Step aside, Huawei. Beat it, Twitter. The Trump administration has anointed a new tech sack man: the TikTok viral dance app.
Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram pages feature four ads warning that “TikTok is spying on you.” and saying that Americans deserve privacy. The ads link to a poll asking if users think Trump should ban TikTok in the US, and then, of course, incite respondents to donate to the Trump campaign.
New York Times Reporter Taylor Lorenz first saw the ads, which anyone can see in the Facebook Ads Archive.
The graphics are really * chef’s kiss. *
Image: screenshot / facebook
TikTok is just the latest social media company Trump has attacked to get donations. His campaign ran short ads against Snapchat and Twitter for “meddling” in the 2020 election. Social media companies are a favorite target of Republicans, who stoke outrage from their base when they (unsubstantiated) claim that these platforms “censor” conservative voices. ”
However, the TikTok attack is a horse of a different color. Chinese company ByteDance owns TikTok, which has raised concerns about national security over whether the app may be sending US user data to China. TikTok says it doesn’t do that, nor would it comply with requests. However, a comprehensive 2017 Chinese law requires companies to comply with requests to collect national security data when requested.
Coincidentally, or not so much, over the past month, Trump administration officials have clung to anti-TikTok sentiment, as politicians and private companies have warned employees not to use it. Tensions with China are currently high, as the Trump administration continues to blame the country for the spread of the coronavirus. There’s also the fact that K-Pop fans turned activists used TikTok to mess with the Trump campaign in a way that may have seriously ruined attendance at the president’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In early July, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration was considering a TikTok ban.
A security flaw, discovered by investigators in March, is providing Trump with fodder to attack TikTok. TikTok, as well as many other news sources and applications (including Fox News), can read and collect data from an iPhone’s clipboard (that’s the space where things you have cut, copied, or pasted are stored). Apple has yet to fix the flaw in its latest version of iOS.
Image: screenshot / facebook
Despite the broad nature of the flaw, the Trump campaign specifically invokes TikTok’s connection to the clipboard vulnerability in its ads.
“TikTok has been shocked red-handed by monitoring what’s on his phone’s clipboard,” the ads read. “Sign the petition now to BAN TikTok.”
Other than the fact that many other apps are part of this flaw, it is unclear how dangerous it is. There is no evidence that TikTok is actually collecting this data. Additionally, TikTok says it only stores data from US users on servers in the US and Singapore, and does not send data to China. But great, sign the BAN!
Another ad says “Dear TikTok, Americans deserve privacy.” As much as this is true, the Trump administration and Republicans have repeatedly eroded online privacy in this administration and over the years. The sentiment that Trump cares about Americans’ online privacy is, as they say, ridiculous.
The TikTok offensive resembles another recent Trump campaign against a Chinese company. The Trump administration has expelled Chinese-owned tech companies Huawei and ZTE from the U.S., citing the same general privacy concerns about Chinese-owned companies. There’s also the fact that Huawei was trying to build the world’s 5G networks, a business that the Trump administration would prefer to go to an American company.
There are many things we don’t know about how Chinese ownership of TikTok could affect everything from personal privacy to national security. However, using its potential threat to the privacy of iPhone users as fodder for outrage seems like a cheap move for clicks, email logs, and campaign donations at best.
.
