Senators ‘Shocked’ To Learn TikTok Does Things Only Made Possible By Their Corrupt Failure To Pass A Real Privacy Law

We’ve noted a few times now how the quest to ban TikTok is heavily peppered with bad faith actors who historically don’t care about consumer privacy or national security. We’ve also noted how it’s performative to hyperventilate about one single sometimes-dodgy app, but ignore the broader dysfunction and corruption (like our lack of a modern privacy law, or refusal to regulate data brokers) that paved the way.

The central argument of those advocating for a TikTok ban is that it poses such a dire, unique threat to U.S. consumer privacy and national security that a ban is warranted. While TikTok certainly has engaged in idiotic behavior (like when it spied on journalists) the case why it’s so much worse than dozens of other domestic and international companies (like data brokers) still hasn’t been publicly made.

Some members of Congress have been briefed by intelligence officials on the supposedly dire and unique threats the app presents. But not all of them have been convinced. Large swaths of Congress also own stock in competing tech companies like Facebook, which has been seeding coordinated moral panics in DC about TikTok for years.

Some of the lawmakers who were briefed last week leaked word to Axios that they were “shocked” at TikTok’s “access to personal data.” But then again, these Senators aren’t the most objective or tech savviest folks on Earth, and it sounds like that a lot of what was “revealed” to them is fairly (and unfortunately) routine across most apps, services, and hardware.

Like here, where they express ambiguous concern about China’s ability to “harvest user data” and then “weaponize it” in the form of misinformation:

“One senator said national security officials described how China can harvest user data and weaponize it through propaganda and misinformation.”

Except this is already happening across a litany of apps and services. Senator Ron Wyden’s office just got done revealing how data brokers sold abortion clinic visitor location data to right wing activists, who then turned around and harassed vulnerable women with health care misinformation. Congress hasn’t made a peep, and the press coverage the story received was relatively miniscule.

Or here, where Senators leak word to Axios that the TikTok app can “determine what users are doing on other apps,” or abuse hardware permissions to monitor user behavior:

“Another lawmaker said they were told TikTok is able to spy on the microphone on users’ devices, track keystrokes and determine what the users are doing on other apps.”

From doorbell manufacturers to cable companies and your TV set, there’s no limit of companies, apps, or hardware vendors (many Chinese) that abuse hardware permissions to engage in a litany of consumer surveillance, then monetize that info globally. Congress generally couldn’t care less about the lack of privacy or consumer security in the internet-of-broken-things space or anywhere else.

And there’s no limit of companies that track user behavior across devices. That includes Facebook, which you’ll recall was busted selling users a “privacy protecting VPN” that in reality was little more than spyware designed to let Facebook (gasp) track user behavior across other apps.

We’ve noted repeatedly how international data brokers hoover up vast swaths of consumer location, behavior, demographic, and other data, using them to build elaborate consumer profiles. Access is then sold to a parade of dodgy groups, individuals, and organizations (including Chinese intelligence and right wing activists) without an iota of congressional concern.

I know I’m being redundant here, but the reason this stuff happens (whether it’s TikTok or anybody else) is because Congress has proven too corrupt to pass a meaningful internet-era privacy law. They’ve proven too corrupt to regulate data brokers, despite the fact they engage in worse behavior — at an even greater scale — than what TikTok is being critiqued for. This corruption is the real national security threat.

I suspect that if lawmakers truly had seen some kind of smoking gun related to TikTok (that goes well above and beyond broader market dysfunction we now see everyday), it would have been leaked to every right wing news outlet imaginable during their three year cable TV TikTok hyperventilation campaign.

I still tend to think the quest to ban TikTok is an unserious slurry of xenophobia and anti-competitive corruption posing as good faith concerns about privacy and national security, two subjects Congress very clearly and demonstrably couldn’t care any less about.