Indian and US lawmakers may be influenced by factors beyond national security in cracking down on TikTok, say observers.
An illustration photo shows a person using the video-sharing app TikTok on a smartphone in New Delhi – India is the Chinese app’s biggest international market
SINGAPORE: On Jun 29, the Indian government banned TikTok, WeChat, and 57 other Chinese mobile apps citing national security and privacy concerns, and to ensure the “safety and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace”.
On Jul 6, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said his administration is “certainly looking at” banning Chinese social media apps, including TikTok, possibly over national security concerns as well.
Should other nations be concerned and take similar action?
To understand the impact of this ban, we need to understand the reach of these apps. According to social media management platform Hootsuite, TikTok is the sixth largest social media network in the world, with 800 million active users worldwide in more than 150 countries.
Users create and share short videos between three and 15 seconds long, which often involve lip-syncing, dancing, singing or comedy routines. Thousands of individuals, including many in the US and India, have built large fan followings by creating content on the app, earning full time incomes via brand endorsements.
India’s top TikTok influencer Riyaz Ali has over 40 million followers as of July, with other personalities not far behind.
Businesses around the world use the platform to target Generation Z consumers, as the 13 to 24-year-old segment represents up to 69 per cent of TikTok’s user base.
Public health authorities have also used TikTok to better engage and inform young people on COVID-19. The World Health Organization posts short, shareable video explainers on TikTok to bust myths around COVID-19.
Adults and business will face even more impact from the banning of WeChat, which is the fifth most popular social network in the world, with more active users than Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. It is a social media platform, messaging app and payments channel, with about 1.2 billion monthly active users worldwide.
CONCERNS ABOUT TIKTOK AND WECHAT
With all of its popularity, TikTok also has its share of cybersecurity issues.
TikTok denies allegations it censors political content to appease China
Cybersecurity firm Check Point revealed in December 2019 that multiple security vulnerabilities in the app would allow hackers to manipulate content and reveal personal information about users. These flaws have since been patched.
Authorities also have concerns about TikTok’s content regulation. US lawmakers accuse TikTok of censoring content that is against the Chinese government, including political speech, and have raised concerns that it could be used for counterintelligence or foreign influence campaigns.
This resulted in the US conducting a national security review of TikTok’s corporate activities in November 2019.
Other Chinese apps have also been subject to attention from researchers. Most recently, The Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto reported that WeChat scans images and documents shared between users both inside and outside of China, and flags them for potentially politically sensitive content.
Both TikTok and WeChat are owned by Chinese technology companies, ByteDance and Tencent respectively, which are subject to Chinese laws.
US and Indian lawmakers, among others, have raised concerns that they could therefore be used for, or compelled to aid in, surveillance, espionage, or intellectual property theft.
WIDER SECURITY CONCERNS WITH APPS
TIkTok is hardly the only app that has been criticised for cybersecurity flaws though.
Researchers have found several apps including LinkedIn, the New York Times and Weibo, have violated the privacy of Apple users by reading text from the clipboard, where cut and paste information is stored.
The WhatsApp app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration.
On Feb 21, VICE reported that private WhatsApp group chats could easily be found by on Google Search, along with phone numbers of group members.
Other platforms have also been accused of censorship and mishandling personal data.
When Facebook removed popular pages and groups for spreading hate speech, conservatives and right-wing activists accused it of censoring their messaging because of left-wing liberal bias.
Facebook also allowed the personal data of millions of its users to be harvested by political data firm Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 US Presidential Election Campaign.
CHINESE APPS AS GEOPOLITICAL THREATS
While these national security concerns have beset many major technology platforms, the US and Indian governments have focused on TikTok and other Chinese apps, possibly influenced by other factors.
The market dominance of Chinese apps in countries such as India has led to greater awareness of technology platforms as a geopolitical threat, where dominance of Chinese technology companies enables the export of Chinese values, norms and power globally.
India has been promoting domestic innovation through Indian start-ups and technology companies using its “Make in India” campaign.
Indian video-app Roposo saw a 22 million user increase in two days after the TikTok ban was announced.
FILE PHOTO: A vendor weighs vegetable next to an advertisement of Paytm, a digital payments firm, hanging amidst his vegetables at a roadside market in Mumbai, India, April 2, 2019.
However, cracking down on Chinese apps could be risky as many Indian technology companies and start-ups receive funding from Chinese investors. For instance, Alibaba owns over a 40 per cent stake in Paytm, India’s leading payment services company.
Already after the ban was announced, Zomato, a popular food delivery app in India, has lost funding from its largest Chinese investor, Ant Financial. ByteDance could shelve its plans to invest US$1 billion in India.
But these economic risks have been overshadowed by increasing anti-China sentiments following the deadly border clash in northern Ladakh in June, where 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
The Indian government has taken a quick, decisive and public response in banning TikTok and other apps. A ban on apps is more affordable than imposing economic sanctions, and infinitely safer than military escalation.
As for the US, it is embroiled in a trade war with China and has been calling on allies to ban Chinese technology companies like Huawei from their telecom infrastructure and from outsourcing the building of their 5G networks, similarly citing national security concerns.
Since 2019, US military personnel and staff of some government agencies, like the Transport Security Administration, have already been prohibited from using TikTok, so a wider ban would not be surprising.
TIKTOK A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT OR A VICTIM?
TikTok is under immense pressure as India is its biggest market with 611 million downloads, almost one third of its total 2 billion downloads globally, and the US is the next largest market after China.
Strategies to overturn the ban, regardless of any cybersecurity or privacy measures they may implement, may be unsuccessful due to overriding geopolitical and economic considerations.
This is not to say that these apps are merely innocent victims of anti-Beijing sentiment.
FILE PHOTO: WeChat mascots are displayed inside Tencent office at the TIT Creativity Industry Zone in Guangzhou, China May 9, 2017.
TikTok’s attitude towards user security and privacy has been criticised by independent researchers, and its handling of data and safety of young children is under investigation by the UK government.
Chinese citizens have been arrested for things they said in WeChat rooms.
As far as national security is concerned, risks of privacy, security, or intellectual property are inherent in many mobile apps, not just TikTok or WeChat.
We should be wary of handling sensitive or highly confidential data or transactions on the same devices upon which we use much less secure apps for entertainment.
For instance, the US military also banned Pokemon Go and fitness tracking app Strava for inadvertently exposing locations of secret military bases.
Unlike the US and India, which are huge economies with domestic industries, smaller states must think carefully before banning any technology. National security risks or geopolitical issues should be weighed against economic needs.
This is especially true for those with businesses operating in global markets and who must adopt the technologies that their customers prefer, such as WeChat or TikTok.
The continuing fracture of the internet on geopolitical lines – with rising tension between the UUS and China – will leave all countries worse for wear, if international cooperation is eroded by trade disputes, embargoes and bans.
Businesses often suffer because of geopolitical disputes, and this will not be the last time that Chinese tech companies are targeted, especially if China’s rise is viewed as a threat. Those caught in the middle have no choice but to make back-up plans and be nimble in a shifting geopolitical landscape.
Benjamin Ang is Senior Fellow, Cyber Homeland Defence Program and Deputy Head at the Centre of Excellence for National Security, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University. Dymples Leong is Senior Analyst at the same centre.
