Tick-Tock, TikTok: What Makes It A National Security Threat

This episode delves into the recent U.S. legislation aimed at detaching TikTok from its Chinese ownership due to national security concerns.

1. The new law requires TikTok to be sold by ByteDance to mitigate national security risks.
2. Bipartisan concerns exist about data privacy and the potential for Chinese government surveillance.
3. There's anxiety over the spread of misinformation and how TikTok's algorithm could be manipulated.
4. The episode discusses the broader U.S.-China relations and their complexities.
5. There is a significant focus on the potential long-term implications for regulating social media and technology.

1: Introduction

Overview of the episode's focus on TikTok and national security concerns.
Tamara Keith: "President Biden has signed a law intended to force the sale of TikTok from its Chinese owner."

2: The Security Concerns

Details the bipartisan concerns that led to the legislation.
Shannon Bond: "There's concerns about surveillance...and the spread of disinformation propaganda on the app."

3: Legislative Response

Explains the rapid legislative response and its bipartisan nature.
Susan Davis: "Understanding how fast and bipartisan this moved through Washington speaks to how broad the concern was."

4: Disinformation Tactics

Describes the tactics used in misinformation campaigns potentially supported by China.
Shannon Bond: "We're seeing China...impersonate American voters, posting as if they're a Trump supporter criticizing President Biden."

5: Implications for Tech Regulation

Discusses the potential future of tech regulation in light of this issue.
Tyler: "There is actually increasing pressure and interest in looking at the tech industry more aggressively."

1. Stay informed about the sources of the content you consume online to avoid misinformation.
2. Educate yourself about data privacy and the permissions you grant to apps.
3. Support legislation that promotes transparency and accountability in tech companies.
4. Engage in discussions about the impact of technology on privacy and security.
5. Advocate for policies that protect users from potential surveillance by foreign powers.

After a series of classified national security briefings, Congress passed a law that will ban TikTok if it is not sold by its Chinese parent company. It is not clear what specific risks they're reacting to, but experts point to a widespread, if ineffectual, state-backed disinformation effort and other data-privacy concerns.

This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Susan Davis, and disinformation correspondent Shannon Bond.

This podcast was produced by Kelli Wessinger and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.

People

Tamara Keith, Susan Davis, Shannon Bond

Companies

ByteDance

Books

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Guest Name(s):

Shannon Bond

Content Warnings:

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And I'm Tyler. And we're on our way to the Grand Canyon for the first time. This podcast was recorded at 118 pm eastern time on Monday, April 29. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. All right, here's the show.

It really is grand. I've been there. It's spectacular. It is grand. Does not disappoint.

Hey there. It's the NPR politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis.

I cover politics. And NPR's Shannon bond is here as well. Hello. Hello, guys. President Biden has signed a law intended to force the sale of TikTok from its chinese owner.

And if the social media platform doesn't divest from that ownership, it could be banned in the US. The bill passed as part of a national security package, raising the question what tick tock actually has to do with national security, which is something that you looked into. Shannon, let's start with what concerns lawmakers raised. Well, we've heard a lot of general concerns, I'd say. Right.

Tyler

So there's questions about data privacy because of this relationship with this chinese owner, ByteDance, and the questions of what kind of pressure the chinese government might put on the company to potentially pass data along from american users. So there's concerns about sort of like surveillance or, you think about government officials or members of the military using TikTok. And if there's data being transferred, that might be an issue. They've also raised questions around the spread of disinformation propaganda on the app, and particularly this idea that China, the chinese government could again be leaning on Bytedance, the TikTok's owner, to influence the TikTok algorithm to spread pro China messages to suppress information that China doesn't want. But I will say one of the issues with evaluating these claims is that we've heard from lawmakers that they've had classified briefings with intelligence officials.

Some of them come out saying, we're quite concerned, but they actually haven't publicly shared some of this evidence that they're seeing. So in a lot of ways, some of these concerns they've raised sort of remain theoretical. So what I wanted to do is say, okay, what do we actually know about in the case of propaganda, disinformation, misinformation, particularly around, say, elections, what do we actually know about TikTok and kind of how it fits into the larger picture of social media and how foreign governments, including China, may be using social media or trying to manipulate social media? You know, part of what makes this such a fascinating new law is how fast it came together. Congress just generally does not move on issues of big policy debates as quickly as they did.

And I think, as Shannon referenced, these intelligence briefings that were given to all lawmakers, also, what made this sort of extraordinary and such a divided Congress was the big bipartisan support that this legislation had. And also, frankly, the willingness of Congress to regulate the tech industry, any element of the tech industry, which they have basically been incapable of doing since the nineties. So I think understanding how fast and bipartisan this move through Washington does sort of speak to how broad the concern was within the entirety of the US government of the potential influence TikTok could have. And so, Shannon, you, as you say, dug into what publicly available information there is about the spread of disinformation by China via TikTok or otherwise. What did you find?

Tyler

Yeah, so, I mean, I think we all, we've been talking a lot over the years about social media and foreign influence. The intelligence community, tech companies outside researchers say China does present what seems to be a growing threat. There has just been more activity from China in terms of online information operations as part of what the intelligence intelligence community sees as China's broader goals. There was a report earlier this year from the office of the director of National Intelligence saying, you know, what China is aiming to do is sowing doubts about us leadership and ultimately undermine democracy. And so, you know, social media is part of that, the toolkit, if you're trying to influence opinion.

And so we have seen that on TikTok, but as well as other social media platforms like Facebook, like Twitter, now known as X. And I think the broad picture that emerges when you look at sort of what tech companies have said about this and what researchers have said about this, the public information we have is that TikTok is one of the platforms that's being used, but it may not be sort of being used differently than, say, Facebook or Instagram or X or, you know, lots of other social media platforms are being used. So. So what are these efforts at disinformation look like in practice? What are people seeing?

What's coming up in their feeds? Well, this may sound familiar from, you know, what we've talked about, how Russia has previously exploited social media. But we're seeing things. We're seeing China in some cases, start to impersonate american voters, you know, posting as if they're a Trump supporter criticizing President Biden, you know, claiming falsely that, you know, Biden stole the 2020 election. We've seen also this real zeroing in around, you know, existing divisive topics in the US.

Tyler

So things like immigration or LGBTQ rights, and you're sort of seeing more and more of these networks of fake accounts that are targeting these issues. In some cases, I spoke with Microsoft, and Microsoft says, and in some cases, they've seen some of these accounts they've linked to China, appearing to actually poll Americans on, like, what are the most divisive issues with the idea? Maybe that's something they could jump on here. Shannon, there was an interesting line in your reporting in which Microsoft basically says, like, they're not necessarily that good at this right now, but if they were to get better, it could have even more profound effects. And I thought that was really interesting.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly what some of this concern is around. Right. These are sort of behaviors. As I said, we've seen Russia do some of the same things over the years. I mean, somebody, it feels like China is a little bit late to the game.

But the scale of what China is. Doing is particularly what is, you know, one things that stands out there is a chinese network of fake accounts that's been running sort of across various social media platforms, including TikTok, including Facebook, but also, like, much smaller platforms, even sort of random forums. It's known as spamouflage in the industry. And last year, meta, Facebook's owner said it was the largest covert influence operation they have ever taken down. But it hasn't been that effective.

Tyler

You know, they have not. These accounts have not necessarily gained a lot of followers. They haven't moved the needle. The question is, as China sort of refines its efforts and, as I said, sort of takes on these newer tactics of, say, actually impersonating Americans and in some cases using generative AI, using artificial intelligence to, say, fake images or write more convincingly in English, there's a question over will that be more convincing? Might that actually be the sort of thing that we then see these efforts having more of an impact on american voters and sue?

All of this is coming at a pretty tenuous time for US China relations. If you think about what this TikTok potential ban was included in, was in this foreign aid package that also included money for Taiwan that China very forcefully opposed that includes billions of dollars, not just to bolster us military in the Indo Pacific, but also direct aid to Taiwan to bolster their military. China has responded to this legislative package, saying that they oppose it and that they intend to respond forcefully to it. I think it's an understatement to say that U. S.

China relations are at a minimum complex right now. And it's clear that the Biden administration is trying to open up a dialogue. Secretary Blinken just took a very well publicized trip to China. Look, the US interest and the China interest in so many ways run in direct conflict with each other. And how to deconflict that is not just something for this president to figure out, but one of the big foreign policy questions for this country in the coming generation.

All right, well, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, the domestic politics of the potential ban on TikTok. This message comes from NPR. Sponsor PolicyGenius life insurance should be part of your financial plan and usually costs more as people get older. PolicyGenius technology makes it easy to compare life insurance quotes.

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Susan Davis

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Just use herobread. Get 10% off your order at Hero co with code heropod at checkout. That's Heropod co. And we're back. And I want to ask about the timeline here.

President Biden has signed the law, but what is next? And is tick tock gonna just allow this to happen? They are definitely not. So first of all, just in terms of the timeline, this doesn't take effect immediately. And as you said at the top, this bill doesn't immediately ban TikTok.

Tyler

It says that basically ByteDance needs to sell TikTok and so needs to find an alternate owner, presumably a non chinese based owner. And if they do that to the satisfaction of the US, then they wouldn't ban it. But if they don't divest the app, then it would be banned in the US, meaning you couldn't, it would have to be taken out of App Stores and people couldn't sort of download updates to it. But again, that's a long timeline, and tick Tock has made very clear they are not going to just let this happen. They've already indicated they are planning on suing under a couple of different claims, including First Amendment rights.

Tim, it also seems worth noting that the irony here, that this is a law signed by President Biden, but also his reelection campaign is made quite clear. They intend to keep using the platform through the election. Right. A campaign official told me that they do intend to continue being out there on the app with an official account for the Biden campaign, also working with TikTok influencers who are very important in delivering the Biden campaign's message to voters. Now, why would they do that?

Well, one, they insist they have very stringent safety protocols. And this TikTok app is getting nowhere near government devices. It's not on a shared device. It's cordoned off. But also they believe that the stakes are high enough in this election that they are willing to use this app that the president was obviously willing to ban.

I think that they are willing to get past any concerns about irony or hypocrisy if they can reach voters, especially young voters, who they're having trouble with generally, which makes this recent truth social post from former President Trump kind of entertaining. He actually put out this post saying, quote, just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Joe Biden is responsible for. Banning TikTok, which isn't also, again, another irony here, because when he was president, Donald Trump was also opposing tick tock, but now he's against the ban. Right? I mean, the Trump administration is sort of the ones that started this in the first place.

Tyler

And, you know, back to the point of just, you know, how quickly this moved and differently than the pace of things normally in Washington. I mean, there was also, you know, this investigation launched under the Trump administration by CFIUS, this, you know, body that examines foreign owners ownership of companies and has in the past forced divestitures, for example, with the app grinder. That investigation, as far as we know, hasn't concluded, and yet Congress moved quickly on it. At this moment, it's just sort of, there's a lot of questions around these timelines. Now, the ban, if it were to happen, would not take effect until after the November election.

Convenient. And I believe, if I'm correct, the final version of the legislation shifted that moment of reckoning until after the election, which probably got it. Bipartisan support. Yeah, it certainly helped make it through. Congress is giving them.

And I do think, like, look, there was a lot of skepticism, and there maintained some skepticism on Capitol Hill about this type of singular regulation of one company, and it's almost certainly gonna go through legal challenges. But there was some lawmaker resistance to this idea. This isn't something Congress does a lot. It is a pretty extraordinary act. I think.

Again, it goes back to this, and we don't know the answer to it, but at least behind closed doors, it was a compelling enough case that an overwhelming number of lawmakers believed that this was necessary for the national security of the United States. There was a massive amount of last minute lobbying from TikTok users. Sure, calling members of Congress, which seems to have backfired. Right. I mean, there are members of Congress who'd said that was actually the sort of thing they then felt like that was an example of how the platform could be manipulated.

Yeah, it's also like a way just politically, it's such an unusual thing because, well, one, Congress doesn't do a whole lot to begin with. Right. Government. And this is. I'm oversimplifying this for political terms, but it's rare to see the government try to take away something that's really popular.

And people like. Right. Like, social media is a defining feature of our lives now, and people tend to feel pretty positive about it, and they rely on it. And this is much more complicated. And people might have access to TikTok for the rest of their lives, depending on how the sale and everything goes out.

But the sense of this is that, like, the government is trying to regulate speech or how you get your information. And I think it can create a real public backlash towards members that did this, because the perception of what government is trying to do here, I think, turns a lot of people off. And again, I mean, I think one of the things to really get back to here is, like, like you said, we don't. We haven't seen sort of the particular evidence that TikTok is, you know, worse than some of these other apps, you know, in these questions, whether it's data, data privacy, or whether it is, you know, spreading propaganda and disinformation, but you're targeting just one company here, and you could make, frankly, the arguments that have been made about TikTok, you could make about Facebook, right? You could make about X, certainly.

Tyler

Even though there is bipartisan support in a lot of ways, say, around child safety and concerns about child safety on social media, we have not seen Congress move nearly as quickly. I mean, you did hear that from some members of Congress, including Senator Markey of Massachusetts, saying, you know, he just, he felt like, you know, any of these claims you can make about TikTok, you could be making about these other companies, in his view, is why are we not passing more comprehensive regulation of the tech industry? Well, sue, that would be hard. I don't think that that's something that's going to be happening anytime soon. But I do think that there is like, there is actually increasing pressure and interest in looking at the tech industry more aggressively and in both parties.

And I think it's an industry that doesn't have as many friends in Washington as compared to other major us industries. So there is certainly momentum there. But this is going to take a very long time for any kind of comprehensive regulation, certainly of social media companies and how people access information. All right. Well, Shannon, thank you for coming back on the pod.

Tyler

Always happy to do it. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics podcast.

Shannon Bond

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Claire

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I

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