GOP Officials Raise Alarm Over US Guardsman in TikTok Ad

The logo of Chinese video app TikTok is seen on the side of the company's new office space at the C3 campus in Culver City, in the westside of Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 11, 2020. Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images

A video advertisement released by TikTok featuring an Air National Guardsman has drawn concerns among two Republican lawmakers, who say it appears to be a “de facto” endorsement of the U.S. military of the Chinese-owned video app amid heightened security concerns.

“Chinese intelligence and security services use TikTok to surveil, exploit, and manipulate the American people,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote in a letter (pdf) addressed to Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau.

The lawmakers expressed concern over the participation of Jon Lynch, an Air National Guard member based in New Hampshire, in the TikTok ad released last month.

“My name is Jon Lynch, and I’m a member of the National Guard. I use my TikTok channel to spread helpful and useful information to benefit military members and their families,” Lynch said at the beginning of the short video.

The National Guard member states the platform allows him to “reach the military community.”

“TikTok allows me to give other military members and other families these experiences to appreciate this life that they’re in,” Lynch said.

“The video appears to serve as a de facto National Guard endorsement of TikTok’s platform,” Stefanik and Hawley said in the letter dated April 28, which was first reported by Politico. “This is extremely concerning given the known threats TikTok poses to Americans—especially so as TikTok is now banned on all U.S. government devices.”

In response, Lt. Col. Greg Heilshorn, director of public affairs at the New Hampshire National Guard, stated Lynch has been running his TikTok channel “on his own time with his own equipment.”

“He has worked with our public affairs office to ensure he is in accordance with military policy,” Heilshorn said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

TikTok was founded and owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based tech giant. The ties have raised bipartisan concerns in Congress, especially after leaked recordings revealed that ByteDance engineers in China had repeatedly accessed the platform’s U.S. data as of January 2022.

The two lawmakers noted the short-video platform was beholden to China’s intelligence law, which compels “any organization or citizen” to “support, assist, and cooperate” with security and intelligence agencies when asked by Beijing.

While TikTok’s Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas testified to senators in September 2022 that TikTok has “strict controls in terms of who and how our data is accessed” and vowed that “under no circumstances would we give that data to China,” the company’s executive declined to make a commitment that the app would cut off flows of Americans’ data to China.

A woman walks past the headquarters of ByteDance, the parent company of video sharing app TikTok, in Beijing, China, on Sept. 16, 2020. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

During a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on March 8, FBI Director Christopher Wray reaffirmed that TikTok poses national security and privacy concerns and could be used as a tool by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to manipulate the thinking of millions of Americans.

“The National Guard plays an integral role in carrying out the National Defense Strategy, which correctly identifies China as our most consequential strategic competitor,” Stefanik and Hawley said in the letter.

“Not only does TikTok play a leading role in manipulating American citizens’ perceptions of China generally, but influence operations like this could directly undermine the National Guard’s ability to mobilize in crisis or conflict.

“Additionally, TikTok’s data collection could pose threats to the operational security of National Guard operations,” they wrote, noting that TikTok and the CCP “continue to actively undermine American interests.”

The lawmakers provided Hokanson with a list of questions regarding TikTok, setting a deadline of May 23.

“It is therefore imperative that the National Guard Bureau (NGB) clarify its policies on official and unofficial use of TikTok to both Service members and the American people,” the letter said.

NGB’s spokesperson didn’t comment on May 1, saying they will “reply directly to the authors of the letter.”

Eva Fu contributed to this report.