FORT WRIGHT, Ky. — TikTok is facing the possibility of a countrywide ban amid concerns over national security. The mayor of one northern Kentucky city said he hopes it happens.
“It’s not just that you watched 15 cat videos yesterday. It’s that they have access to your contacts. They have access to your texts. They have access to your email. They could theoretically literally capture anything that’s on your device. All that’s going to China,” said Dave Hatter, the mayor of Fort Wright.
Hatter, a cyber security consultant with Intrust, has worked in IT for 30 years. He said he’s been “on the war-path” with TikTok for quite some time.
“It’s not just the data. It’s the propaganda and persuasion capabilities it brings to the table for our primary adversary, on top of the data collection,” he said. “Since it got popular, there have been an ongoing stream of privacy and security problems that have come up. In many cases, they claim to have fixed these issues. And then it’s pointed out later they really didn’t fix it.”
Hatter said he takes issue with the data collection and monetisation done by a lot of the big tech companies. But the fundamental difference with TikTok, he said: it’s owned by the Chinese company Bytedance.
“When [Bytedance] says the data is not going to China, I call B.S. on that. Because that’s how the money is made in these systems. And Chinese communist party law states they have to turn over whatever they want,” Hatter said. “China is our global adversary. They’ve made that increasingly clear recently. And you have extremely detailed, specific, granular data going to China… If you think they’re not going to use that to try to persuade Americans, to try to propagandize Americans, to try to create dissent in this country, I think that’s just short-sided.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has demanded that Bytedance either sell off TikTok or face being banned in the United States. TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, making the case the app is safe to U.S. lawmakers. The federal government, as well as several state governments, have already banned the use of TikTok on official devices.
Hatter said he’s not fully convinced the ban will happen, but he thinks it should.
“I see it as a national security emergency,” he said. “I’m 100% for banning it. And it couldn’t happen too soon, in my opinion.”
Convincing 150 million U.S. users to accept watching their cat videos somewhere else could be a challenge in itself.
