Two presidents, Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden, have advocated the sale of TikTok to Americans for national security reasons. The arguments are bogus and done for political reasons, not national security concerns.

Is China a threat to U.S. national security? Obviously, yes. TikTok, a subsidiary of the Chinese corporation, ByteDance, and whose Chinese counterpart is Douyin, is very popular in China. Why the concern from not only two presidents, but also from Congress?

TikTok has 170 million users in the U.S. Most of those users are teens and those in their early 20s. The stated concern is that data collection by TikTok can be used to influence Americans. Here are quotes from cnn.com about the government’s arguments:

“TikTok doesn’t operate in China. But since the Chinese government enjoys significant leverage over businesses under its jurisdiction, the theory goes that ByteDance, and thus indirectly, TikTok, could be forced to cooperate with a broad range of security activities, including possibly the transfer of TikTok data.”

“Should Beijing gain access to TikTok’s user data, one concern is that the information could be used to identify intelligence opportunities — for example, by helping China uncover the vices, predilections or pressure points of a potential spy recruit or blackmail target, or by building a holistic profile of foreign visitors to the country by cross-referencing that data against other databases it holds.

“Even if many of TikTok’s users are young teens with seemingly nothing to hide, it’s possible some of those Americans may grow up to be government or industry officials whose social media history could prove useful to a foreign adversary.”

This sounds scary, but here’s TikTok’s rebuttal, again from cnn.com:

“TikTok argued in California federal court that the [Trump] administration did not give the company a fair chance to defend itself from allegations that it poses a national security risk. And it claimed Trump’s [2020] executive order illegally rests on emergency powers law in ways that do not apply to TikTok.”

“But with the Executive Order threatening to bring a ban on our US operations — eliminating the creation of 10,000 American jobs and irreparably harming the millions of Americans who turn to this app for entertainment, connection, and legitimate livelihoods that are vital especially during the pandemic — we simply have no choice.”

President Biden and Congress also jumped into the fray in March of 2024, but in both Trump’s Biden’s case, the following statements are true:

“’The President’s actions clearly reflect a political decision to campaign on an anti-China platform,’ TikTok’s complaint said” (cnn.com).

“On March 13, 2024, the House of Representatives passed the TikTok ban, with bipartisan support, in a 352-63 vote.” (The bill forcing TikTok to divest within nine months was passed by Congress and signed by President Biden.)

“The judge was presented with several First Amendment arguments. TikTok believed that the ban restricted free speech and failed under strict scrutiny [a legal term that puts the burden of proof on the government], a test that requires the government to show a compelling interest that is narrowly tailored in the least-restrictive manner.”

But pbs.org revealed the hypocrisy of all these elected leaders:

“If companies, TikTok or anybody else, were not collecting and retaining and sharing so much data in the first place, you wouldn’t need to single out TikTok for such exceptional treatment.

“…those who support this law have been very strongly saying that this law is not about the content on TikTok at all. This is all about just some national security threat that we can’t really tell you about, that it’s just dangerous for China to have all this data about U.S. users.”[boldfacing mine]

“It’s hard to take Congress seriously about data privacy if they don’t pass data privacy laws, if they don’t look at how TikTok and other social media companies retain user data, and if they don’t look at how data brokers then purchase and then redistribute that data to lots of actors, including governments and including our enemies.”

Here lies the crux of the issue: Facebook, Google, Apple, and the other social media giants are all doing the same data gathering as TikTok. China doesn’t need to use TikTok to gather information on Americans. All they have to do is go to one of these social media giants and buy the information they want.

Americans are being deceived about TikTok to demonstrate that both Republican and Democratic politicians are being tough against China.

Trump, Biden, and Congress all acted against TikTok during election years for political rather than national security issues.

The real problem is for Congress to pass legislation protecting personal privacy for all social media and not just single out TikTok to bully. Government arguments against TikTok are bogus.