LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – With the federal government moving in quickly on TikTok, banning the use of the social media app on government-issue devices and the Senate introducing bipartisan legislation to give the president the authority to shut down any foreign-owned social media app deemed to be a threat to national security, Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has finally seen the writing on the wall.
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With little fanfare and no public announcement or media blitz, the Whitmer administration quietly banned TikTok from state devices on March 1st.
FBI Director Christopher Way has called TikTok a threat to national security, with the app collecting information from users and possibly being used to spy on Americans and to disseminate Chinese propaganda.
Regardless of the warning from the FBI, earlier in February, Governor Whitmer had said that TikTok was a needed communication tool for her administration. She had told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that she was using the app carefully. She said, “We use TikTok on one device that has nothing else on it. It is a communication tool. We don’t do it because it’s fun…”
She continued, “We have it on one device that has no access to anything else because so many people get their information that way. Whether we like it or not, that is a tool for disseminating important information. And that’s how we use it.”
However, somehow before TikTok existed, and even in the current environment, messages from the government are able to be relayed to communities all over the planet. This happens in the way of press releases, TV appearances, interviews, newspapers, websites, press conferences and other forms of communication.
Additionally, many of the users of TikTok are not of voting age and so they are not in need of communications sent by the state or federal government.
There are approximately 138 million active users of TikTok in the United States, many of them being teenagers and younger. A whopping 60% of TikTok users in the U.S. are between the ages of 16-24, with 32.5% of them being between the ages of 10 to 19. A Pew Research Center survey of American teenagers ages 13 to 17 that was done in 2022 found that 67% of them have used TikTok and 16% of them use it “constantly.” 86% of the teenage TikTok users say they are on the social media platform daily.
TikTok is owned by a China-based company called ByteDance, who are required, by Chinese law, to turn over data to the Chinese government upon request. It has been reported that just by having a TikTok account, personal information is able to be accessed by the Chinese government including phone numbers, email addresses, locations and contact lists.
Additionally, it is not out of the realm of possibility that TikTok could take over an account entirely, edit posts or plant their own content. Because of that, TikTok, whether used on a “secure” phone or not, still amounts to being a security threat when used by elected government officials and employees.
And even though TikTok has been “banned” from government devices in Michigan, there are exemptions including for cybersecurity, law enforcement and promotional purposes – which means Whitmer will still be using her TikTok account and keeping her 200K followers. Jayson Cavendish, Michigan’s acting chief security officer, says that her TikTok account is “accessed on a secure device that has never been on the state’s network nor connected to the state’s wireless environment.”
Before the ban, state workers had used the app for a few years in what is called a “monitored mode” which means that workers could access the app on their state devices but had to click through a security warning that had discouraged the usage. Now, the app is blocked by browsers. The social media app can be downloaded, but not opened.
At the end of 2022, seven Michigan Republicans sent Gov. Whitmer a letter asking her to ban TikTok from all state-funded devices as well as those issued to public university employees. The letter read, “This is not a partisan issue, but one of national security, and indeed the security and privacy of all Michiganders. We implore you to protect Michigan employees and our educational institutions from the threat of (Chinese Communist Party), influence, data collection and control.”
University Business says that despite security concerns, many college students still use TikTok. The website reported at the end of February, “Regardless of pressure from at least 19 state governors banning TikTok use on public university campuses for school cybersecurity, the majority of college students are thinking the same thing: ‘lol, no.’” They also reported “A recent report that surveyed 1,000 undergraduate students found that more than half of them use it to help with academic work, and of that group, 58% prefer it over search engines like Google and Bing.”
A University of Florida student said, “Even if the university restricts access to the app, I am sure there are students on campus that will easily be able to find ways to still access the app.”
It appears that privacy and national security concerns are not enough to stop many people (including Governors) from TikTok-ing.
