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When it comes to building the Great Firewall—a tool to control and censor the internet—the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has had no trouble. When it comes to building a firewall between TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance, though, the CCP will curiously struggle. That's because TikTok is an American company in name only. It can and should be banned.
The core problem here is that the CCP controls TikTok. Explaining why is a simple two-part argument. First, there is no firewall between the CCP and China's private sector. Second, there is no firewall between TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
The first part is clearly spelled out in Chinese law, namely the 2015 National Security Law and 2017 National Intelligence Law. In particular, the national intelligence law states that "any organization or citizen shall support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work."
When you're creating the organization chart for a Chinese company, you will always need to draw an additional line at the top: the CEO reports to the CCP. When TikTik CEO Shou Chew testified before the House Energy & Commerce Committee, he admitted that he reports to ByteDance's CEO—who in turn reports to the CCP.
If any Chinese CEO displeases the CCP, the consequences are severe. When Chinese billionaire Jack Ma criticized Chinese regulators for stifling innovation, he disappeared from public view—a common occurrence in China—and the CCP also pulled the plug on the IPO of one of his companies.
The core problem here is not privacy. When the U.S. asked for Apple's help to unlock the phones of the San Bernadino terrorists, Apple rejected the request. A Chinese company like ByteDance would never have the same luxury. ByteDance employees have access to U.S. user data, which in turn means the CCP has access to U.S. user data. Even if the U.S. passes a national privacy law, ByteDance will violate that law if ordered to do so by the CCP.
During the Commerce Committee hearing, Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) shared the tragic story of 16-year-old Chase Nasca, who committed suicide after TikTok's algorithms promoted suicide content. While many social media platforms have struggled with child safety issues, only TikTok is beholden to the CCP. The CCP is committing genocide against the Uyghurs—and ByteDance has helped surveil and repress them. Does anyone honestly think the CCP cares about the well being of American children?
Case in point—Shou Chew did not even come close to displaying appropriate contrition for TikTok's role in the deaths of American children. He also refused to admit that China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs. If you want to see any contrition, look to ByteDance's CEO, who once issued a groveling apology for the Toutiao app after "content appeared that was incommensurate with socialist core values."
No parent should trust the CCP, and parents should not let Congress tolerate the CCP's control of the algorithms that feed content to their children.
Some critics say we should consider less restrictive options instead of banning TikTok. Many of these critics, however, have done little to identify those less restrictive options. Had they tried, they would have realized that it's an impossible task.
During the Commerce Committee hearing, TikTok promoted Project Texas—a project that is American in name only—which would theoretically build a firewall between TikTok and ByteDance. Nobody is buying those claims. Neither chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) nor ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) trust TikTok here. In fact, one of the biggest skeptics on the committee was Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.)—a software engineer who can see through the marketing hype and understand the technical reasons why TikTok's claims don't add up. Even TikTok's own employees are skeptical about Project Texas.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is not buying those claims, either; it threatened to ban TikTok if ByteDance does not sell it off. Previously, CFIUS unwound the acquisition of Grindr by Chinese owners, citing national security concerns. The key difference here, however, is that Grindr started out as an American company. TikTok has always been a CCP-backed company, so disentangling the CCP from TikTok will be immeasurably harder.
Attempts to divest TikTok from ByteDance will inevitably become Project Texas 2.0.
The CCP opposes a forced sale of TikTok, and it has the power to block a sale. In particular, it cited export controls as a concern, suggesting that the CCP would not approve a sale unless ByteDance retained control of TikTok's algorithms. Under that scenario, TikTok's algorithms would continue to promote digital poison—including suicide content—to American children.
Even if a clean divestment were possible, it still raises serious cybersecurity concerns. TikTok has millions of lines of code, and the CCP can insert security vulnerabilities—including zero-day vulnerabilities—into that code before TikTok is sold. It's the classic needle in a haystack problem. As an engineer, I cannot blame anyone who concludes that the cybersecurity risks are too great here.
It is easy to be a sideline critic who says we should consider alternatives to banning TikTok. It is much harder to step into the arena and propose a viable alternative that cuts off the CCP's influence, protects our national security, and protects our kids. Simply put, a viable alternative does not exist. It's time to ban TikTok.
Mike Wacker is a software engineer and technologist who has previously served as tech fellow in Congress.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
