By Dave McKay | August 7, 2020
US Bans TikTok and WeChat Mobile Apps
It has long been known that free mobile apps make their money by selling your data to advertisers. That’s what funds most of the mobile apps in existence and, for that matter, many of the websites around the world. That’s the economics of the digital world.
What is more sinister is the collection of data for surveillance, or the censoring of messages that pass through those apps. WeChat in particular has been demonstrated to censor text and images that do not fall in line with China’s approval. The Citizen Lab has produced several studies and reports illustrating how this happens.
Two executive orders signed by Donald Trump hav effectively banned those apps from the US. They also outlaw any interaction between the companies behind the apps, ByteDance for TikTok and Tencent for WeChat, and any US company.
There’s been a massiv euptake of TikTok in the US, with roughly 175 million users. According to the TikTok executive order:
TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.
It goes on to report that:
- The Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration, and the United States Armed Forces have already banned the use of TikTok on Federal Government phones.
- The Government of India recently banned the use of TikTok and other Chinese mobile applications throughout the country; in a statement, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology asserted that they were “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India.”
- American companies and organizations have begun banning TikTok on their devices.
The WeChat executive order use much the same language and raises similar points.
Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information. In addition, the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the United States, thereby allowing the Chinese Communist Party a mechanism for keeping tabs on Chinese citizens who may be enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives.
- In March 2019, a researcher reportedly discovered a Chinese database containing billions of WeChat messages sent from users in not only China but also the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, and Australia.
- WeChat, like TikTok, also reportedly censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive and may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party.
- These risks have led other countries, including Australia and India, to begin restricting or banning the use of WeChat.
China’s response has been scathing. On August 6th, the State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave a long statement to Xinhua, the Chinese News Agency, decrying the US’s “bullying” tactics.
Bytedance have responded to the executive order, making a statement that includes:
“We have made clear that TikTok has never shared user data with the Chinese government, nor censored content at its request. We even expressed our willingness to pursue a full sale of the US business to an American company.”
It went on to say that the executive order “It risks undermining global businesses’ trust in the United States’ commitment to the rule of law and sets a dangerous precedent for the concept of free expression and open markets. We will pursue all remedies available to us in order to ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and our users are treated fairly - if not by the administration, then by the US courts.”
Microsoft are in talks to buy a portion of TikTok.
Sources: BBC, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, TikTok executive order, WeChat executive order