizeable reach on the Chinese-owned app.
All political groups with a TikTok account said they will use dedicated computers in order to skirt the TikTok ban on work devices | Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images
The largest group, the center-right European People’s Party, has 51,000 followers on TikTok. Spokesperson Pedro López previously dismissed the Parliament’s move to stop using TikTok as “absurd,” vowing the EPP’s account will stay up and active. López wrote to POLITICO that “we will use dedicated computers … only for TikTok and not connected to any EP or EPP network.”
That’s the same strategy that all other political groups with a TikTok account — The Left, Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Liberal Renew groups — said they will use in order to skirt the TikTok ban on work devices like phones, computers or tablets, according to spokespeople. Around 30 Renew Europe lawmakers are active on the platform, according to the group’s spokesperson.
Beyond the groups, it’s the individual members of parliament — especially those popular on the app — that are pushing back on efforts to restrict its use.
Clare Daly, an Irish independent member who sits with the Left group, is one of the most popular MEPs on the platform with over 370,000 subscribed to watch clips of her plenary speeches. Daly has gained some 80,000 extra followers in just the few weeks since Parliament’s ban was announced.
Daly in an email railed against Parliament’s new policy: “This decision is not guided by a serious threat assessment. It is security theatre, more about appeasing a climate of geopolitical sinophobia in EU politics than it is about protecting sensitive information or mitigating cybersecurity threats,” she said.
According to Moritz Körner, an MEP from the centrist Renew Europe group, cybersecurity should be a priority. “Politicians should think about cybersecurity and espionage first and before thinking about their elections to the European Parliament,” he told POLITICO, adding that he doesn’t have a TikTok account.
Others are finding workarounds to have it both ways.
“We will use a dummy phone and not our work phones anymore. That [dummy] phone will only be used for producing videos,” said an assistant to German Social-democrat member Delara Burkhardt, who has close to 2,000 followers. The assistant credited the platform with driving a friendlier, less abrasive political debate than other platforms like Twitter: “On TikTok the culture is nicer, we get more questions.”

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
Creators can succeed elsewhere if TikTok is banned, Warner says

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Earlier this month, Warner, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, introduced the bipartisan RESTRICT Act, which would give the federal government power to restrict and potentially ban the app.
As for other platforms creators could transfer their skills to, the Virginia senator referenced the success of many YouTube users in turning a profit, as well as “other American sites” that “at least reimburse at a higher level” than TikTok does.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who also signed onto the RESTRICT Act, echoed Warner’s comments on MSNBC shortly after: “We’ve got other platforms, there are other platforms.”
The senators’ comments also follow a push by TikTok creators to oppose the ban during a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday evening, spearheaded by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), the app’s first major ally in Congress.
When asked about potential threats from other social media giants that collect data on American users, Warner emphasized that laws pertaining to those sites also need reform — including Section 230, he said, “which frankly gives these American sites a get out of jail free card. … I think Congress ought to act on that.”
But TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance poses too much of a threat to wait, Warner said. “As chairman of the intelligence committee, I believe TikTok poses a national security threat, and before all the potential bad action takes place, we ought to act.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 23, 2023
Congress moves against TikTok amid Biden administration ‘stalemate’

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The new legislation — co-sponsored by eleven other lawmakers, including six Democrats — underscores rising bipartisan impatience with Biden’s efforts to contain TikTok and deal with broader digital threats from China. With the administration’s own national security review of TikTok, which is being conducted by the the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., bogged down by internal disagreement, the White House quickly voiced its support for Warner’s bill Tuesday. The move signaled to lawmakers that any near-term action may have to come from Congress.
“I am concerned that CFIUS has come to a stalemate situation,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the head Democrat on the House Select Committee on China, who has signed on to a separate bill to ban TikTok. “When you have a stalemate then you end up with the status quo, and the status quo is unacceptable.”
“Clearly it’s a fraught subject for evaluation,” added Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican sponsor of Warner’s bill, who said he hoped the “broad authorities” in the legislation would help the administration find a solution.
Those lawmakers and other policymakers worry the Chinese government could get its hands on TikTok’s massive amounts of user data — including from more than 100 million American users. It’s a widespread concern: Congress, the European Union and a handful of states have all moved to prohibit the use of TikTok on government devices.
In addition to Warner’s bill, Krishnamoorthi and his counterpart on the China Select Committee, Chair Mike Gallagher, have put forward a bill to ban the app outright. So has House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul. Negotiations continue between lawmakers on how to harmonize the bill as the legislative session continues.
The White House also recognizes the risk, directing CFIUS to restart a national security review of the app early in the administration, after the Trump administration’s efforts to force a sale of the app ran aground in court. But that review has dragged on without resolution after months of debate between Treasury department officials and representatives of various national security agencies.
The White House, which worked with Warner in drafting the bill, says that the CFIUS review of TikTok continues and declined to comment on any potential impasse. But a senior administration official also added that Warner’s legislation would help the administration evaluate TikTok and other foreign apps by “allowing us to take a comprehensive approach to these threats.”
It’s not just the CFIUS review that remains up in the air. The impasse has delayed a separate Biden executive order on foreign data collection planned for over a year, and the administration still has not finished a separate Commerce Department rule on information and communications technology.

Warner and his co-sponsors hope their legislation can help nudge the administration ahead on multiple fronts. The bill would give the Commerce Department new authority and processes to evaluate the national security risks of TikTok and other foreign-made apps and products. It’s designed to override a section of U.S. law, known as the Berman amendments, that previously derailed the Trump administration’s efforts to ban the app.
“Regardless of what happens with TikTok, we need this stronger tool to go after foreign technology,” Warner said.
But some Republican China hawks remain skeptical. Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said he opposed Warner’s bill because it only gave the administration new authority to regulate TikTok, rather than mandating an outright ban. He has signed on to Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi’s bill to prohibit the app in the U.S.
“I don’t think the White House wants to do anything” about TikTok, said Rubio. “I support a ban.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 10, 2023
TikTok hires Biden-connected firm as it finds itself under D.C.’s microscope

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The fire TikTok has faced in D.C. has been building for a number of years after the Trump administration tried to ban the app. It has continued with the Biden administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. conducting a national security review of TikTok.
SKDK is seen as the most well-connected Democratic firm in Washington with former top employees in senior and mid-level roles in the Biden administration. Anita Dunn, a founding partner, returned to the White House last May where she is senior adviser after a stint in the early part of the Biden administration and work on the 2020 campaign. Other former SKDK employees in the Biden administration include deputy White House communications directors Kate Berner and Herbie Ziskend, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh and Interior Department press secretary Tyler Cherry.
While it has thrived in the Biden era, SKDK has also faced additional scrutiny for its clients. It parted ways with Starbucks last year as the coffee company tried to fend off a union organizing effort. As of 2021, the firm worked for Amazon as well but it’s unclear whether the two companies still have a relationship.
Last year, Dunn said in financial disclosure documents that she had advised a number of blue-chip American companies in the previous two years who have business before the government, including AT&T, Lyft, Pfizer and Salesforce. The firm, which is owned by the Stagwell Group, has long emphasized that it doesn’t lobby the federal government or represent companies on issues before the government.
The bill introduced by a bipartisan group of senators that could affect TikTok is supported by the White House. It would give the federal government new powers to restrict, and potentially ban, technologies from China and other nations designated as U.S. adversaries, although such an action would face howls from advocates of free speech. TikTok is seen as one of the technologies that is helping prompt that action from Congress given the worries that the Chinese government could one day use data from its millions of American users.
To try to mitigate federal government action against TikTok, the app’s Chinese owner ByteDance has spent more than $13 million on lobbying since 2019 and has hired several dozen lobbyists, including former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and John Breaux Sr. (R-La.), who work for Crossroads Strategies, as well as former Reps. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), who currently work for K&L Gates.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 10, 2023
Senate, White House push new bipartisan bill that could ban TikTok

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It’s not the first bill that seeks to tackle the perceived national security threat posed by TikTok, which is owned by Chinese-based company ByteDance.
But it almost certainly has the most momentum of any legislation introduced on the issue so far. It’s the Senate’s first bipartisan effort on TikTok this legislative cycle. It’s being pushed by two of the most powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill — Warner is chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Thune is the Senate minority whip.
And according to a statement issued during Tuesday’s presser by national security adviser Jake Sullivan, the White House is also on board.
“This bill presents a systematic framework for addressing technology-based threats to the security and safety of Americans,” Sullivan wrote. He said the RESTRICT Act would strengthen the administration’s ability to address both “discrete risks posed by individual transactions” as well as “systemic risks” posed by multiple transactions “involving countries of concern in sensitive technology sectors.” Sullivan urged lawmakers “to act quickly to send it to the President’s desk.”
The RESTRICT ACT is somewhat similar to legislation that advanced last week out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee without Democratic support. Like the House bill, it would alter a portion of U.S. law known as the Berman amendments, which allow for the free flow of “informational material” from hostile countries. In 2020, TikTok invoked those amendments as part of its successful court effort to block an attempted Trump administration ban. Warner said his bill would create a “rules-based process” that would short-circuit the Berman amendments and allow the president to restrict — or even ban — foreign apps like TikTok, as well as other technologies.
Unlike last week’s House bill, however, the RESTRICT Act does not require the Commerce Department or White House to impose bans or sanctions. It would instead task federal agencies with reviewing potential threats posed by tech emanating from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba or Venezuela. Any further restrictions, said Warner, are up to the Commerce Department.
Warner said the RESTRICT Act is meant to improve Washington’s “whack-a-mole approach” to risky foreign technologies over the last several years — including efforts to ban telecommunications equipment from Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE, as well as actions taken against Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs. “We lack, at this moment in time, a holistic, interagency, whole-of-government approach,” Warner said.
The senator explained that the RESTRICT Act would apply to existing hardware, software and mobile apps, as well as future AI tools, fintech, quantum communications and e-commerce products.

The bill’s introduction comes after more than a year of discussion within the Biden administration on whether to ban TikTok, and how to limit the ability of foreign applications like it to access Americans’ data. That includes an ongoing national security review of TikTok at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which was begun under the Trump administration but has stalled in the Biden administration amid conflict between national security and economic officials. The impasse has delayed a separate executive order on foreign data collection planned for over a year, and the administration still has not finished a separate Commerce Department rule on information and communications technology.
ByteDance has long denied any association with Beijing’s surveillance or propaganda operations. Its critics, however, point to provisions in Chinese law that require companies based in-country to comply with any and all requests from state intelligence services.
In a statement, TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said the Biden administration “does not need additional authority from Congress to address national security concerns about TikTok: it can approve the deal negotiated with CFIUS over two years that it has spent the last six months reviewing.” She called a ban on TikTok “a ban on the export of American culture and values to the billion-plus people who use our service worldwide.”
Oberwetter’s argument is similar to the one made last week by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. At the time, Meeks urged his colleagues to wait for CFIUS and warned against banning TikTok “without consideration of the very real soft power, free speech and economic consequences.”
But on Tuesday, Warner suggested many of his Democratic colleagues in the House will back the RESTRICT Act. “I can assure you that I’ve actually had very positive conversations with House Democratic colleagues who have become very interested in supporting this bill,” he said.
Despite surging bipartisan support for the RESTRICT Act, getting the bill to the president’s desk won’t be easy. TikTok regularly garners over 100 million monthly users in the United States. If the legislation is framed as a “TikTok ban bill,” that could make it tougher for vulnerable lawmakers to risk constituent ire by nuking their favorite online platform.
“This is a popular application,” Warner said, who noted that a ban would also likely trigger First Amendment concerns. “I think it’s going to be incumbent upon the government to show its cards, in terms of how this is a threat.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 8, 2023