the The most downloaded app in the world It looks like it’s in hot water. The Biden administration last week demanded that China-owned TikTok be sold or face a national ban in the United States over security and privacy concerns. TikTok’s CEO will testify about those issues before Congress on Thursday.

The app presents real national security risks that the US government must deal with. But the truth is that a ban or forced divestment would be hard to come by.

Concerns are growing about TikTok’s troubling history of user data protection. class action Claiming that the app sends private, personally identifiable and biometric data to third parties without user consent settled for one of the largest payments in history. privacy claims – $92 million – in 2021. FBI and Department of Justice They are also investigating ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, for using the app to monitor US citizens, including journalists. The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union already TikTok ban on government devices. India banned the app nationwide in 2020.

ByteDance relies on the Chinese government’s approval to operate, which exposes it to pressure from companies like Meta to flee. Yet even while raising countless red flags due to its ownership structure and privacy concerns, TikTok is outperforming other major social media companies in the US, significantly shaping how people get information and remaining wildly popular. The company is more than 150 million monthly active users In the United States alone.

TikTok has already survived an attempted ban by the US government. The Trump administration first proposed banning the app in 2020, but that effort has stalled it Federal courtsWhich questioned the solidity of claims about national security risks and ruled that the move range exceeded of the emergency economic powers of the administration.

Additionally, banning the app raises significant First Amendment concerns. In 2020, along with a proposed ban on TikTok, the Trump administration attempted to ban WeChat, a Chinese-owned messaging and social networking app. But the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that because The role of WeChat As the only means by which many individuals can reliably communicate in China, the app has constituted a unique form of communication. Hence the prohibition of its use would be violated First Amendment rights. While TikTok doesn’t play the same primary communication role, similar arguments for the app’s distinction as a communication tool could subject any ban on private citizens’ use to widespread and time-consuming legal scrutiny.

For now, rather than ban, the Biden administration is proposing that ByteDance sell TikTok. There are some precedents for this process, including the US government’s successful effort to change ownership of Grindr via the multiagency federal agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (that TikTok review). In March 2019, the commission used the power given to it under the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act to claim Grindr’s then-owner, the Chinese company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd. sale, quoting we National security concerns The application accesses sensitive personal information. Just over a year later Forced divestment announcedAnd Grindr has been acquired by an investment group called San Vicente Acquisition Partners based in West Hollywood.

But since that sale, China has erected firewalls to protect TikTok and other Chinese tech companies. Amid legal challenges to banning TikTok, the Trump administration has tried Force a TikTok sale for an American company. But China’s Ministry of Commerce has since updated its list of “prohibited or restricted technology exports” to include “Personal information recommendation services based on data analysis. What this means in practical terms is that the Chinese government would need to approve any sale of TikTok that would allow foreign companies access to the app’s algorithm.

The Chinese government has also implemented a law allowing national security data audits for all Chinese companies, including ByteDance, to acquire gold shares, or a government financial stake, in ByteDance Company. In addition, the wide spread of TikTok is an opportunity for ByteDance to gain more users and develop powerful new technologies in areas such as artificial intelligence, Deep fakes and facial recognition. Under China’s civil-military integration program, these technologies have also become Chinese national security assets. Any divestment in TikTok would likely require the cooperation of the Chinese government in a deal that works against their interests.

For the United States, the political costs of banning TikTok will increase the longer there is no solution. More users are joining the app every day, making it an even more important communication tool. Concerns about TikTok’s security may be bipartisan, but they haven’t yet overcome the social media app’s popularity.

Aine Kukas is the author of Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Supremacy.

In what became the latest in years, the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday stated charges against a group of celebrities promoting crypto assets without properly disclosing that they paid for their endorsements.

Among the defendants are Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Austin Mahone, Kendra Lust, Lil Yachty, Ne-Yo and Akon, according to a statement from the SEC.

The SEC charges focus on Justin Sun, described as a “crypto-asset entrepreneur,” who owns a few crypto companies, “for the unregistered offering and sale of crypto-asset securities Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT), the SEC said. at its release.

Meanwhile, the celebrities Named by the SEC, whose backgrounds range from music to social media to influencer pornography, they are accused of “illegal promotion of TRX and/or BTT without disclosing what they were compensated for doing so and how much they were compensated.”

The complaint was filed in federal district court in New York. In a statement, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said that Sun “induced investors to buy TRX and BTT by organizing a roadshow in which he and the popular promoters hid the fact that the celebrities got their tweets.”

With the exception of Soulja Boy and Mahone, the celebrities agreed to pay a total of more than $400,000 to settle the charges, without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, the commission said.

Fellow journalists who spoke to TikTok press representatives told me that company representatives open my emails to request comment with trepidation. One reporter said a rep told them I would always ask them to comment on an internal policy, a leaked document, or a new feature they didn’t even know existed. I am currently working on more challenging stories about the platform. (If you have any tips, please Call me for my Signal number.)

But these tough stories won’t focus on the company handing over data to Chinese authorities, or the security risks associated with its relationship with the Chinese state. Because I couldn’t find any evidence of either. I want to find that link, because like any journalist, I’m an egoist and I want to be the one to break a story like this. I’ve been trying for years to find any links to the Chinese state. I’ve spoken to dozens of TikTok employees, past and present, seeking such a connection. But I didn’t discover it.

I can not say that this link does not exist. But I can say that I and other more talented journalists have been walking away from the TikTok edifice. We now know that the company has Spy on journalists and has Workplace harassment issues. TikTok’s finances are constantly being leaked. But neither of us found the smoking gun. And I don’t think my fellow reporters are any less excited to find it than I am.

We are in a strange political situation. Donald Trump’s legacy continues in the way we have our own personal fantasies, which we either firmly believe are true or repeat so often that we forget the truth. Among those fantasies: TikTok is a sure risk. TikTok is a puppet of the Chinese state. TikTok is a Trojan horse waiting for Chinese President Xi Jinping to bring down the West.

trump She launched a series of advertisements online In 2020 it says, “TikTok is spying on you.” It’s a sentiment echoed by other politicians, including Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who is concerned about TikTok’s links to China.

None of this is true. At least as far as I can tell. However, hearing politicians on both sides of the aisle talk about it, it’s a verifiable fact. And they want to ban the app because of that.

These American politicians are taking a curiously Chinese approach: suppressing and censoring it in the interest of harmony, rather than allowing free enterprise from a corporation that has shown itself willing to bend over backwards to try to answer concerns, and has made it appear that it is. Good faith efforts to address issues as they arise.

We’ll likely see a lot of heat, not a lot of light, from Thursday’s congressional hearing. There will be the usual objections from TikTok that it has no connections to the Chinese government, and the usual threat from politicians that TikTok’s answers aren’t good enough. but for 150 million Americans Now with the app, we have to hope TikTok answers will suffice.