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Although no concrete and surefire solution has yet emerged to prevent conventional conflicts, a strange situation has emerged in which war has become a gray zone war – somewhere between peace and conflict. As the world has progressed and adopted information technology, domains have become a tool to wage war against entities ranging from the state itself to non-state actors. Influence operations, cyber warfare, data theft and a long list of other things have created national security concerns for states around the world. The unique part of it is that it is leveraged by state and non-state actors against others, while on the ground, there is no war and states are technically ‘at peace’. The issue of use of technology for malicious purposes has once again become hot in the United States of America (US). The Senate passed legislation in April giving TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, about nine months to sell the short video app’s U.S. assets or face a nationwide ban. Apart from the US, there are at least 13 other countries that have banned TikTok to varying degrees; And examples range from Afghanistan to Nepal, India, Belgium, Canada and Denmark. India was one of the first countries to ban TikTok in 2020.
In response to the new law in the US, TikTok and its parent company China’s ByteDance have filed a lawsuit to block the law. A lawsuit was filed against the US government in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, arguing that the law is unconstitutional and violates free speech protections. Last year, in 2023, TikTok took similar legal action to prevent a ban on the app in the state of Montana, where a preliminary injunction was guaranteed. In light of the lawsuit filed by TikTok, which states that the law violates freedom of expression, it becomes relevant to analyze why the US took this step in the first place.
While freedom of expression is sacrosanct in democracies, including India and the US, the state also has to ensure its own security and the safety of its citizens, and its sovereignty above everything else. TikTok, owned by ByteDance, is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Haidian, Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. ByteDance was founded by Zhang Yiming in 2012 in Beijing. According to a press release from TikTok in May, ByteDance is about 60% owned by global investors such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International Group, with 20% owned by employees and the rest by Zhang. Still, Zhang holds more than 50% of ByteDance’s voting rights. As is the case with most Chinese companies, the Communist Party of China (CPC) established a party branch at ByteDance in 2014, as Chinese state media themselves said. Concerns over ByteDance increased after the CPC government took a 1% stake in its local subsidiary, Beijing ByteDance Technology in 2019, which gave the CPC government a board seat in the subsidiary. ByteDance was also targeted by the US government under the Trump administration, as ByteDance was required to sell TikTok’s US assets or face being banned in the country. The orders were blocked by federal courts. Concerns surrounding TikTok range from security and privacy to concerns that user data may be shared with the CPC government. TikTok is used by approximately 170 million Americans.
The second concern is that the CPC government will use influence operations through TikTok to create narratives against political parties that do not conform to China’s political lines and interfere in US elections. Earlier this year, Microsoft had already come out with a detailed report on how disinformation, including from foreign sources, threatens democracy. Chinese handles directly and indirectly linked to the CPC government have tried to push narratives against social stability in democracies ranging from India to the US, Japan, the Philippines to Malaysia. Another relevant concern in the US is that downloading TikTok on devices allows the injection of malicious software by China, putting citizens’ bank accounts and financial transactions at risk.
The threat these three primary threats pose to democracies that want to preserve freedom of speech and expression, but also want to protect their citizens and sovereignty above anything else, is real. In 2020, when India banned TikTok, the Indian government raised similar privacy concerns as the US does now; Saying that the Chinese app is a threat to the sovereignty and security of the country. India is also one of the countries named in the Microsoft report as being at risk of disinformation, including from foreign sources. TikTok was not an isolated case in India. To date, India has banned more than 500 Chinese apps. An example of how Chinese apps can be predatory comes from a report by Hindenburg Research that China-owned Opera is running four Android apps aimed at India, Kenya and Nigeria that violate Google Play Store policies. In direct violation, predatory lending and misleading descriptions are prohibited. , The apps claimed to offer rates of 33% or less on loans but the real rates were much higher, climbing as high as 438% in some cases. While they offered loan repayment periods ranging between 91-365 days, the actual period did not exceed 29 days on average. In case of refusal of payment, the apps will morph images collected from the user’s phone and engage in blackmail tactics.
In the Internet age, it is extremely difficult to protect civil rights from foreign elements. The lines between peacetime and conflict become even more blurred, enabling malicious actors to harm countries’ democratic processes as well as their citizens, with China at the forefront. As was the case in conventional warfare, in which states were responsible for protecting their own citizens and sovereignty, so too is the case in the present era of history in which states, be it India or America, are responsible for protecting their own sovereignty and citizens. Should do. Malicious actors are now using Internet age tools like apps.
This article is written by Sriparna Pathak, Associate Professor, Chinese Studies and International Relations, Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat.
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