U.S. Intelligence Agencies say that they have no proof that TikTok is a national security threat

U.S. Intelligence Agencies say that they have no proof that TikTok is a national security threat،

THE Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act Invoice passed the House last week with approval from both sides of the aisle. The vote count was 352-65 in favor of the bill which now heads to the Senate where it will have a harder time passing. President Joe Biden has already said that if the bill reaches his desk, he will sign it. The proposed legislation will ban apps that require U.S. users to submit a user profile and are under the control of U.S. adversaries such as Russia, China, North Korea or Iran.

US intelligence has no proof that TikTok worked with the Chinese communist government

As for TikTok, the bill would ban the platform in the United States unless its owner, Chinese company ByteDance, divests its stake in the American subsidiary. The fear is that ByteDance is close to the Chinese communist government and that the personal data it collects from American TikTok subscribers will be sent to a server in Beijing. Despite all the concerns about TikTok, The interception reports that US intelligence has been unable to obtain any evidence that TikTok is dealing with the Chinese government.

Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok

TikTok itself claims that it has never shared its users' data with the Chinese government and would refuse to do so even if asked. TikTok CEO Shou Chew, who testified before Congress almost exactly a year ago, said last week that when it comes to TikTok, “there is no CCP (Chinese Communist Party) ownership.” .” Even if U.S. intelligence agencies agree to follow up on lawmakers' concerns about TikTok, agencies like the FBI and CIA have yet to find a definitive link between TikTok and Beijing.

Consider a comment made by CIA Director William Burns to CNN in 2022. Burns said it was “troubling to see what the Chinese government might do to manipulate TikTok.” Note that Burns expressed concern that the Chinese government could do with TikTok, not what the government did.

Also in 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray made a very similar comment when he said that “TikTok's parent company is controlled by the Chinese government, and that gives them the ability to exploit the app from 'a way that I think we should be concerned about.' Like Burns' commentary, Wray speaks of the potential for the Chinese government to use TikTok against the United States and does not give the impression that the FBI has any evidence that such a thing happened.

Wray said this at another point in 2022: “I would say we have national security concerns, at least on the FBI side, about TikTok. They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use it to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm that could be used for foreign influence operations if they wanted. ” Word possibility tells us that the Chinese government has not yet used TikTok to obtain data on Americans.

Many countries, including the United States, use social media to influence and manipulate citizens of other countries.

The possibility of the CCP influencing American voters in November weighs on some U.S. government officials. On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, the U.S. government's top intelligence official, testified before the House Intelligence Committee and was asked whether China would use TikTok to try to influence elections Haines said: “We cannot rule out that the CCP could use it. »

But the truth is that many countries, including the United States, use social media to try to influence the outcome of foreign elections. Last Monday, in its annual intelligence community threat assessment, the report noted: “TikTok accounts run by a [People’s Republic of China] The propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the 2022 U.S. midterm election cycle.”

Reuters reported this week that when Donald Trump was president, he signed an executive order authorizing the CIA to use social media to influence and manipulate public opinion among Chinese citizens. And the United States does this kind of thing with other countries and terrorist groups.

None of that matters when TikTok and China are involved, as the bill's final vote in the House proves. As we said earlier, getting through the Senate will be a more difficult task.