Ban on TikTok Faces Hurdle as Top Officials Still on Platform: Cybersecurity Expert

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 23, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The ban on the Chinese video sharing app Tiktok might face hurdles as top officials are on the platform, says cybersecurity expert Rex Lee.

The Chinese app has been in the headlines recently, especially after the testimony from Singapore-based TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi before members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in late March.

At the event, Chew failed to convince lawmakers that TikTok had separated from its China-based parent company ByteDance and wouldn’t pose a national security risk.

Since then, there has been a growing call for a complete ban of the platform in the United States.

However, Lee, a security adviser at My Smart Privacy, pointed to the hearing, noting that no further actions had been taken afterwards.

Rex Lee. Courtesy of Rex Lee

“One good thing about this last TikTok congressional hearing is there was a lot of bipartisan support to ban it, which is a positive thing. But then here we are, two or three weeks later, and there’s no action being taken,” Lee told “China in Focus” on NTD, the sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.

He called such hearings “political theater,” saying, “What I find out about these congressional hearings, they’re more about politics than resolve. We see these executives go before Congress, half of the politicians in the congressional hearings are addressing the real problems, the other half aren’t, and they never seem to come to full resolution.”

Top Officials Remain on Platform

According to him, obstacles stem from the fact that there are still lawmakers using the platform.

“A lot of people don’t realize this, but over 30 members of the House and Senate are on TikTok,” he said.

He singled out the report by Axios, which states that President Joe Biden and his campaign are planning on teaming up with social media “influencers” to reach young voters.

A number of TikTok “influencers” are among the “hundreds” with whom the Biden group would work, the article reads.

“It was just in the news the other day, that the Biden administration had TikTok influencers, along with Instagram and Facebook influencers, at the White House to spread information about the Biden administration’s platform across the social media platform,” Lee said.

“So when you have congressional hearings, when you have congressional members of Congress and the Senate utilizing TikTok as well as the president, I don’t see how it’s gonna get banned anytime soon,” he added.

Powerful Lobbyists

What’s more? According to Lee, behind those tech companies are powerful lobbyists.

He pointed to Tony Podesta, the brother of former Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, who recently joined the Biden administration to serve as a senior adviser on clean energy innovation and implementation. Tony Podesta, Lee said, represents Huawei.

He further referred to David Urban, president of the lobbying firm American Continental Group and an adviser to former President Trump’s 2020 campaign, who was reportedly hired to lobby for Bytedance, TikTok’s parent company.

“So they’re hiring both advisors from both parties. And they’re not just going after the average lobbyist who may be a former member of Congress, they’re going after presidential advisors. And they’re using them to influence our laws,” Lee warned.

Updated Privacy Law Needed

Lee said that all social media platforms, including TikTok, “are built on surveillance and data mining, because the companies that developed these platforms are in the information trafficking business and that’s how they make their money. They make their money off of the information they can collect from their end users on these platforms.”

Thus, to protect users, he suggested “updated privacy laws … to put the control back into the end users hands of whether they want their data to be monetized or not.”

“And I think if you start to cut the money off in that area, that will have an impact,” he said.

“So, once you take the ability for these companies to monetize you, and sell you in terms of selling your personal and business information, once you take that motive out of the business equation, and there’s no longer money to be made there. Then you'll see privacy and security return to our electronic circuits,” Lee said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to TikTok for comment.

Melanie Sun contributed to this report.