Delete TikTok Already
By Alina Clough
TikTok is on the chopping block and it’s about time. This week, a congressional panel in the House of Representatives introduced a bill to challenge the app’s ownership, with support from the White House, citing national security concerns. That’s when things got nuts.
The app started sending notifications to its American users, prompting them to put in their home zip codes and urging them to call their congressmen. TikTok claimed, falsely of course, that Congress was considering a total ban of the app that would “damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience.”
As a result, congressional offices were swarmed with calls from misinformed TikTok users — one even threatening to kill himself — hysterically begging lawmakers not to ban the app. The move backfired, with representatives’ offices eventually just turning off their phones. The House committee voted unanimously 50-0 to advance the bill that would ban TikTok to the full chamber.
The bill, which says that TikTok will only be banned if the Chinese Communist Party-controlled company Bytedance refuses to divest its ownership, is the most recent effort to extricate American devices from surveillance by a major adversary.
The app spies not just on users’ TikTok data but on their activity across other apps. TikTok was threatened with a ban by app stores for accessing users’ clipboard histories, which allowed them to see anything its users copied and pasted. Trump’s initial attempts to ban the app four years ago were met with knee-jerk reactions calling him xenophobic. Other lawmakers have failed to garner enough political support for the movement, in part due to TikTok’s intense lobbying efforts. Hopefully the millionth time is the charm.
But all of the commotion still begs the question: why does half the country have the app in the first place?
Why anyone would allow an app on their phone that has previously accessed people’s bank passwords is beyond me. But TikTok is a national security concern beyond its blatant cybersecurity issues, even more insidious is its manipulation of minds. The algorithm everyone knows and loves isn’t just designed to keep users’ attention. It’s also curated to sow political division and make Americans dumber.
Think of any heated political issue in the past few years, be it Black Lives Matter, the Israel-Palestine conflict, or the Dobbs decision. TikTok has purposefully highlighted divisive content, even when false, to spur political conflicts in the U.S. Hostile countries have always tried these sorts of tactics against the U.S., but this is easily the most successful yet, and certainly the most high-tech.
In case you think the app is merely giving users the content they want, consider that in China, its algorithm suppresses topics the CCP considers politically sensitive. The CCP weaponizes TikTok for foreign propaganda, compelling it to censor unflattering information about the regime. Scrubbed and silenced stories include the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests, the Taiwan territorial disputes, and the Uyghur genocide. The all-powerful algorithm is anything but unbiased.
Our children aren’t safe, either. The CCP has been feeding American children a media diet of trash. In China, the algorithm highlights educational content for children, such as museum exhibits, science experiments, and tips and tricks for math problems. On the homefront, American children are more likely to see twerking teens, LGBT activism, sexually suggestive content, and other mindless drivel and inappropriate themes. This is no accident.
Many Americans, conservatives included, are sucked into the algorithm because it is addicting. Some claim they only use the app for wholesome content, which may be true, but it doesn’t negate the fact that the app is insidiously chipping away at Americans’ hearts, minds, and cyber security. Many on the Right argue that it’s the only way to reach customers, voters, or other audiences, and that boycotting the app means ceding ground to the Left by abandoning free market principles. While there is an argument to be made that TikTok should be allowed to compete like the rest, keeping it around is a game of chicken we are not going to win. We’re standing on train tracks to stick it to our political opponents, and the CCP is going to flatten all of us.
This past year, conservatives pulled off possibly our only successful boycott in recent history. They made Bud Light into a punchline after effectively cancelling the brand over its collaboration with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. While the success was impressive, it’s a little pathetic what we’re willing to do for the culture war but unwilling to do for an actual national security threat. Having the TikTok app should be as embarrassing for conservatives as frat bros find being seen with a Bud Light. If you care for your country, its security, and its children, it shouldn’t take legislation — just your conscience — to sway you. Delete TikTok.
Alina Clough lives in Washington, D.C. and is a writer at Evie Magazine. She can be found on Instagram @alinatotheleft and on X @Cluffalo
