TikTok ban: 'Now all of China knows you're here'. But so does the US

Back in 2019, the "Now all of China knows you're here" meme got new life following US President Donald Trump's banning of Huawei and ZTE equipment from being used by the federal government. 

In January of this year, the Biden administration reportedly halted approving licences for US suppliers to export most items to Huawei, and is weighing a complete ban to cut Huawei off from all American suppliers. 

And now it is time for TikTok to face the music as US lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are poised to ban the app in a similar manner, citing security and spying concerns. 

Ultimately, US Senator Rand Paul blocked the bid to fast-track a ban of TikTok, citing concerns about free speech and uneven treatment of social media companies. 

Yet privacy concerns still remain regarding the app.  

But it seems unfair to only paint Chinese companies in that light; anybody who uses Google, Meta or Apple products, all of America also "knows you're here". Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows American intelligence agencies to carry out warrantless spying on foreigners' email, phone and other online communications.  

And because of data sharing agreements and high-tech spyware, even if you live outside the US, your government also probably knows more about you than you would prefer.

While US citizens have some legal protections against warrantless searches, these rights do not extend to foreigners overseas, giving American intelligence agencies free rein to snoop on their communications.

So, for billions of internet users outside the US, the lack of privacy mirrors the alleged threat that US officials say TikTok poses to Americans.

The fears against TikTok though are not unwarranted. TikTok did spy on Forbes journalists who were working on an article about the platform. It did own up to the spying allegations and of allowing employees based in China to access nonpublic information about American users (which it says is now tightly controlled).

However, the main fears about TikTok have to do with access to users' information, and with the fact that Beijing controls all technology companies in the country. The Chinese National Intelligence Law requires companies to give the government any information it requests, without the need for a court order.

TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. And the track record of the Chinese government when it comes to respecting its own citizens' rights to privacy has been non-existent. In China, the government censors the internet and uses online surveillance to control people. The government also has a lot of control over how internet companies operate.

But as Geoffrey A Fowler wrote in a recent article for the Washington Post, Facebook still collects more data than TikTok. Same goes for Google, which tries to record a history of where you go and all the pages you visit in its Chrome Web browser.

"We did not find evidence that TikTok collects your precise location, an especially sensitive type of data that Facebook and Google do collect. Instead, TikTok collects information about your general city or town. During the [23 March] hearing, Chew clarified that the app used to collect precise location data in the US, but stopped doing so in 2020," Fowler further writes.

TikTok says it has not shared American user data with the Chinese government, nor would it do so if asked. Since last summer, it says it has routed all US data to cloud services run by US company Oracle and is in the process of moving older data there, too. But TikTok's parent company ByteDance is still compelled to comply with requests for user data under Chinese law, and it's not clear how ByteDance would be able to resist.

On the American front, big tech does not inspire much trust either.

US social media platforms like Facebook, Google, and Instagram have, in the past, landed in hot water over their handling of their customers' data, from hacking-related leaks to improper access by employees.

Some platforms have also faced scrutiny over their human rights records, much like TikTok, which has been known to censor content deemed sensitive to the Chinese government, including information related to LGBTQ issues.

Both Twitter and YouTube recently censored a BBC documentary that was critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the request of New Delhi. Facebook also faced blowback for allowing its platform to be used to promote violence and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar.

From analog to digital spying

The buzz word around the TikTok debate is "spying", which goes to show how social media apps and big tech has upended the world of espionage from the golden days of spycraft, i.e., the Cold War.

The Cold War era and the modern era have vastly different methods of spying; while James Bond or Jason Bourne's depictions may have been farfetched, the '60s and onwards were characterised by traditional espionage techniques, including human intelligence (HUMINT) gathering, signal interception, and covert operations. 

During the Cold War, spying was largely conducted through human intelligence gathering: Agents would be recruited to work for foreign intelligence services, and they would gather information through a variety of means. These included surveillance, wiretapping, and infiltration. 

Another important aspect of Cold War-era spying was signal interception. This involved listening in on communications between foreign governments and military organisations. This was often accomplished through the use of sophisticated equipment, including satellites and ground-based listening stations.

Covert operations were also a significant part of Cold War-era spying. These operations involved infiltrating foreign governments and organisations in order to gather information or disrupt their activities. 

In contrast, modern digital spying relies heavily on advanced technologies. Governments and intelligence agencies now have the ability to intercept digital communications, including emails, text messages, and social media posts. They can also use advanced software to monitor computer networks and gather information on individuals and organisations.

One of the most significant developments in modern digital spying has been the use of hacking and cyber attacks. Governments and intelligence agencies can now use sophisticated software to break into computer systems and steal information. This has become an increasingly common tactic in recent years, with a number of high-profile cyber attacks being attributed to foreign governments.

Then there is the ease with which disinformation campaigns can be run to create chaos without spies ever having to set foot on enemy territory (think Cambridge Analytica as opposed to the Cambridge Five). 

Last year, while speaking to 9News, John Blaxland, a professor of international security and intelligence studies at the Australian National University in Canberra noted that big data and the digital footprint has made it harder for spies today.

Today's well-resourced security and intelligence services across the globe can pinpoint an operative's online presence by using algorithms and other technological tools. It's now easier for them to track a person's face, movement, watch, phone and devices, he noted.

Today's well-resourced security and intelligence services across the globe can pinpoint an operative's online presence by using algorithms and other technological tools. It's now easier for them to track a person's face, movement, watch, phone and devices.

"It's become a game of cat and mouse. Now the trick for spies is to hide their digital footprint," Dr Blaxland said.

As Stanford professor and intelligence expert Amy B Zegart writes in her book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence, "hacking both machines and minds" is the goal of modern espionage. 

"No set of threats has changed so fast and demanded so much from intelligence," she adds.

Fortunately for the US, Russia, China, and any other country that feels the need to spy on other nations (or its own citizens), intelligence has indeed caught up and big tech like Apple and Google and social media like Meta and TikTok are at the forefront of this new arms race. 

Cold War 2.0: Tech War

Over the past few years, the tech war between the West and China has been intensifying, as both sides seek to gain dominance in the field of technology. The battle for supremacy has been fought on multiple fronts, including 5G, artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and intellectual property rights. 

Over the past few decades, China has emerged as a leader in many fields, including technology. The country has invested heavily in its tech sector, developing world-class companies like Huawei, Tencent, and Alibaba. These companies have expanded rapidly, not only within China but also globally, challenging the dominance of established Western players like Apple, Google, and Amazon.

The West has been increasingly alarmed by China's rise in the tech sector, seeing it as a threat to their own dominance. This has led to a growing sense of protectionism, with countries like the US and UK taking steps to limit the access of Chinese companies to their markets. 

The US sanction on Huawei is a result of that war. 5G, the next generation of mobile internet technology, is seen as a critical infrastructure for the future, with applications ranging from self-driving cars to remote surgery. Both the US and China have been vying for dominance in this field, with Huawei being at the centre of the controversy. 

The battle over cybersecurity has also been a key front in the tech war. Both the US and China have accused each other of cyberattacks and espionage, with each side claiming that the other is a threat to national security. This has led to a growing mistrust between the two countries, with tensions escalating in recent years.

And finally as Musk and other tech leaders recently said, AI developers are "locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict or reliably control." 

AI opens a new can of worms as disinformation campaigns are easier than ever to run, as evident from the recent circulation of AI generated images of Trump being arrested.  

No privacy for anyone 

Last year, an espionage scandal upended Greece's political landscape when the government acknowledged it had wiretapped an opposition leader's phone — a move it called legal but wrong. It then quickly blossomed into a labyrinthine story that involved controversial spyware being planted on the phones of an ever-expanding network of politicians and journalists.

Then there is TikTok owner ByteDance's home country China, which has implemented a vast network of surveillance cameras, facial recognition technology, and other forms of digital monitoring to track its citizens. The government uses this technology to monitor everything from traffic violations to political dissent, and the data collected is used to assign a "social credit score" that can impact an individual's access to jobs, housing, and other services. 

In addition, Chinese authorities have been accused of using spyware to target dissidents and activists both within the country and abroad.

What is more troubling is that on the same day as the TikTok hearing, at a meeting of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party on the subject of the ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims, Uyghurs with firsthand experience of Chinese technological repression testified about how TikTok and its parent company ByteDance pose a threat to Americans' national security, privacy and human rights. 

Rep. Mike Gallagher, the committee chairman, pointed out that Chew, during his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, had declined four times to acknowledge that the Chinese government is persecuting Uyghurs.

According to columnist Josh Rogin, for Uyghurs, ByteDance's danger is not hypothetical. When Chinese authorities initially built the surveillance and monitoring system in Xinjiang that preceded the re-education camps, they relied on data from Chinese tech platforms including WeChat and Douyin, ByteDance's local TikTok version.

And elsewhere in the world, the Pegasus spyware scandal rocked many nations back in 2021. 

The Pegasus Project, a consortium of international media outlets, said in 2021 that a leaked list of some 50,000 phone numbers showed that governments around the world sought NSO's phone hacking technology Pegasus to spy on people or mark them as potential targets, whether inside or beyond their own borders.

It said the phone numbers selected by governments for surveillance belong to a staggering array of potential targets, including political dissidents, human rights activists, 180 journalists in nearly two dozen countries, a Dubai princess escaping her father, the fiancée of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and 14 heads of state, including French President Emmanuel Macron.

The tools that were once used to spy on foreign enemies, are now being used to pry into the lives of dissidents, critics and journalists, partially because tech makes it very easy to do so. And social media apps, whether that be TikTok or Facebook, regardless of their country of origin, do know a lot about us.