Live updates Bill that could lead to TikTok ban heads to House floor vote
Washington PostMar 13
Spy Chief: China Could Use TikTok to Influence US Elections
The Facts
At a House of Representatives intelligence committee hearing on Tuesday, Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, warned that China could use the social media app TikTok to influence the 2024 US elections.
Haines' statement followed the US intelligence community's release of its annual threat assessment report on Monday, which expressed concern that China's "propaganda arm" reportedly used TikTok accounts to target politicians from both parties in last year's US midterm elections.
The Spin
Anti-China narrative
The US intelligence community considers TikTok to be a national security threat. Chinese state-sponsored snooping is well-known, so the company's claim that it's not breaching US residents' privacy convinces no one. An app that helps the Chinese Communist Party spy on Americans should, of course, be forced off the US market. The legislation provides the company with a way out, a way to continue operating stateside — but by forcing ByteDance to find TikTok a US owner.
Pro-China narrative
This unscrupulous attack on TikTok is designed to fuel anti-China sentiment ahead of the US presidential election, even though there is no evidence that China uses the app for spying. Without proof, the attempt to strip the app from millions of American users likely won't survive a First Amendment challenge. Instead, the government should focus on protecting users' data on all apps, not just TikTok, which it claims collects the same amount of information as any equivalent American platform.
Nerd narrative
There's an 80% chance that the United States government will either ban TikTok or force its sale before 2025, according to the Metaculus prediction community.