Should TikTok Be Banned?
TikTok is a “social media platform designed for creating, editing, and sharing short videos between 15 seconds and three minutes in length. TikTok provides songs and sounds as well as filters and special effects that users can add to their videos.” The app, launched in 2018, is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. here are concerns that the company could share sensitive user data with the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP), track the videos watched by Americans, and even manipulate the information seen by Americans to sway public opinion about China and influence American elections, serving, in a sense, as a propaganda and spying arm of the CCP. Some observers see this mission as part of China’s “Digital Silk Road” initiative, launched in 2015. These concerns have led to debates about whether to ban the app on government devices and, further, for everyday citizens. For more on TikTok bans, explore the ProCon debate.
Former Candidates
Not Clear or Not Found
Editors’ Note: Biden indicated support of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, while the bill is not a TikTok ban, it does give the president the power to effectively ban the app by disallowing any ByteDance app from American app stores or websites. On Apr. 14, 2024, Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act as included in the National Security package.
Biden approved a TikTok ban on federal government devices on Dec. 29, 2022 by signing the spending bill in which it was included. The Biden administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (Cifus) demanded that Chinese owners sell their stakes in the app or face a U.S. ban of the app in Mar. 2023.
However, Biden signed Executive Order 14034 on June 9, 2021, which overturned Trump’s Executive Order 13942 that banned TikTok (as well as two other Trump executive orders that focused on Chinese social media companies) and ordered a review of foreign-owned apps by government agencies.
-Maxwell Zeff, “TikTok Divest-or-Ban Bill Passes in the Senate,” gizmodo.com, Apr. 23, 2024
Deepa Shivaram, “President Biden Would Ban TikTok. But Candidate Biden Is Using It for His Campaign,” npr.org, Mar. 6, 2024
John D. McKinnon, “U.S. Threatens Ban if TikTok’s Chinese Owners Don’t Sell Stakes,” wsj.com, Mar. 15, 2023
David Ingram, “Biden Signs TikTok Ban for Government Devices, Setting Up a Chaotic 2023 for the App,” nbcnews.com, Dec. 30, 2022
“Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok. He is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant, and able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the Republican Party. It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE! Young people, and lots of others, must remember this on November 5th, ELECTION DAY, when they vote! They also must remember, more importantly, that he is destroying our Country, and is A MAJOR THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”
“Andrew Ross Sorkin: You have called TikTok a national security threat. At one point you said that they are quote, “data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans personal and proprietary information.” And yet it appears that you’ve now reversed your view on banning TikTok. Why is that?
Trump: So I had it done. And then Congress said well they never they ultimately usually fail. They are a good like, extremely political and they’re extremely subject to people called lobbyists who happen to be very talented, very good and very rich. I could have banned TikTok I had his banned just about I could have gotten it done. But I said you know what, but I’ll leave it up to you. I didn’t push him too hard because you know, let them do their own research and development. And they decided not to do it. But as you know, I was at a point where I could have gotten it done if I wanted to. I sort of said, You guys decide you make that decision because it’s a tough decision to make. Frankly, there are a lot of people on Tik Tok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it. There are a lot of users. There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media. what Facebook did was lockboxes with a $500 million Zucker bucks lockboxes that he put in, I mean I consider illegal but you know they, you know they put people in jail when they spend. They put people in jail when they spend more than $5,600 in a campaign. They to jail if they’re $200 Look at Dinesh D’Souza they put him in jail over a couple of 100 bucks. And yet here’s the guy spends $500 million and he doesn’t go to jail….
I do believe that I do believe it [that TikTok is a national security threat] and we have to very much go into privacy and make sure that we are protecting the American people’s privacy and data rights. And I agree but you know, we also have that problem with other you have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies too. I mean, they get the information, they get plenty of information and they deal with China, and they’ll do whatever China wants. You know, if you look at some of our American companies, when you talk about high highly sophisticated companies that you think are American they are not so American they deal in China and China if China wants anything from them, they will give it so that’s a national security risk also, but when I look at it, I’m not looking to make Facebook, double the size. And if you if you ban TikTok Facebook and others, but mostly Facebook will be a big beneficiary. And I think Facebook has been very dishonest. I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”
“As far as TikTok is concerned we’re banning them from the United States.”
Editors’ Note: On Aug. 6, 2020, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13942 that banned transactions between ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) and U.S. citizens, effectively banning the app altogether. However, on Nov. 12, 2020, citing a court case brought by three TikTok stars–Douglas Marland (comedian), Cosette Rinab (fashion influencer), and Alex Chambers (musician)–the U.S. Department of Commerce stated it would not enforce the ban.
-Donald Trump, truthsocial.com, Apr. 22, 2024
CNBC, “CNBC Transcript: Former President of the United States Donald Trump Speaks with CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ Today,” cnbc.com, Mar. 11, 2024
Daniel Lippman, “Trump Says He Plans To Ban TikTok in the U.S.,” politico.com, July 31, 2021
Sources for Editors’ Note: Bobby Allyn, “Trump Signs Executive Order That Will Effectively Ban Use Of TikTok In the U.S.,” npr.org, Aug. 6, 2020
John D. McKinnon and Georgia Wells, “U.S. Backs Down on TikTok,” wsj.com, Nov. 12, 2020