Imagine it was the height of the Cold War, and London, Paris or Washington had decided to allow Soviet propaganda to be freely broadcast to every family home.
April 17, 2024 4:00 am CET
Dimitar Lilkov is a senior research officer at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in Brussels.
In mid-2020, a lethal clash occurred between Indian and Chinese troops in the border region of Ladakh. Soon after, India charged the digital front, banning dozens of Chinese mobile applications and declaring them harmful to Indian sovereignty and security. One of these apps, with more than 200 million active users, was TikTok.
After the ban, the Chinese-owned social media app disappeared from Indian stores almost overnight. However, irritated influencers and tantrum teens weren’t left in the cold for long, as a number of similar apps mushroomed, quickly filling the void.
India’s skirmish with Chinese apps sets an important precedent. First, it reminds us that there’s no such thing as an irreplaceable app. But more importantly, it highlights the fact that Chinese apps are an extension of the Chinese state, and should be treated as a national security threat.
And therein lies the crux of the matter. Getting lost in the free speech argument is the wrong approach. As correctly pointed out by a members of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission, this is about conduct — not content. The fundamental issue here isn’t freedom of expression, it’s whether an online service is being used for nefarious purposes.
Is TikTok a malign app that causes (in)direct harm to users while also being a tool for a foreign adversary? We have mounting evidence that it is.
We know that TikTok has been used to spy on Western journalists, and the company’s representatives have continuously lied about its storage of user data. Personal data from the U.S. and Europe has been siphoned to Beijing for years, where it’s been combed for valuable data and sensitive information.
Of course, one would be correct to note that similar sins are committed by the likes of Meta or X (formerly Twitter) as well — both companies are far from cleaning up their own track record on user privacy and the spread of disinformation. With TikTok, however, we’re faced with an unknown degree of manipulation.
Journalistic deep dives have showcased just how quickly the TikTok algorithm can pinpoint users’ moods, beliefs and preferences, leading down a rabbit hole of self-harm and depression. Moreover, the platform’s been used to accelerate propaganda against Western governments, becoming one of the main outlets of anti-patriotism and distrust toward democracy.
For example, there’s now evidence of how days within Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, TikTok walled off its Russian service from the rest of the world, leaving Russian users in the echo chamber of Kremlin propaganda. Meanwhile, another investigation has shown how TikTok widely amplifies political clashes on a number of issues in Western countries, while downgrading or censoring topics like Hong Kong, Tibet, the Tiananmen Square massacre or the genocide of Uyghur Muslims.
It’s beyond belief that European countries, which have strict rules regarding media ownership and threats of foreign subversion when it comes to traditional press or television, choose to remain mute when such an obvious threat manifests online. Imagine it was the height of the Cold War, and London, Paris or Washington had decided to allow Soviet propaganda to be freely broadcast to every family home.
This isn’t something to be taken lightly. TikTok is becoming the go-to place for teens and youngsters to get their news and shape their opinions. And the “funny dance video platform” already has 150 million active users in the U.S., and over 100 million across the EU. We shouldn’t allow such a platform to have unhindered access to our citizens, while it has direct links to the Chinese Communist Party and is bound by Chinese national security law to cooperate with the state.
It took the EU a long time to realize there were serious threats coming from the roll-out of Chinese hardware infrastructure and untrusted vendors like Huawei or ZTE. And the hasty solution to ban TikTok only on government devices was just a fig leaf. European governments are openly admitting they have security concerns about this app, but they’re afraid to discuss additional measures because of political backlash or provoking China’s ire. Meanwhile, over in the U.S., pushback against banning TikTok is even coming from the ranks of the Republican Party, from several legislators sponsored by an American billionaire who has a sizeable share in the app.
This is shortsighted. The EU needs to have a better offensive digital arsenal — not just when it comes to TikTok, but all other apps that serve harmful purposes or act on behalf of a foreign adversary. And the European Commission needs to have the option of proposing a complete ban of certain software or apps to all EU member countries, once it completes an objective assessment that proves malign intent.
The Chinese market’s completely sealed off to Western news outlets, Big Tech apps and certain European software services. Yet, Western democracies openly give China direct access to the hearts and minds of its young for the sake of advertisement opportunities, sponsorship deals or just because of pure negligence. This isn’t just politically irresponsible, it’s dangerous.